Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Higher Petey! Come on, we have to at least go to that big branch with the birdie nest!” Morgan’s excited yell rang above Peter, setting him on a nervous edge as he climbed behind her up the biggest tree in the backyard, watching her every move in anticipation of a disaster.

His spidey-sense was giving him a constant low-grade nausea the more he tried to keep Morgan safe. It was almost a fool’s errand since she was five, fearless, and as adventurous as her father.

Reluctantly, Peter ascended the mighty Oak tree behind her, unable to stomach the thought of letting Morgan climb by herself. After all, it was his fault that she’d taken up this hobby.

After Morgan caught him using his sticky powers to retrieve a stranded frisbee from the roof, she’d become obsessed with climbing only the way a five-year-old could. Morgan saw every tree, shelf, and tall object as a challenge to climb, to show that she could climb just like Spider-Man.

Peter felt entirely responsible, with a healthy injection of guilt that she’d taken up such a dangerous activity without the appropriate fear to keep herself safe. Especially during such a stressful time in Tony and Pepper’s lives. Pepper’s second pregnancy being so problematic… Peter hated that he could be adding her to stress even in the slightest.

So he followed his, (was sister the right word? It didn’t feel like it, but he lacked an appropriate alternative for now). He followed Morgan up the tree, higher and higher.

“Hold it right there Morgan,” he stammered cautiously, discomfort growing with every branch Morgan surpassed with ease. She was definitely a natural, but that didn’t make it any safer, nor Pepper-approved.

“I need to make sure these branches are secure… Hey Momo, why don’t we do something else?” Anything else.

Peter would even agree to attend and participate in one of her “famous” tea parties, and if he could just get her to do something safe, he would even drink the tea (which was lake water, assorted weeds, grass, and leaves that sent bile up his throat when he even thought about it. He was pretty sure that last time he saw a worm wiggling in the goop.)

“No Petey! I wanna be like you, and you can go really super high! I bet you could get to the top!”

Peter huffed out a long-suffering sigh as Morgan climbed on, completely uninterested in his offer and undeterred by how high they’d gotten from the ground. An anxious stomach ache blooming, Peter chanced taking his eyes off Morgan for a microscopic second to see if he was actively catching the ire of a very pregnant and immensely uncomfortable Pepper.

Pepper was seated on a rocking chair under the porch overhang, feet propped up on a striped pouf ottoman. For the moment, her attention was taken by the magazine perched on her round stomach, not on the tree-climbing daughter and Spider-kid babysitter.

If he could get Morgan down before Pepper noticed, then he might be able to avoid stressing her unduly and the ensuing lecture from Tony on the complete and utter importance of keeping her calm.

The original lecture, well, it was less of a lecture and more of a rattled, frenzied Mr. Stark relaying the obstetrician’s orders, emphasizing the vital importance of keeping Pepper’s blood pressure down and keeping her stress as low as possible.

Trying his best to follow those orders, Peter had taken over as many household chores and babysitting duties that he could handle, sometimes using enhanced speed to sweep the floors and clean the dishes so Pepper wouldn’t even have to look at a mess that would potentially cause her stress.

Seemingly uneasy with the uptick in responsibilities that Peter had taken on without complaint, Mr. Stark had taken him aside more than once to assure him that he didn’t have to do it all. That he was Tony Stark and he could hire someone to do the additional work, or even program a machine to take over. That Peter was still a kid.

But Peter felt it was the least he could do after he was foisted upon them following the Snap. (Sure, he knew that Pepper and Tony didn’t see the situation in that distasteful shade, but Peter didn’t know how else to see it - after all, this wasn’t the first time he’d been left with guardians who hadn’t been left with another choice aside from flat out saying no.)

So he played with Morgan from the moment the five-year-old woke him up by jumping up and down on his bed to the time that Tony took her, protests and all, up for her bath after dinner while Peter cleaned the kitchen from dinner and the toys in the living room, and Pepper rested in bed. She was uncomfortable, but calm, according to Mr. Stark whenever Peter asked how she was feeling.

What had started as a microscopic second of looking away from Morgan telescoped as soon as the low-grade tingle of his Spidey-sense flared like a gas explosion.

Peter didn’t even think he saw her fall. Even his enhanced senses couldn’t properly discern the blur that wooshed past his eyes or her terrified yell. But his Spidey-sense didn’t fail him and his arm flailed out desperately, and he just grabbed where he sensed he should.

Relief swept through Peter like thousands of tiny needle pricks as his nerves lit up with the terror of Morgan falling from the tree. From so high up. The relief was dreadfully short-lived, however, when Morgan’s scream of terror distorted into an impossibly-high-pitched, agonized shriek of pain.

And Peter knew why. He felt the bones in her wrist snap under the pressure of his panicked grasp. He heard them too. Each one, the radius, ulna, and every individual carpal bone fracturing in his grip.

The sensory overload hit him with the force of an interstate semi. Morgan’s screaming, the splintered bones crackling against each other, nausea and fright that he had done this… it all combined in a force that threatened to bowl Peter over. But through the sickening sensation, Peter forced the logical area of his consciousness to remain, as much as he wanted to retreat into his shame. He needed to get Morgan to safety, and letting her go, as oh-so-tempting as it was in order to ease just a sliver of her pain, they were still too far from the ground.

Peter pulled Morgan up by the arm and into his torso, loosening the grasp on her the very moment he was certain she would not fall. And as quickly as he could, which, while being far quicker than a normal person, still felt too long, Peter descended the tree, little twigs and leaves catching on his hair and rough, unforgiving bark scraping his exposed skin.

Once they were on the ground, Peter lost track of the actual passage of time, his panic and dread causing scenes to appear in intense, vivid flashes that were too bright and too loud.

Pepper ran over to them impossibly fast with her pregnant state, horror contorting her features.

Tony emerged from his converted garage/laboratory, his own horror augmented by the wariness behind his eyes.

Everyone was talking over each other, asking what had happened, what hurt, were they okay? Peter was as mute as he was frozen. And it was only when the shrieking, sobbing Morgan let down the protective hold she had on her arm that the confusion stopped and the crisis began.

Peter found himself unable to look at the damage, the nauseating crunch of bone still playing its resounding encore repeatedly like a cruel form of tinnitus.

Equally as repetitive were the urgent, pointed interrogations arrowed at him by each of Morgan’s parents. What happened to her? Were you watching her? Did she fall, trip, or get into something she wasn’t supposed to? Or, the one that stuck with Peter most resonantly: What did you do?

Fortunately for Morgan, her mother and father performed well in a crisis, though, Peter had to admit, Pepper more so than Tony. As Tony struggled to form full words, nevertheless comprehensible sentences for FRIDAY, Pepper passed her wailing daughter to her husband, took a deep breath, and took control of the situation.

“FRIDAY, get the car. How long is the drive to the hospital? Tony, can you drive us there?”

All of FRIDAY’s responses came out of Tony’s sleek black watch, just as level as Peter remembered her. As he remained rooted to the ground, Peter tried answering the questions that were now long forgotten as the self-driving car pulled up to their location near the gravel driveway.

Peter opened his mouth once, and shut it. Then again, trying to force out the words by sheer will, and then shut his mouth again when none came. He was a fish, gasping for air, flopping uselessly as Tony and Pepper worked furiously to fix his mistake.

His mistake that injured their daughter.

Peter remained stuck in his unhelpful cycle of wanting to say something and not being able to muster up the words, and at some point, Tony and Pepper must have given up on him entirely, because the next vivid flash was the tires crunching against the gravel, throwing back stray rocks and a shroud of dust as their car pulled away in a hurry.

The rear tail lights on the car disappeared when they turned out of the driveway, but Morgan’s sobbing took much, much longer to fade. It was impossible to tell how long Peter stood there alone, still stubbornly frozen as the breadth of his mistake was fully realized, but once he broke free from the trance, Peter was unsure if the piercing cries were from his super-hearing, or if Morgan’s sobs were forever embedded in his eardrums.

Some superhero he was, Peter scoffed to himself.

_____

Back in the lake house, it seemed as though Peter’s body had taken over where his mind was failing, propelling him into such a flurry of motion that he could hardly keep up. Perhaps subconsciously he was trying to make up for his complete and utter failure to be useful after he hurt Morgan. (The reality of that statement managed to stop him in his tracks and knock the air from his lungs, but he forced himself to keep moving.)

Through a force that did not feel his own, he called Tony and then Pepper, and then Tony again when both went to voicemail after the lines trilled and trilled interminably. He didn’t leave messages, immediately slamming the red end call button when he heard the voicemail recordings for both of them.

What would he even have to say, Peter groaned to himself in exasperation.

Sorry I was careless and injured your daughter with my freakish mutant strength.

I’m sorry you trusted me with Morgan and I let you down.

If you guys want me to leave, I totally understand. You shouldn’t have had to take me in the first place.

Really, Peter knew he was just calling to ask how much damage he’d inflicted on Morgan so he could calculate just how much self-loathing to let take over. How much he would need to pay back in reparations to the family. Morgan’s arm sustained a break, obviously. But what if he severed nerves or tendons? What if the entire arm was unsalvageable and Tony had to take his daughter to Wakanda to get an all new Vibranium one like Bucky or make a miniature version of the high-tech prosthesis that comprised his own right arm?

Peter vigorously shook his head until his eyesight blurred, trying to physically derail the increasingly destructive train of thought.

Busy. That’s what he needed to be. Peter needed to keep his hands and his mind so occupied that he could hold back the lion’s share of the worry about Morgan and her arm, Pepper and the stress he was supposed to be helping prevent, not causing in excess, and Tony, who was having to clean up this entire mess he’d made while recovering from his own physical traumas.

And if he was busy, Peter could grasp onto the thin wisp of hope that he was making up for the damage his presence had caused. If he cleaned enough, cooked enough, and did enough to make their lives easier, then perhaps he could convince himself that having Peter around had a net positive on the Stark family. Maybe he could somehow earn his place here and feel like he belonged.

So Peter got to work, doing whatever his mind could envision as useful, to combat the mania. His primary goal was to prove himself helpful, so he cooked dinner for the family, even though he had no idea or indication of when they would be home. Peter cooked Morgan’s favorite boxed mac and cheese dinner. Then, he chopped up the ingredients and prepared the platter of nachos that had been Pepper’s go-to craving this past week. And once those were done, he attempted to replicate the carbonara recipe that Tony had shown him last year. Five, no, six years ago. Peter’s finished product was nowhere close to what had cooked so long ago.

Glancing up at the clock, and then over at his phone, which had no new notifications, Peter set out the ingredients and started once more.

The second iteration was modestly more successful than the first, and somewhat resembled the dish he remembered so fondly, so Peter decided against trying a third time. Well, he’d also used the last of the pancetta, so that was that.

Peter tried to tell himself he really didn’t care when neither Pepper nor Tony answered his repeated calls again as he sat his phone face down on the smooth white countertop. He especially didn’t care when his call to Tony was sent to voicemail after just one ring. When he attempted to call Happy to check if he had any information, Peter’s call only made it half a ring before being cut off. That was the status quo from Happy at least, Peter thought with a resigned shrug. And it wasn’t like he could call out for FRIDAY’s trusty assistance, with Tony preferring the “rugged naturalist” aesthetic and not installing the A.I. into the lake house’s every nook and cranny.

“We’re survivalists out here Pete. Independent, self-sufficient—”

“Boss, your grocery delivery is two minutes out. The store was unable to send the block of feta cheese you requested.”

“Damn, there go my dinner plans for Tuesday. Can you try a different store Fri? And drop the smirk Parker. Your sass is not welcome in our serene getaway locale.”

Peter pushed down the pleasantly scrap of a memory from only weeks before, feeling undeserving of the warmth it provided. Right now, Peter deserved guilt, not warmth. With that mantra playing in a loop, Peter busied himself with cleaning next. Wiping counters, scrubbing floors, disinfecting bathrooms - straightening the disaster of clutter left in the wake of a six year old - folding and ironing the laundry in the dryer - Peter took on anything he could find, really.

Anything to ease the tightening coil in Peter’s chest that whispered to him that he’d been forgotten.

The audacity that it takes to break their daughter’s arm and then whine about being left behind… you sure have some nerve Parker.

All of Peter’s strength drained at an alarming pace the further his cleaning progressed. Breathing heavily, with his fingers pruned and sore, his arms fatigued from the continuous back and forth motion of scrubbing every surface he could find, and his kneecaps bruised from being repeatedly smacked on the unforgiving tile floor as he maneuvered, Peter braved a glance at the clock.

2:07 a.m., the electric green numbers on the microwave displayed under the dimmed pendant lights in the kitchen. And Peter, realizing that they had been gone nearly 12 hours with no communication, felt his heart take a nosedive somewhere into the depths of his stomach.

The scope in which he’d fucked up… Peter felt the hallmark signs of tears creeping up at the gargantuan entity. His throat tightened as though a rock had settled in the region of his larynx. Heat prickled threateningly behind his eyes. Resolutely, he swallowed down the tightness and squeezed his eyes shut so fiercely a galaxy of colors exploded behind them.

The situation was not about him. It was caused by him, certainly. But it was not about Peter.

Peter settled within himself that he needed to focus on Morgan, Pepper, Tony, and their baby. Their safety and well-being were all that mattered to him, and so far, Peter had done a piss-poor job at taking care of those things.

Still, Peter tried reasoning with himself, he was exhausted and there was nothing he could do at the moment. More unanswered calls and text messages would only be a bother to them.

Heaving out a tired sigh, he decided that the Stark family would not be returning any time soon. At a far slower pace than his flurry of activity earlier, Peter put away all of the food he’d prepared earlier in the evening, stacking the glass containers in the refrigerator and trying to push down the shame at his insufficient, misguided attempt at being helpful.

Helpful would have been not crushing Morgan’s arm. Helpful would have been not letting her climb the tree in the first place. Helpful would have been to act like the hero Tony needs you to be instead of fucking it all up like he’s used to expecting from you.

Peter fell onto the couch in the dim living area, fatigue pulling him down like an unfair concentration of gravity. Holding his phone up above his face, resigned at the lack of communication from anyone - not even Ned or MJ… or May - Peter stared lasers at the screen, willing someone, anyone to let him know that it would be okay. That he would be okay. No! That Morgan would be okay.

Peter’s mutant powers didn’t extend to the magical realm where he could conjure whatever he wanted at a whim, so nothing happened. His phone didn’t vibrate or blink, but rather the screen kept going dark with inactivity. Peter kept staring, kept hoping, until his eyelids got heavier and his world appeared in flashes between hooded blinks.

When Peter fell asleep, his phone fell to his chest, moving up and down with the motion of his breathing.

_____

After the sun rose, morning was much of the same for Peter after he awoke on the couch, feeling less rested than when he’d fallen asleep. The expectant hope in his chest turned cold and waxy when, after going unchecked for five hours, the only notifications on Peter’s phone were an email about a free cookie if he purchased a sandwich, offer valid today only; and a lone text message from Happy.

“They'll be home later.”

It was one of the most maddeningly vague and unhelpful messages he’d ever read. Enough so that Peter dropped his phone on the couch cushion before going to the kitchen to get breakfast, telling himself that if no one cared to contact him that he didn’t even need to have his phone around.

After mixing up the pancake batter, however, he slunk back to the couch to retrieve it, again capping his disappointment when no one, not the Starks, his friends, or May - whatever she was to him now - reached out to him.

Sending off a few quick texts to Tony and Pepper, however, and swallowing his anger long enough to send a “Thx” reply to Happy, Peter sought to keep busy and be helpful again. This time, he cooked breakfast. Pancakes, sliced fruit, Tony’s favorite black coffee (extra black, extra no sugar), and chamomile tea for Pepper. Even the brown sugar cinnamon Pop Tarts that Morgan preferred over anything homemade.

But again, as Peter nibbled at the plate of food he made for himself, appetite missing as long as the Starks had been gone, no one came back.

Chapter Text

When the Stark family did finally return home, closer to noon than anticipated, Peter stood in the foyer, trembling with anxiety and anticipation and an apology heavy on his tongue.

The heavy oak door opened to the very picture of exhaustion. Mr. Stark, loaded down with bags - he figured that Happy must have brought them their necessities - looked as worn down as he’d been when he’d been first released from the hospital following the battle.

“Hey Pete,” Mr. Stark greeted absently. Peter tried to say “hi” back, but he choked on it. And Mr. Stark either didn’t notice or didn’t care that it wasn’t returned.

Eyes flat and face drawn down, Mr. Stark dropped the bags on the floor absentmindedly before turning around and tending to his wife and daughter. Pepper grabbed Tony’s offered hand as she too radiated exhaustion. The gaunt cheeks made something in Peter’s chest wrench painfully. And behind Pepper, Peter finally saw Morgan.

The little girl was using her mother’s legs like a shield and Peter could only see wisps of her brunette hair and part of a purple cast.

“Hi Momo,” Peter crooned gently, dropping down to his knees to be at her eye level. Behind Pepper’s gray linen pants, Morgan tilted her head slightly, only enough for Peter to glance one of her wide hazel eyes. His heart lodging itself in his throat, he reached out to her, longing for even a shadow of their typical “super secret” high-five routine.

But when she inched away from him, farther behind Pepper with a small bird-like noise, her un-casted hand gripping the pant leg tighter, every vein and every muscle in Peter’s body constricted simultaneously.

Sensing her fear, his spidey-sense finally picking up on it and causing the individual hairs on the nape of his neck to stand on end, Peter retreated, awkwardly scooting backward on his knees to put space - to put safety - between himself and Morgan.

Despite her obvious trepidation, Peter tried to apologize, softly saying “I’m so sorry Momo,” and “I didn’t mean it,” before she cut him off with a wavering, high-pitched “Mommy,” that held an obvious plea.

Pepper glanced down at him, still knelt on the ground, with a brief and passing pity. She unclenched the little girl’s hand from her pant leg and held it in her own, and walked slowly toward the stairs. “Let’s get you to bed, baby,” Pepper’s gentle voice stilled Morgan’s upset.

Peter felt both untethered and nailed to the ground as he watched them go, with Morgan giving a small peek back to him, eyes filled with equal parts tears and fright.

Humiliation and some other emotion that Peter didn’t even have a name for swept him as he creakily lifted himself back up onto shaky legs. Tony was still there, but as the man looked at him, Peter noted that he’d never seen Tony stare at him like this, like the man couldn’t really see him.

“Sorry about the radio silence, kid,” Tony said, his grainy voice a far-off imposter of what Peter associated with his mentor. “Morgan had to go into surgery, and then Pepper’s blood pressure went up so she needed to be monitored, and they were worried about how the baby was responding…” he trailed off, now looking anywhere but at Peter.

“It’s okay,” Peter said apologetically. “Is she-” he swallowed with difficulty. “Is everyone okay?”

Leaving behind the dropped bags, Mr. Stark started toward the couch where Peter had slept the previous night, looking ready to collapse at a moment’s notice. Peter followed closely, ready to catch the man if need be.

“The doc needed to set something and put some pins in something else, but she’ll be fine. And she got to pick out a purple cast, so that was a whirlwind of excitement.” Tony fell back onto the couch, bringing his feet up onto the cushions with a groan that announced every tiny ache and pain.

“Pep and the baby are okay too.” By this point, Tony’s eyes were closed and his arm was thrown haphazardly over his face, shielding him from the afternoon sun slicing through the curtains. “They want her on bed rest to keep her blood pressure down, as if we weren’t already trying to do that,” Peter tried not to take the comment as a stinging barb, but it still caught him sharply. “But they said the next time it goes up that they’ll induce her.” It was hard not to be drawn down by the weight and worry that bound his every word.

When Mr. Stark went silent, Peter stood at the foot of the couch awkwardly, unsure of what he was to do next. Should he do something to be helpful, or should he sit in the guest room, so silent and still that he wouldn’t further make a mess of things?

“I uh, I made some food… um, last night and this morning. It’s in the fridge.” Peter stuttered out, gesturing behind him with his thumb toward the kitchen, not that Tony could even see him. Just as he thought, Mr. Stark was asleep and didn’t hear him either. The man then took a wide, drawn out yawn, muttering a quick “thanks kid,” and was lightly snoring within the minute.

Peter returned to the kitchen and sat at the counter, muscles taut and coiled in a sickly concoction of shame, guilt, helplessness. He supposed that relief should be somewhere in there as well, since Morgan was okay, but he couldn’t manage to summon the feeling. Because while physically, Morgan would be okay - he shut his eyes against the special shame of remembering she needed surgery because of him - she was, understandably, afraid of him now. And Peter could not begrudge the little girl of her fear. He had dealt her what was most likely the worst pain of her entire life.

The horrifying senses from yesterday overwhelmed him in that moment. His own fear of while she climbed - the electrifying flare of his spidey-sense when she fell - that grotesque crack of her bones giving way under his hand… Peter brought his hands behind his head, grasping his hair so hard that it strained against his scalp. Lowering his forehead to the cool countertop surface, he tried and tried to find a way to make this better, to make what he’d done more palatable.

At one point, between the time he’d stopped reeling from what had happened with May and the time when his irresponsibility had severely injured Morgan, Peter had imagined, expected even that he would have a real place among the Stark family. That they would feel the same way about him as he felt about them.

That hope now felt damp, limp, and crumpled in his too-tight, desperate grip. Peter wanted it so much that he’d never considered a scenario in which he ruined it for himself. Part of him wanted to blame his damn Parker luck, as terrible as it was reliable. When would he start expecting the bad things to happen instead of acting so surprised when they did, that part of him begged to know.

But really, Peter would know. He couldn’t blame his Parker luck for every bad thing to happen to him, especially this. It was a nice scapegoat to have for the times when the inexplicable tragedies befell him, but when it came to this? This was entirely his fault.

_____

After a mostly quiet day around the lake house, with all members of the Stark family spending the majority of the time sleeping or resting (Peter tried not to feel a supplemental wave of shame that he was the reason they were so exhausted), Tony finally emerged from his couch slumber.

Peter was, again, cooking a meal just to feel like he was doing something to benefit them and that he wasn’t a complete drain. Sure, there was a ton of food left in the refrigerator from the last two meals he cooked, but Peter truly didn’t know how else he was supposed to contribute now that the house was scrubbed clean.

When he was younger and Ben was working a lot of long shifts, May would offer to cook dinner, but something always went awry. Either she would follow the recipe and forget a key ingredient or step, or, on her more confident exploits she would think she knew better than what the recipe instructed, adding a “secret” ingredient or deciding it needed to be in the oven far longer. Over those years, Peter learned how to salvage a good portion of these meals, taking them from wholly inedible to tolerably edible. His skills developed as the years slipped by, and his fixes improved, but there were some things Peter couldn’t save, and on those nights, they would eat out.

Secretly, Peter would say on occasion that dinner was unsalvageable, even if all it needed was some salt and another five minutes to boil, just so they could order out and sit on the couch together watching movies and eating out of takeout containers.

Later, after Ben was gone, Peter had to cook if he wanted May to eat at all. So, in a way it made sense for Peter to turn to cooking in times of distress. He wouldn’t necessarily describe the habit as calming, but it made him feel like he was doing something, and during the arduous times, that was essential for Peter.

In the spirit of “doing something,” when Tony sat down at the dining room table, or, more accurately, fell into the nearest chair, Peter immediately started making a plate for him. This time, he didn’t know if the food was something Tony would like - the number of recipes he felt adequate enough confidence to prepare was limited - but he served large helpings and sat the plate down in front of him without a word.

If it weren’t for his enhanced hearing, Peter was certain he wouldn’t have heard Tony’s muttered thanks, but he took solace in the fact that it was even uttered in the first place. Feeling the hunger and mental lethargy crawling over him, Peter negligently made his own plate and sat across the table from Tony.

If he squinted, Peter could almost pretend to himself that this was a normal dinner between him and Mr. Stark - Tony - the man who was the closest thing he could imagine to a father-figure after Ben.

But this wasn’t that. This was Peter sitting across from a depleted Tony, not even sure if he was welcome after what he’d done to the man’s daughter. Peter sat silently, not daring to eat until Tony began eating as well.

The silence blanketed them like a tangled parachute. It was suffocating to Peter, and his instincts ached to struggle against it, but he remained quiet. If this was the chance Tony needed to tear into him about his carelessness, his absolute recklessness, how he could have hurt, or even killed Morgan, how he put not only his daughter, but his wife and his unborn child at risk because he was too cowardly to refuse a little girl’s orders, well then Peter would let him have as much time as he needed.

“Listen Pete,” Tony said, his voice still thin. It took everything Peter had to not drop his fork as his entire body jerked in apprehension. “I’m sorry about last night, and uh, today too.”

This time, Peter did drop his fork, startling both himself and Tony as it clattered against the square glass plate. But, thankfully, Tony didn’t let Peter’s anxious clumsiness deter him.

“I should have called you back, or at least texted you to let you know what was going on.” Peter, through disbelief rather than courage, stared straight ahead at his mentor, waiting to see if he would continue. “It was just, Morgan went into surgery, and then right after that, Pep needed to go get monitored for her blood pressure, and I just… I didn’t know where I should be, or what I should do. Do I wait for Morgan to come out of surgery so she doesn’t wake up all by herself? Or do I go sit with Pepper because she’s afraid and our second kid might be coming?”

Tony shook his head and let out something halfway between a mirthless laugh and a self-deprecating scoff.

“I had a lot going on, but I’m sorry I forgot about you kid.”

Hearing the confirmation that he had, in fact, actually been forgotten stung more than Peter wanted to admit. It was the kind of nasty feeling that he would resolutely ignore now, but pour over later when he was by himself.

“It’s okay Mr. Stark,” Peter said, more to his plate of food than to Tony. And it really was, Peter bit back at himself. It was fine because how could he complain about being forgotten when he was the root of all Tony’s problems to begin with?

You weren’t supposed to be a problem, Peter.

The voice chanting against his eardrums was a strange amalgamation of his own voice and Tony’s, with notes of Pepper, May, Ben, and even his mother and father.

“And Pete, I want you to know that Pep and I don’t blame you for what happened with Morgan.” This time, Tony did meet Peter’s eyes, combating the skepticism he signaled. “She told us what happened - that she wanted to climb the tree - and I know you didn’t mean to hurt her.”

Peter ducked his eyes at the dull thud the “reassurance” made as it socked him in the chest cavity.

You didn’t mean to hurt her, but you still hurt her.

“Hey, Underoos, eyes here,” Tony quipped back, sounding more like the man Peter knew before everything. Before Titan, before the blip. Tony sounded like the man who had offered him a room at the Avengers compound and a shiny new suit to go along with it. He sounded like the father-figure who had grabbed his shoulder and led him to the car, telling him everything was going to be okay after what happened with May.

“It wasn’t your fault, Peter. This doesn’t change anything. I promise.”

And this time, Peter was inclined to believe him. He thought it best to believe him.

_____

Over the next week, Peter wished that he could go back to that moment with Mr. Stark, that conversation that absolved him of his guilt, so that he could record it and play it back to himself in every instance that he felt that the man’s promise rang false, that things were, in fact, different.

Nothing had out-right changed, of course. No one said anything that Peter could point at or look back on and say “that’s when I knew things were different.”

The shift was lowkey and gradual when it came to Tony and Pepper, but in regards to Morgan? Her opinion of him was loud and clear. Peter thought that her being afraid of him could compete with the worst feeling he'd ever experienced. But after her fear faded following a few days of Morgan not even being willing to look at him, nevertheless existing in the same space as him, a strong dislike stepped into its place. Dislike seemed like too tame a word, Peter thought, but he didn't want to attribute something with as much levity as hate to a six year old.

Not to mention it was too terrible to think about Morgan actually hating him. After how delighted and relieved Peter had been when she instantly accepted him, had even acted fond of him after he came back, and how she was excited when he came to live with them, uncaring what circumstances led to her getting to live with her "big brother,” - to have severed that bond permanently was almost unbearable for him.

Peter would admit though, it was difficult to label Morgan's behavior as anything less severe than intense dislike.

She sneered at him during mealtimes as if he was even less appealing than the pile of carrots stacked on her plate. When he would attempt to sit down with her to watch Moana again (for what had to be a number in the triple digits), she scrunched her nose as if he smelled, hopped off the couch and ran away.

The pitter patter of her feet on the dark hardwood used to be accompanied by animated, high-pitched giggling, with his own lumbering steps and voice playing along with whichever figment of Morgan’s imagination that she wanted to make real. Sometimes he was a big dinosaur and she was a little dinosaur. Sometimes he was an alien and she was an astronaut. Sometimes he was a spider and she was a little girl who was afraid of spiders. (Okay, that last one hit a little too close to home for comfort.)

Now, that pitter patter echoed against the walls before dying out. It was a sound of his profound failure instead of a token of their friendship that Peter liked to imagine more akin to siblinghood.

No matter Peter’s gestures to show his guilt and apologies, Morgan remained staunch in her unreceptiveness. Peter ordered the hot fudge sundae Pop Tarts that Pepper refused to buy because they were “sugar bricks” apparently, but Morgan slapped the box out of his hand when he tried to show her the treat. (Peter’s spidey-sense had braced for the incoming strike, but he pushed it down violently. Frankly, even thinking about his powers gave him constant mid-range nausea at this point - Morgan’s weren’t the only bones he’d broken during his tenure as “friendly” neighborhood Spider-Man.)

How he hoped that she would just magically forget about what he did… but really, Peter didn’t expect that to happen. Still, he tried to see if she would build a castle with him using his “big kid” Legos.

“Go away! I don’t wanna play with you!”

Peter made pink unicorn cupcakes, to which she screamed at him that she hated pink (despite wearing pink socks, shorts, and lugging around a pink backpack filled with that day’s favorite toys.) So he made green dinosaur cupcakes and Morgan decided that she just hated cupcakes all-together.

“I hate cupcakes! Ew! Icky! Nasty!”

The closest Peter came to successfully repairing their relationship was when he spent nearly two hours building a pillow and blanket fort in the living room. He draped throws and quilts over couches and chairs, covering the floor under the canopy with all the pillows from his bed, couch cushions, and decorative pillows borrowed from all around the house. Peter even engineered a tunnel, which he remembered being the pinnacle of a cool fort back when Ben was helping him and Ned build their forts in the little Queens apartment.

Morgan had stopped short at seeing the fort, her jaw dropping and in her eyes Peter saw a brief flash of wonder that extinguished as quickly as it appeared. Peter was perched hopefully at the fort’s grand entrance, his heart on his sleeve when Morgan’s face crumpled. When she started crying - the big wet tears reddening her cheeks in an instant - Peter slumped forward. And when he tried to apologize for what may have been the fiftieth or hundredth time, Morgan turned on her heel and ran away from him.

Peter would have liked to ask Pepper for her advice on how to win back Morgan’s affection, but, judging by how she looked at him the first time he approached her about the issue, she was less of an ally than he anticipated. It hurt, seeing the warm and welcoming expression he’d come to find solace in turning cold and blank as a sheet of ice. He couldn’t blame Pepper for her cool regard toward him. His carelessness injured her daughter, and the stress from that put both her and her unborn child in jeopardy.

No matter what Mr. Stark told him, Peter would always blame himself for this.

Instead, Peter kept a respectful distance from Pepper while she rested in her and Tony’s bedroom, obeying the doctor’s recommendation to stay in bed and avoid as much activity as possible. She never had unfriendly words for him when he would cautiously approach her, but her countenance in no way could be described as friendly.

After one particularly disheartening interaction in which Pepper had snapped at him to be more careful when he had spilled a glass of water that Mr. Stark had requested he deliver to her, Peter’s hurt feelings expedited the courage he needed to talk to Tony.

“Does Mrs. Stark not like me anymore?”

“She’s just going through a tough time right now kid. She’s worried and uncomfortable. It’ll get better after the baby is born.”

Peter looked back at the conversation (if it could even be called that), and cringed at how childish and immature his question had been. But if Mr. Stark thought he was being juvenile, (This is where you zip it! The adult is talking,) then Peter wouldn’t have known. The conversation between them the evening following the incident had been the last time Mr. Stark had given him more than ten consecutive seconds of his attention.

Again, Peter understood. He really, truly did. He couldn’t go around demanding attention and reassurances like a little kid. Peter was sixteen, nearly seventeen, and he wasn’t even family. As much as that knowledge sucked the air from his lungs, Peter was acutely aware that he’d lost that opportunity after everything.

Peter didn’t need comfort or coddling from his mentor/guardian. And, after all, hadn’t Peter wanted to be seen as mature and responsible by that same man? Begging to know whether he was liked, or how to get back into the good graces of a little girl didn’t exactly scream “ready to be an Avenger.”

He didn’t need any of these things, and whether or not he wanted them didn’t matter either. Somewhere around the time Peter’s parents died, he’d become aware that wanting something doesn’t equate to receiving it, and life, it seemed, was determined to make sure he knew that lesson comprehensively, offering a review nearly every . At times, knowing that what he wanted did not matter felt etched into his sternum, each instance deepening the grooves and Peter could only hope that the ruts wouldn’t run through and through with the increasing repetition.

Peter didn’t have the heart to tell Mr. Stark that he was wrong, that things were different and it felt as though they would never be the same. It was a feeling that he was unfortunately becoming accustomed to following the blip.

Nothing would be the same, and the harder that Peter fought against that actuality, the more radically things in his life would change.

Chapter Text

The garage-turned-lab where Tony did all of his building, tinkering, and updating of superhero equipment (or at least, that’s what Peter assumed he did in there) felt like home. For Peter, the familiar scents and sounds bowled him over with a wave of nostalgia.

It was the most familiar and comfortable thing he’d felt since coming back to existence. Though the location wasn’t in the Avengers compound (destroyed) or the tower (sold), Peter felt a keen sense of belonging when he was in the new lab. He wasn’t invited as often as he would have liked, and he didn’t feel welcome down there without Mr. Stark’s accompaniment, but when they were down there together, like now, Peter could pretend that nothing had gone wrong and that his life (sans the deaths of his parents and Uncle Ben) was exactly how he wanted it.

No Thanos or Titan. No gauntlet or snap. No returning to a horrifically traumatic battle in which he’d nearly lost his third father-figure. No realizing that his presence in May’s life was about as welcome as a splinter under her fingernail. Especially no hurting Morgan, frosty reception from Pepper, and the nagging feeling that Tony was looking at him like he regretted ever bringing him around his family.

Peter turned the tiny screwdriver again and again, unsure whether he was tightening or loosening the diminutive screw in the partially disassembled drone. Absently, he recalled that he was supposed to be adding advanced homing and tracking capabilities, but that job would have taken mere minutes, and Peter wanted to avoid any reason for the lab time to end.

Initially, Peter was thrilled at the opportunity for one-on-one time with Mr. Stark. Such time had become increasingly uncommon lately. Between taking care of Pepper while she was on bedrest and Morgan with her broken arm and complete unwillingness to breathe the same air as Peter, the man was run ragged and thin. And that wasn’t even including Mr. Stark’s own physical and mental recovery from the barge load of trauma that came from the Snap and everything that occurred before and after.

So Peter was grateful for the throwback to a routine that could resemble his previous life if he squinted hard enough. Lab time, with AC/DC playing (at a volume respective of Peter’s sensitive hearing), either working on some massively innovative project or just tinkering while they talked about heroes, villains, friends, school, work, food - anything and everything, really.

This lab time was different, however, and Peter inwardly chastised himself for expecting it to be the same. Too much had changed. The entire world had changed. Why would he believe this one tiny pocket of the world would remain untouched, as though the five years that altered everything just wooshed past?

At first, he could tell Mr. Stark was trying. He had shown Peter the drone and the homing technology with something akin to the excitement from the past. But Peter saw that the enthusiasm was faded and yellowed, curling at the edges. Mr. Stark looked tired - and not the kind of tired that indicated he’d been on a 24-plus-hour coffee bender as he designed the next Iron Man mark. It was the kind of tired that made Peter see right through his eyes to the hollow shadows that lay behind them.

Though Peter was frightened by the foreboding of that change, he pinned on his old happy-go-lucky smile and tried to match the enthusiasm of a Peter Parker he wasn’t familiar with any longer.

It was a back and forth charade between the two - Tony trying to pretend that it was just like old times, but the strain was evident in how old he appeared and how tired he acted; and Peter pretending not to notice Tony’s strain, because he needed something to ground him and show him that not everything from his old life was gone and never to be seen again.

Both of them allowed the farce to go on until Peter huddled down to do the work and, behind the rock and roll music, the lab went quiet.

Peter found Mr. Stark asleep on a couch - one that was distinctly different from the oil-stained, thread-worn couch back at the compound.

A good percentage of Peter had been expecting something of the sort to happen, so what he felt wasn’t anger. There were shades of disappointment, but that disappointment was shared between himself and Mr. Stark. He’d wanted a replica of their past lab times, but things were different, and it wasn’t Mr. Stark’s fault that Peter’s expectations were wildly unrealistic.

Unwilling to give up his alone time with Mr. Stark, even if the man was unconscious and snoring with a line of saliva spilling out the side of his mouth, Peter mindlessly toyed and tinkered with random scraps around the lab. Maybe keeping Mr. Stark all to himself for such an extended period was selfish, but even Peter didn’t have the heart to be too hard on himself about that.

Besides, with the imminent arrival of a new baby Stark, who knew the next time Peter would get any lab time with Tony? The entire tradition may be completely retired, and if that was the case, then this would be the last time they would be down here together, spending any sort of “quality time” between mentor and mentee.

Peter got lost in the fidgeting, just keeping his hands moving and his mind blank, pretending that it was 2017 and none of the unpleasant truths of his life existed. And even though his spidey-sense was aware of the alert a shred of a moment before it came through, he still startled violently when Mr. Stark’s phone loudly reverberated against the lab table’s metal surface.

The abrupt swing from silence to cacophony woke Mr. Stark with a half-asleep snort and the man swiveling his head in search of the disruption. The man’s eyes sharpened like an arrow when he realized his phone was the source of the noise, and the person calling was Pepper.

All traces of sleep were wiped clean in one intimidating instant as Mr. Stark narrowed at him.

“Pete, phone!” He ordered in the same voice that had once been used to tell him to rescue Dr. Strange.

“Kid, that’s the wizard. Get on it.”

“On it!”

Peter tossed the phone gently, careful to not let his nerves take the reins of his powers. He needed to be careful. He needed to not cause harm, bodily or otherwise.

As much as Peter would have preferred to give Mr. Stark his privacy when speaking to his wife, the space wasn’t exactly roomy, and he couldn’t exactly turn off enhanced hearing. His attempt to hum “Jingle Bells” to have some other sound to focus on was immediately forgotten when Pepper’s distressed voice flailed through his distraction.

Peter heard “bleeding” followed by “hospital” and an urgent crescendo of “now!”

Through the thick knotted mess of worry, Peter felt a slice of satisfaction when Mr. Stark remembered him.

“We gotta go, kid.”

_____

What should have been a quick and simple departure, with Tony and Pepper grabbing their go-bags and following the meticulously planned protocol to leave for the hospital was instantly complicated.

“Peter, you’ll be taking care of Morgan.” Tony recited, as though they hadn’t gone over the plan earlier that morning. But Peter understood. When it came to his loved ones - saving them from danger, keeping them safe from danger - Tony was a meticulous and redundant planner.

Just as Peter nodded his agreement and understanding, a shrill “No!” caused everyone’s heads to jerk toward the living room where an incensed Morgan stood, hands balled at her sides, face bunched and red in rage and refusal.

“I don’t wanna stay with Peter!”

For the first time in his memory, Peter’s anger burned brightly toward Morgan, if only for a brief moment. This wasn’t the time for her to remain stubborn about her earnest hostility for him! This was about Pepper and the baby! But due to Morgan, the urgency of the situation was momentarily shoved to the backburner by his humiliation.

Tony and Pepper stared at him and he couldn’t meet their eyes in his shame. Vaguely, he heard the din of Tony trying to placate his daughter, telling her that she and Peter would have fun, and didn’t she want to build another fort? What about more cupcakes? Or pizza? Or movies without bedtime? But there was no appeasing Morgan. No offer would convince her that she was safe with Peter and she was near hysterical with her refusals by the time Tony conceded with a long-suffering sigh.

Eyes still glued to the floor, Peter wanted to vanish once again. He wanted to see his anatomy weaken and flake apart until he didn’t exist any longer. Briefly, he wondered if everyone else in the room hoped for the same thing.

Because Peter couldn’t make this situation better or easier for anyone in the Stark family, and it left him feeling slack and useless. Yet another situation where his presence was the complicating factor.

You weren’t supposed to be a problem, Peter.

It was only through auto-pilot that Peter responded to Tony’s decisive voice telling him that both he and Morgan were coming, and that they would call Happy along the way to help take care of Morgan. He didn’t say anything. Only his body went through the motions of following the Stark family out the door; the three of them as a unit, and him following on on a rapidly unfurling tether.

Again, Peter’s only respite came from being acknowledged and not left behind as he was before.

But that respite was a thin and ineffective balm against the scathing tumult that spanned him from Morgan’s rejection and his inability to be anything but a problem.

_____

Compared to the other occupants of the hospital’s waiting room, Peter was far more in the loop concerning what was happening in the labor and delivery room far down the stretch of hallway behind the double doors. His hearing afforded him the ability to hear every chirp and beep of every monitor, the heartbeats of Tony, Pepper, and even the soon-to-be-born child. He heard the nurses’ instructions, the doctor’s directives, and Tony’s frantic encouragement layered under Pepper’s pained and exhausted yells.

So while everyone else in that bland, neutral, and excessively gray waiting room (that Peter was certain didn’t have enough air circulation), could only speculate what was happening, if they were close to hearing any news, Peter was aware of everything.

However, he was not inclined to reveal that fact; too on-edge, too afraid and unnerved to be considered a reliable source of information, so he maintained his silence.

Peter had squeezed himself tightly into the far corner of the most remote plastic chair, the upholstery so threadbare that it caused more discomfort than the surface it covered. He thought it to be the kind of chair that was undesirable for any sort of comfort, but still technically functional, so it wasn’t discarded, but rather placed where no one would want to sit.

The closest person to him was Col. Rhodes, elbows on his knees, the left of which was shaking nervously. Peter thought that they were the only two in the waiting room who felt the appropriate amount of nerves, having been around Pepper and Tony during these tense months, seeing the reality of waiting day by day for something awful to happen, only for nothing to happen and waking up another day with the same expanse of dread ahead of them.

Happy would have been afraid and anxious with him and Col. Rhodes, Peter thought. But he was taking care of Morgan, trying to keep her distracted from what was happening and why her Mommy was so out of sorts and her Daddy looked perpetually as though he was staring up at the wormhole above New York.

The rest of the crowd, consisting of Avengers, rogue, past, and otherwise were more optimistic about the occasion. Not that Peter blamed them. A new life coming into the world was nothing short of a miracle to be celebrated, especially following the return of those who had been snapped.

Peter couldn’t help but flinch at a sudden outburst of laughter coming from Clint and Steve, but reminded himself not to begrudge them their happiness, just because his own was so hard to come by.

Closing his eyes and tuning back into the frequency where he could hear the delivery room, his ears were assaulted with Pepper’s cries and the doctor’s directives sounding more grim and authoritative. Tony was crying, Peter could sense, not that he was too familiar with the sound.

From what he could gather, Pepper was being hastily prepared for a c-section. The baby’s heart rate was dipping with each contraction and Pepper’s endurance was fading.

The commotion of the nurses prepping her, the operating room being ordered and a frantic Tony being separated from an upset and exhausted Pepper made Peter drop his chin to his chest and clamp both of his hands over his ears. His hands would do nothing to block the sound, but he needed the physical placebo that something was in his control at this moment.

“Hey kid,” Peter startled violently when a hand landed on his knee, accompanying a gentle voice. Rhodey had moved to the outskirts of the waiting room, into the slightly-less-decrepit chair next to his own.

“Hi Col. Rhodes,” he replied, his whisper strained as he tried to block out the painfully acute sounds from down the hall. Peter prised his hands from his ears, surprised at the stinging from the crescents his fingernails left imprinted on his temples.

“Come on, you know you can call me Rhodey,” the man said with an injection of encouragement. Peter could only nod in response, trying to appear more at ease than he truly felt.

“How are you holding up, kid?”

“I’m fine. Just worried about Pepper.” Just as he responded, he heard Tony and Pepper’s teary farewell as they rushed her back to the operating room. The vice grip that had a hold of his sternum tightened a few notches as he considered the severity of the situation if they weren’t letting Tony into the surgical suite with Pepper to observe the birth of their child.

Rhodey keenly picked up on his stress, seeing through Peter’s thinly veiled attempts to appear at ease. Peter did not wish to alarm anyone or make anyone more worried than need be, and he really didn’t want to give away how much intel his senses provided him. He could only imagine how invasive and insistent the questions would be if everyone was aware of what he knew.

“You don’t look fine Pete,” he flinched at the nickname that he preferred only those closest to him use. His parents, Ben, May, Tony… the vast majority of those people were past-tense, Peter lamented, closing his eyes and wincing against the corrosive thought.

“Tony said you’ve been really quiet lately. And he told me that you being quiet was weird, because you’re usually such a chatter-box.” Rhodey put his hands up in mock innocence, mischief twinkling in his eyes, and Peter appreciated the pause from the undertow of stress and anxiety that kept him in its clutches.

The grains of mirth that helped Peter feel light were soon absorbed by a bubbling disbelief.

“Mr. Stark mentioned me?” He asked, voice still low and thin, It betrayed more hope than Peter would have liked and he wasn’t quite sure what to make of Rhodey’s confused and furrowed brow.

“Yeah, of course he did. He talks about all his kids,” Rhodey said, as though he was confirming that the sky was blue, but Peter was far from convinced. If anything, he reverted to a skepticism so jarring it nauseated him. The words to respond bitterly, to tell Rhodey that he wasn’t one of Tony’s kids practically begged to vomit from his mouth, but he resisted.

If Peter was honest with himself, it contented him to pretend that what Rhodey said was entirely true and that he believed it without a shadow of a doubt. So he just nodded along, lips so tight they weren’t visible.

“So, are you looking forward to your new baby brother or sister?”

Abruptly, Peter’s head nod jerkily switched into an apprehensive shake.

“I’m not,” he tried for a chuckle to indicate just how much he didn’t care, but his throat emitted a self-deprecating bark instead. Peter reset himself with a deep breath.

“I’m just staying with Mr. Stark and Ms. Potts. I don’t think they consider me as a brother to their kids.” Peter’s own candidness surprised him, and he immediately wanted to rewind and take back his words. But before he had the chance, Rhodey - reliable and constant as ever - demanded his attention.

“Of course they do, Peter.” As baseless as the claim sounded, Peter was intrigued by Rhodey’s earnestness. “Tony didn’t look at a picture of just any random kid and suddenly decide “oh, it looks like a good day to solve time travel.” He missed you every day. He thought of you every day.”

Peter’s head hung, cheeks hot with embarrassment and a bashfulness of which he couldn’t quite pinpoint the origin.

“You’re part of the family, kiddo. I promise.”

Peter looked back up at Rhodey, needing visual confirmation of his sincerity. That he actually believed was he was telling Peter, and not just spouting niceties meant to placate. But when had Rhodey ever been insincere (when it mattered, of course)?

So when Rhodey gave his knee another comforting pat, Peter felt inclined to believe what he’d been told. Tony and Pepper considered him part of the family. To them, he was something special.

Just because you weren’t special to May, that doesn’t mean you’re not special to anyone at all. Don’t build yourself around her opinion of you.

When Rhodey asked one more time if he was okay, Peter nodded and the man stood up, muttering something about vending machines and coffee that tastes like lake water.

For now, for this moment, however long it was destined to last, Peter would believe what a rational, straight-forward person like Col. James Rhodes told him about his place in the Stark family. It felt like such a grounded and secure place to anchor himself.

Peter sat in his desolate corner, focusing on what Rhodes had told him with a fervor that probably bordered on frenzied. But it helped, and for the first time in several weeks, Peter felt a weight of security enveloping him.

And that security proved necessary as Peter pulled out his phone to check his texts. Three messages - to May, Ned, and MJ - remained unanswered. It was okay, Peter tried to reassure himself. He’d only texted them - he glanced at the time - two hours and 49 minutes ago - okay, so that was longer than he’d been hoping. Peter really thought someone would have responded to him by now. He wanted to share the news that Tony and Pepper were having their second child. He wanted someone to tell him that it was normal for him to feel this nervous.

He wanted someone to tell him over and over and over that he still had a place in their lives. That he hadn’t been squeezed out like a pesky aching splinter.

The messages to Ned and MJ appeared unopened, but the little envelope icon with the checkmark next to May’s contact showed that she’d opened his message, and that Peter had been left on read.

_____

In order to shield himself from the worsening depression of his messages going unread, Peter untethered himself from the actual passage of time, so when Mr. Stark burst into the waiting room, looking haggard and rung out, but with a hint of relief, Peter had no idea how much time had passed.

All in the same instant, every occupant of the waiting room turned toward him, bated breath and anticipation running wild.

“It’s a boy! Miles Nate Stark.” Collectively, the sighs of relief combined to an audible release of tension. Tension that Peter wasn’t sure they were all even aware of existing. “Pepper had a c-section, but they are both doing great. They’re just resting now, but it will be a bit before she’s moved to a regular room and we can have visitors.”

Despite the objectively good news that Mr. Stark was delivering, Peter could tell he wasn’t the only one who picked up the quavering edge of his voice. As though the tension had Mr. Stark so wrought with worry for so incredibly long, that now that it was over, the release was jarring and his exhaustion was setting in.

Rhodey was the first to come up and wrap his arms around Tony, the blue surgeon’s gown wrinkling under their embrace. Tony’s head fell to Rhodey’s shoulder in an instant, like a magnetic compound. Dr. Banner was next, followed by Clint, Laura and an older couple who Peter didn’t recognize, but figured through context may have been Pepper’s mother and father.

The reflex to clasp his hands over his ears made Peter’s fingers twitch as he heard the heart-rending sound of Tony breaking down into tears. To resist, he entwined his fingers into a complicated knot and sat in his corner, observing.

Despite Rhodey’s talk earlier, Peter couldn’t bring himself to stand up and join the horde of people comforting his guardian. He didn’t feel it was his right, and though he couldn’t pinpoint why that was the case, to risk the rejection and displacement was too much to bear.

Best to isolate himself than to have it done to him. Or at least that’s what he’d gleaned from what happened with May.

So he stayed seated, awkwardly the only person still doing so. Even Steve, who didn’t situate himself in the huddle of hugging, stood and looked on the scene fondly, a stupid twinkle in his eyes. Peter didn’t really think anyone noticed his absence, however.

And that would just have to be okay.

_____

The scene was picturesque domesticity, the type of happiness that was captured, printed on a postcard, and sold for decades because of the warm sensations it stirred when looked upon.

Pepper, though exhausted from laboring and in pain from her recent surgery, looked happier than he’d seen her in months. Well, he guessed it would actually be years, factoring in the Snap. The bundle in her arms was pink, soft, and impossibly small. Intimidatingly so, Peter thought as he craned his neck around Dr. Banner to improve his view just enough to see Morgan curled up against her mother’s side, head resting on her chest. She looked as curious as she did threatened by the tiny infant. At the sight of the bright purple cast, filled with signatures and doodles, clutched against Morgan’s chest, Peter slammed his eyes shut against the velocity of his destructive memories.

Finally, Peter opened them, watching as Tony stood next to his wife’s hospital bed, eyes still red and puffy from the breakdown. Of course, that was several hours ago by this point, so perhaps he’d been crying again? The way Tony hovered over them protectively, looking both monumentally relieved and solemnly responsible was striking to Peter.

This new brand of Tony was still so foreign to him, even after nearly three months’ observation of the behavior.

Could the man who enthusiastically kissed boo-boos and fetched special Peppa Pig band-aids for Morgan truly be the same man who once looked at Peter like he was a mental patient when he went in for a hug that turned out to not be a hug?

“That’s not a hug. I’m just getting the door.”

Of course, Peter remembered the rushed-yet-sincere embrace on the battlefield. At the time, he’d been so confused about nearly everything going on, but that hug had been everything to him. And the memory remained treasured and untarnished.

A nasty feeling seeped into his bones as he hastily paged through everything that happened since then and realized that the singular huge had been the last instance of that gentler, gauzier treatment toward him.

Have you considered - for even one infinitesimal moment - in that horrendously selfish brain of yours, that Mr. Stark might just reserve that sort of thing for his actual family members - the children he chose to have and who weren’t dumped on him?

But hadn’t Rhodey said that Mr. Stark considered him family?

Are you forgetting how much that Mr. Stark is going through, Peter? The man lost an arm. He lost teammates. He’s been worried out of his mind about his wife and unborn child, all while picking up your slack with Morgan. And you’re going to complain that he’s not being touchy-feely enough with you? After you broke - no - crushed his daughter’s arm and caused Pepper enough stress to need monitoring? How can you pretend to be a superhero when you act like such a spoiled child?

“I need anyone who wants to hold this little bundle of joy to wash their dirty paws,” Mr. Stark’s voice cut through Peter’s internal vitriolic spiral. “I’m looking at you Banner. Sticking your jolly green fingers into mushy science-y stuff all day and then expecting to hold my little miracle.”

A bottle of hand sanitizer was passed around the group of people crowding the hospital suite. There were only around five extra people, really, but the exuberant energy made the room feel full and vibrant.

As soon as Tony gently lifted Miles from Pepper’s arms, Morgan melted even further into her mom’s side.

One by one, newborn Miles Stark was passed around, and everyone who held him was unable to suppress a goofy, glowing smile. Peter unconsciously inched backward both nervous for it to be his turn to hold the little boy and for the attention in the room to be focused on him. No one could take their eyes off the newborn, and by extension, the person holding him, hips slightly rocking back and forth in a primal, soothing rhythm.

And as Miles got closer to Peter, the low drone of his spidey-sense grew to a keening whine. He gulped in apprehension, dreading where the danger could possibly be originating from. There was nothing bad here. Nothing harmful.

There was only a newborn baby, his sister, parents, and the group of well-wishers. So why did he feel the imminence of a threat? Who was the danger here?

Next to him, Rhodey held baby Miles, that same grin imprinting deep dimples on his cheeks. Through the growing panic in his head, Peter noticed Rhodey giving him a knowing smile and a wink, as though his point from their conversation - that Peter was in fact part of the family, and that this little baby was his little brother, just as Morgan was his little sister.

For that suspended moment, Peter believed it. He forgot about the horrible foreboding that buzzed intrusively against his eardrums. There was such a small group of people here, during such a special time - and he was among them.

If he wasn’t wanted here, Peter wouldn’t be here, he told himself decisively.

Having quieted his insecure inner-demons for the time being, Peter was actually nearly shaking with eagerness as Rhodey held the swaddled newborn out to him.

And just as he reached out to meet Rhodey, that pesky buzzing escalated to a panicked roar, and just before he made contact with the baby, Peter recoiled jerkily as though he’d been singed.

“No!” Pepper cried out, startling everyone in the room, including Miles, who coughed a few times before growing into a full cry.

Peter dropped his arms to his side, securing them there as though even having them present in the room was a crime of indecency and depravity. Staring at Pepper, even though her abject terror sent his heart into a free-fall into his stomach, he tried to make sense of what was happening.

“He’s hungry,” she explained shakily. “Peter can hold him later, it has just been too long since he’s eaten.” And though no one questioned Pepper’s seemingly extreme reaction, Peter didn’t really think (or more so - he hoped) that anyone believed it either.

Without any further fuss, Miles was passed back to Pepper, who rocked and shushed him while Tony started bidding everyone a farewell and thanking them for coming by, and that he’d be in touch, and all those niceties.

But Peter was too frozen to leave immediately. His eyes were still stuck on Pepper, and though the immediate danger that his spidey-sense had alerted him to had died down considerably, he felt more nauseated than before.

Because the danger that Peter had been sensing? That danger of unknown origin that could hard the Stark family?

It was him.

Chapter Text

Following the un-blip, or the unsnappening, or whatever the media was choosing to call it this month, for Peter, waking up was a jarring, disorienting experience that left him with no air in his lungs and a siren blaring in his head. When his eyes snapped open, for the first several moments, he always thought he was returning to life and about to be thrust into a battle with tremendous stakes for himself and the universe at large.

Confusion and fear battled for dominance in those first blurry moments, and only when Peter could finally fill his lungs with air, he would start to realize where he was, and that he wasn’t in danger. Often, this process took several minutes from start to finish.

It happened without fail. It was uncomfortable and intrusive. And he was usually saturated with sweat when it was done.

That was the reason that Peter was propped up in the uncomfortable hospital recliner, fighting against his body to stay awake through the night. Well, that plus a whole other host of reasons that hissed unpleasantly whenever he considered them.

The hospital suite in labor in delivery was mostly dark and currently, the time was so far past late evening that now it could probably be considered early morning. Outside the room, the sun wasn’t even attempting to rise yet, but the dim glow from the hallway cast a light under the door that reached the foot of Pepper’s hospital bed. Machines with flashing numbers and ECG lines and bulbs were intrusively bright to Peter's sensitive eyes and made them sting and tear up, but he knew if he tried to close them against the greens, reds, and blues that he would be sabotaging his chances at staying awake.

Regular intervals of beeps coming from these same machines helped his mission, along with the stupid awareness of every person who walked past their room, and every sense of danger or dread - which, in a hospital (even labor and delivery), sat at a higher concentration than normal.

Every so often to ground himself, Peter would squeeze his phone in his right fist and glance to see whether there were any messages of merit. Earlier in the evening, sometime after Peter had enveloped himself in the security of being part of the Stark family and before the incident with Pepper, he’d reasoned with himself that another round of texts to those most important to him was acceptable, expected even. It wasn’t embarrassing to text again after he’d been ignored. They were busy. Or they hadn’t seen his previous message. And he had good news to share.

After he’d quelled the slight tremble in his fingers, he’d texted Ned, MJ, and even May, that the Starks had welcomed a son named Miles and that everyone was doing just fine. Peter wasn’t sure what he hoped or expected any one of them to respond - with congratulations or even a stern “stop talking to me,” - honestly, he just wanted acknowledgement.

This five-years-later life was lonely. He missed his family and his friends. He wanted to be part of something. To truly fit somewhere.

“I can’t handle being your family anymore, Peter.”

He slammed his eyes shut, even though the vivid voice came from within his head.

“Yeah, we’ll definitely try to keep in touch, man.”

Even then, Ned had sounded distant and disinterested. But how could he have known to give up then? A friendship of nearly a decade couldn’t just fray and unravel due to some distance, right?

“I’m going to focus on my mom for awhile, okay? I never thought I’d get this chance. Sorry Peter, I hope you understand.”

At least MJ’s sincerity had been believable. And he did understand her motivations. If Peter was given the (impossible) chance to really know his mom and dad, he would make major sacrifices. But that didn’t mean being cut out didn’t leave him with a lingering, searing pain that never quite fully abated.

All at once, every molecule of stimuli, internal and external alike, collided harshly in his head before melting together to form a massive headache for which Peter was certain there was no cure.

But he didn’t complain, not even to himself. Peter wasn’t here to complain and his comfort was so far down the list of priorities that it was laughable.

Resolutely, Peter reminded himself that he was here for Pepper and Miles. Well, Pepper specifically. Tony did not want her left alone in the hospital and policy said that only one person could be with her outside of visiting hours.

Peter shifted in his chair as his right foot started to fall asleep, and he cringed at the squeak of the chair’s metal innards. He stopped breathing for a moment, trying to detect whether Pepper or Miles were awakening because of his disturbance. Focusing his hearing, he let himself breathe again when neither stirred.

Promising himself not to move again, Peter went back to simply observing (not before checking his phone again, of course).

Earlier, Peter could tell that leaving the hospital ignited an internal conflict in the man, one which had no winners, but Peter was happy to step in and help where he could. Helping others wherever and whenever he could was a habit he truly couldn't help - and he didn't really think he needed to change that about himself.

“Pete, do you mind staying here with Pep tonight?”

Of course, initially he’d wanted to refuse, to say that Pepper probably didn’t want him there, so he wasn’t a good choice. But then he caught a glimpse of Tony’s fatigue and desperation.

“I know things are hard right now, but Morgan really wants one of her parents home, and she needs some kind of normalcy right now. I wouldn’t ask you if I didn’t trust you kid.”

The mention of trust thawed Peter’s reluctance. Trust from Tony - it was like a necessary life force for Peter. Like water or oxygen. He craved it and knew without even considering it, that he would do anything to obtain it and would guard it with his life.

“A big part of my whole world is in that room, and I know you’ll keep them safe the same way I would.”

Peter couldn’t say no to Tony. He couldn’t even voice his concerns about why he was a suboptimal candidate for the job. Peter knew with certainty that even if he opened his mouth with every intention to say no that he would end up emphatically agreeing to anything that Tony asked of him.

This inability to say no wasn’t novel or unfamiliar. The occasions in which he’d either refused Mr. Stark or gone against his wishes were directly related to his alter-ego. Spider-Man had jurisdiction to do what he felt was best, even if Iron Man didn’t quite agree. Peter Parker had no such jurisdiction. So he said yes and didn’t voice a single concern or let Tony think for a second that he was anything other than happy to take on the responsibility.

And really, really, the situation was not as painfully awkward as Peter had initially feared and expected.

When he’d first been left alone with Pepper and Miles, Peter had done his best to stay silent and invisible. If he could have stood behind the curtain near the entrance entirely out of sight, he would have, just to not push Pepper’s tolerance of him.

Striving to live up to Tony’s expectations of him, he expediently completed any task that Pepper asked of him. Iced water refill, handing her blankets and burp cloths, helping her sit up and adjust her bed (not physically touching her so as to avoid any chance of seeing her fear) - Peter worked well in crisis mode, when he had a task to complete. And he would be lying if he said that he did it all without hoping for her forgiveness and acceptance.

With his expectations of Pepper geared toward icy unpleasantness, Peter was dumbstruck when she told him to sit down after he refilled her water again before launching into an apology. Well, it was more of an explanation than an apology, but the word “sorry” was in there, so that counted for something.

Doubling down on her excuse of baby Miles being hungry, Pepper explained to him how hard things had been during the pregnancy (before he’d been plopped on their doorstep) - how the time travel, the battle, the sheer chaos of half of the world coming back - how all of it had made her so tightly wound and worried for her family.

And just as she’d begun to mention something about postpartum depression she’d had with Morgan, Miles began gurgle and hiccup again, and before he could start to cry Pepper shushed and prepared to feed him.

Peter had taken that as his dismissal and left the room to give her some privacy, and himself some room to breathe.

Looking back on that conversation, he had two takeaways. First, Pepper had apologized, which he appreciated (even if the apology had been half-baked and sounded somewhat insincere). And second, Pepper still hadn’t said that she was comfortable with him holding the newborn baby.

At this point, to preserve a few scraps of dignity, Peter decided that he was not going to ask. To ask and be blatantly rejected would be too much. He assumed that if Pepper actually wanted him to hold Miles (he was actively steering away from the term “little brother”) that she would offer.

Focusing on the memories of the evening served to pull Peter further into the grips of his drowsiness. He would blink and assert to himself that he was awake, and in the next moment, his dreamlike state would take back over. His exhaustion was starting to phase into a physical entity

_____

Peter’s sixth sense woke him up to a dark and silent room. The non-silence and non-darkness that a hospital room provided jarred him and in that first blurry, half-awake moment he had no idea why he was awake. False alarm? Nightmare? The loose spring in the back of the chair digging into his lower back?

Both Pepper and Miles were safe, which allowed him to breathe. But why had he awoken?

The small barely discernible movements from the clear-sided bassinet grabbed his attention, urgent gurgles dissolving almost instantly into the frantic and helpless wails of a newborn.

Peter’s head swiveled, panic-stricken and unsure of what to do. The few moments that it took for Pepper to rouse from her exhausted slumber pulled into what felt like hours. The frigid waves of helplessness lapped at his ankles and he remembered how horribly he’d frozen the last time he was relied on to help in an urgent situation.

Miles’ crying escalated. The ear-splitting, heart-rending wails sounded primal and launched a vicious attack on Peter’s sensitivities.

Clawing through the fraught panic, Peter watched with a calming wave as Pepper fully woke and looked toward her infant. His relief was painfully short-lived as, with his heart leaping up into his throat, he realized that Pepper was recovering from surgery and she could not sit up and reach for her baby due to the large incision in her lower abdomen.

His reactions felt thick and starchy as he comprehended that since Pepper could not solely tend to Miles, that the duty fell to Peter to retrieve him and place him in his mother’s arms so he could be fed and comforted.

All Peter wanted to do was help Pepper and to take care of Mr. Stark’s family like the man had asked. To make the crying stop before it shredded the tissue of his ear drums and festered inside of him. And Pepper had apologized to him earlier, both excusing and explaining her reaction to him. It would be okay for him to hold Miles, if only to simply pass him to his mother. He may be a mutant, but he wasn’t a monster.

With those motivations, Peter leapt up from his chair onto unexpectedly shaky legs and took decisive steps toward the bassinet.

“No!” Peter recoiled as though an invisible barrier stopped him in his tracks. Pepper’s stricken shout was an exact replica from her earlier rebuke. But this time, he hoped to defend himself and show her that he just wanted to help.

“Pepper, I…” Peter inched forward, testing the waters of her tolerance. Miles’ cries persisted, a dissonant chorus to the delicate interaction between Peter and Pepper.

“I said no, Peter!” She shrieked, terror fraying her typically strong, silken voice. Peter’s hand remained halfway outstretched and he was terrified that any tiny movement might further incur Pepper’s wrath.

“Just get a nurse!” She shouted at him, cracking his frozen façade. He wasn’t any less afraid or any less emotionally obliterated, but he had to make the crying stop and he had to do what Pepper wanted - which was what Mr. Stark wanted as well

He stumbled backward, tripping slightly on his suddenly leaden feet. At his slight pause, Pepper yelled at him again, “Go get a nurse now, Peter!”

Pepper’s volume, punctuated by baby Miles’s incessant crying made Peter suddenly want to do the same. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could visibly hold himself together, so instead of trying to get closer to press the call button on the white control next to Pepper’s bed, he pivoted and ran from the room.

Careful to control his speed so as to keep his stupid and inconvenient powers under wraps, Peter expediently found the nurses’ station and told them that Ms. Potts needed help before retreating to the nearest single occupancy bathroom he could find.

Despite his best efforts, he didn’t quite make it somewhere private before the first sob wrenched from his chest, so forceful in its eruption that his mouth remained open in a silent scream for as long as the wave of agony persisted.

Finally, once the door was closed and locked behind him, he gave into the weakness in his knees and crumpled to the floor, curling himself into a ball and tucking his chin into his chest. In a poor attempt to soothe himself, to glean any sort of comfort, Peter wrapped his arms around his torso and held his sides in a tight grip.

Pepper’s reaction told him everything he needed to know. Any doubt or question he’d retained about whether she saw him as part of the family, a sibling to her children, maybe even a child of her own, was crushed and ground into fine dust, then swept away with so much proficiency that Peter wasn’t even sure what made him think those things were ever a possibility in the first place.

He was so far from being considered family at this point. Peter lamented how stupid he’d been to believe that could be the case. Perhaps at one point he’d stood a chance with the Starks - but he’d long-since ruined that chance. Just like he’d ruined every other chance at a family that had ever been granted to him. (Sure, the deaths of his mother and father weren’t his fault, but the tragedy was just the beginning of a trend for Peter. A trend that showed him that he didn’t know how to be part of a family. How to keep one.

Despair pushed harder on him from all sides. Peter felt like he was being squeezed between a mess of metal plates and he tried to curl in on himself further.

“I said no, Peter!”

He closed his eyes against the assaulting flashback, but the moment he did, Peter vividly saw Pepper’s terrified expression, directed at him with such velocity and fervor that it could have been an arrow from Clint.

Up until that moment, Peter’s anguish had been silent, face drawn down in misery with his fingers wrapped so tightly around himself that he was certain he was bruising his ribcage. But as the scope of how Pepper truly saw him unfurled, he couldn’t help the sorrowful moan. A child’s sound, or a wounded animal - not that of a hero. Not that of someone who Tony Stark trusted with his family.

Tony’s family. Which did not include Peter. Could not include Peter. Because how could Peter be part of their family if he couldn’t be trusted to even have the briefest of physical contact with Morgan and Miles?

Peter was spiraling out of control, gripping himself tighter and tighter and reveling in the physical pain that tried to swell up and drown out the emotional hurt.

He wanted to call someone, but he couldn’t imagine what he would say. Even though Ned and MJ both responded to his last texts - a bland congratulations and a short lesson on the environmental footprint of an infant, respectively, Peter couldn’t help thinking that their responses were only born from pity. Neither had responded to his previous message, so they must have felt sorry for him in their decisions to reply. And pity had a distinctly short half-life, Peter knew, so he didn’t expect to continue receiving them for much longer.

This time Peter noticed that May hadn’t even chosen to open his message; the closed envelope icon causing him more agony than a tiny graphic should be able to accomplish.

Maybe he could call Tony? But he hated thinking that he would be interrupting Tony’s time with his daughter, and the rightfully deserved rest after such a stressful labor and delivery of his son. So no, Peter swiped away from Mr. Stark’s contact.

The only person who Peter believed might actually answer his call (not out of pity - which was important) was Rhodey. Peter was almost certain that Col. Rhodes would be happy to speak with him, but with a lightning bolt of shame striking his gut, he knew decisively that he wouldn’t call. Rhodey had been so sure - so incredibly certain that Peter was one of Tony and Pepper’s kids and that he was part of the family.

How could he handle telling the man just how wrong he was? That Peter wasn’t just a non-member of the Stark family, but was closer to a threat to them than anything? Having him know that the comfort he’d offered Peter had been acutely false?

Peter had never been adept at handling humiliation. And with his already severely compromised dignity, he couldn’t bear the thought of one more person knowing just how deficient he was when it came to family.

Setting his phone on the washed gray tile, Peter hugged himself closely once more, tightening into fetal position and gripping, gripping, gripping until he was gasping with pain that he understood and could process. A clean, uncomplicated pain.

Pain unaccompanied by shame, embarrassment, abandonment, or pity. Pain that his healing would acknowledge and handle, and it would be like it never happened.

He gripped harder with a satisfied hiss, wondering how long it would take to hear the crack of bone so he could suffer the way he’d forced Morgan to suffer.

Chapter Text

Peter’s eyes shot open. The sensation of going from deep sleep to completely awake jarred him like a plunge on a rollercoaster. His spider-sense made his nerves tingle with pinpricks, and even though he knew the exact reason he’d been awoken, it still took a few moments to convince his body that he wasn’t in any danger.

5...4...3...2...1…

Miles began to wail for the - Peter checked his watch; 3:38 a.m. - third time that night. And thanks to Peter’s spider-sense that was finely tuned to respond to his own danger and the danger of those around him, he was awoken to the infant’s distress before the crying actually began.

Lifting himself out of bed again was more difficult than he expected, and he tried to suppress a groan. Every bone felt like it had turned to concrete after the last time he’d gotten back into bed at 12:09 a.m. Trying to keep his footfalls light, Peter snuck down to the kitchen.

Peter stifled a yawn as he grabbed a clean bottle off the drying rack and the tub of formula powder. Preparing a bottle of formula for whichever parent’s turn it was to wake up and feed Miles was the only useful thing he could think of doing since it became clear to him that he would be waking up with the baby each and every time.

If Peter wasn’t so terrified of asking, he would gladly offer to take care of the nightly changes and feedings all by himself. Why wake more people than necessary when nearly the entire house was perpetually exhausted? Morgan was the exception. Her energy levels defied what was natural, Peter believed whole-heartedly.

But Peter knew better than to offer. The scene played out in his head the same way every time - Tony’s awkward and shifty eyes deferring to Pepper. Pepper’s terrified expression that bordered on hostile. How they would politely but inevitably decline.

After all, Peter hadn’t even been allowed to touch the newborn Stark, nevertheless hold him.

And though the gesture was small, it was to supplement all of the other tasks he tried to accomplish daily to be helpful and prove his worth. None of which he wanted acknowledgement or acclaim for performing. He just wanted to help, so he did. It was as simple as that. Just another friendly neighborhood Spider-Man thing (not that he was doing much - any - of that lately.)

Every awakening, he was afraid enough to be caught doing what he was doing (irrationally, but what did that matter?) that he would hurry back up the stairs and back to bed before Tony or Pepper emerged from the nursery from changing Miles.

This time wasn’t an exception, even though Peter felt he was behind schedule and would need to expedite making the bottle and cleaning his mess. Wiping a damp rag across the countertop to clean any spilled powder and formula, Peter listened closely to the nursery’s sounds.

Pepper was still changing the baby, crooning a lullaby to try and pacify him. Peter knew he could make it back to his room in time.

But as he pivoted on his heels to leave, he startled in fright at the sight of Mr. Stark standing in front of the refrigerator, his hair disheveled and the bags under his eyes substantial.

“So you’re the formula fairy, huh kid?”

Too paralyzed to reply, Peter only opened and closed his mouth a few times like a goldfish. Unable to make sense of the situation, he wondered if the synapses in his brain were misfiring, or if the deliriousness of his exhaustion had finally caught up with him.

How in the world did his spider-sense jerk him from a deep sleep to a baby about to cry, but not to someone standing three feet behind him in the dark.

Mr. Stark is not a threat to you. He never has been.

“Tricked you, didn’t I?” Mr. Stark said, shuffling past him with his house slippers, an accompanying friendly pat on his shoulder. He picked up the fresh formula bottle that Peter had just prepared, examining it with squinted eyes against the dim light over the stove.

“Pepper is changing the little sack of potatoes, and I thought I’d get up too. You know, just to see whether it was you or Gerald leaving mysterious bottles for us. My money was on Gerald,” Mr. Stark gestured to himself as Peter stood rigidly, still unable to move as his frozen shock morphed into situational anxiety. “But Pep seemed to think I was underestimating you.”

“Go on and have a seat there, milkmaid,” Peter’s face flushed in embarrassment at the nickname. It was even more embarrassing than Underoos. “I’m going to run this up to the boss,” Mr. Stark said with a nudge before grabbing the formula bottle again.

Though his exhaustion made Peter’s feet move slowly as though trudging through cool molasses, Peter sat down at the bar seating and waited. Some intrinsic quirk made Peter automatically nervously excited to spend time with Mr. Stark. He tried to quell it, sitting on his hands to prevent them from dancing across the granite excitedly.

Peter’s mind did acknowledge the ugly possibility that this was going to be a talking-to more than a conversation, but excitement had been evasive at best these past few weeks, so he tried to hold onto the messy, uneven scraps he imagined in his fist.

What was he doing wrong? Did he ruin something while cleaning or doing the laundry? Did something go wrong with Morgan’s healing? Or maybe - the thought slithered through his ribcage like a thick, invasive vine - Tony and Pepper had come to the same conclusion as May, and it was time for him to find another place to stay.

Why would Mr. Stark want to talk to you about something good at 4 a.m.? Come on, Peter. Don’t act surprised. After what you did to Morgan and how Pepper looks at you, you really didn’t see this coming?

I don’t know where I’m going to go…

By the time Mr. Stark came back downstairs, Peter was bracing himself for the worst, preparing himself for the loss and refusing to be caught off-guard.

“So, you just like waking up a couple times a night to mix up some formula for the kicks and giggles? Or is this some sort of resume builder?” Even with Mr. Stark’s name brand sarcasm, Peter could hear that he sounded worn and raspy.

Taking a look at the man, he could see the extent of just how burned out and beaten down he appeared, standing slouched, his salt and pepper goatee unkempt, his prosthesis hanging down like a limb made of heavy metals. During the day, it was easy to regard Mr. Stark as the man he used to be; witty, smart, competent and brave.

But at night, Peter could see it all fall away and remember that this was a man with two young children, Stark Industries, clean up from the battle, logistics of half of the living universe reappearing, all on his shoulders. All the while dealing with a long road to recovery himself.

“I’m sorry-” Peter doesn’t even know why he’s apologizing, but it’s all his mind and tongue can work together to make. It was something of a reflex of his, the habitual apologies. May used to tell him to stop saying sorry so much, to which he would usually reflexively say he was sorry for saying it so much.

“Don’t be sorry, kid. It’s a huge help. But you don’t have to do it.”

He’s just saying that to be nice. Or he’s just trying to tell you that you’re doing it all wrong and causing more trouble than if you would have just stayed (dead) in your room and not bothered them.

“It’s nothing, Mr. Stark.” The squeak of embarrassment makes Peter cringe and squirm in his seat.

“Hey Pete,” Peter stiffened as Mr. Stark’s shoulder knocked into his own (the bruises from firmly pressing his fingers into his skin until it was a canvas of inky blues and purples weren’t yet healed).

“I know we haven’t gotten to spend much time together lately. What do you say we have some time in the lab? I’ll get Rhodey to babysit the kids and it will just be you, me, a stack of pizzas, and some loud music you know nothing about,” Mr. Stark suggested, ending on a hopeful note. “Just like it used to be.”

To Peter, the mere mention of “just like it used to be,” brought down the defensive constructs he’d been erecting steadily with each post-snap trauma. He wanted it to be just like it used to be more than he wanted anything - more than he wanted to be Spider-Man again even.

He tried to avoid letting Mr. Stark know just how much it meant to him, just responding “Yeah, I’d like that.”

Just as it seemed like their conversation was over and it was time to get back to sleep before Morgan decided that it was time for the entire house to be awake, Mr. Stark spoke again.

“You’d tell me if you needed something, right kid?”

Peter choked on the automatic response that would agree with Mr. Stark, just to please the man. Would he actually? Peter wondered. But before he could even finish the thought, he knew decisively that it was a no.

A handful of instances where he needed something, but didn’t even entertain the idea of asking Mr. Stark cluttered his head.

He needed help trying to patch up his relationship with Morgan, or at least help getting her to stop saying rude things and sticking her tongue out at him.

He needed help trying to figure out where he stood with Pepper. It had been so long since he had sensed any indication that she even wanted him around. Peter knew she was going through so much, but just a small reassurance would mean so much.

Peter needed help with the schoolwork that he was falling so far behind on that it was no longer possible to achieve an A in three of his classes. It was hard watching his standing as a top student plummet, but the only one facing his disappointment was himself.

Peter needed help dealing with not having May in his life anymore. Deep and profound embarrassment prevented him from asking, and he doubted that he would ever talk about it unless someone else brought up the topic.

But Peter knew fundamentally, from even a slice of a moment’s consideration, that it would be selfish of him to ask for Mr. Stark’s time to help with these issues. Spider-Man could handle his own problems. Peter Parker could handle his own problems.

But before he could reassure Mr. Stark of his competency, the man threw out a casual wave.

“Pssh, what am I thinking? I don’t need to worry about you. You’re Spider-Man. You’re solid, self-sustaining - like a hearty fern or a dependable sedan. You’re really good at taking care of yourself.”

The words smacked into Peter with a solid, crippling thunk. Any light and lifted feeling leftover from the promise of lab time took a sharp nosedive. It was the casual manner combined with the certainty that made Peter’s heart hurt. Like the man had convinced himself he was right, and that not having to worry about Peter was a relief.

“I don’t need to worry about you.”

It was just so similar to how May said her goodbye.

“I can’t worry about you anymore Peter. It’s too much. I’m not strong enough.”

These words - companion statements directly from people tasked with taking care of him - may be true, but that didn’t make them any more pleasant to hear.

Peter knew he wouldn’t be able to respond without shattering into a million ill-fitting pieces.
When Mr. Stark clapped him on the shoulder, Peter found himself leaning into the touch to soak up any affection and simultaneously hating himself for it.

_____

Keeping up with the constant ups and downs in his situation over the next weeks was taxing at its best and arduous at its worst.

Any highs, such as the time he emailed May and actually received a response (as abbreviated and formal as it was), were pitted against the lows, like how she didn’t answer his question about coming out for a visit.

Or how Peter felt his hopes soar when Morgan said he could color with her one Saturday morning, only to feel them take a free-fall when - at Morgan’s request for him to reach the top of her closet, he lifted her up - Pepper gave him a wide-eyed, stricken glare from the doorway. She didn’t say anything, but her pinched face and how the tendons stuck out of her neck were clear indicators of how she felt about his vicinity to her daughter.

And then there was the repeated whiplash of being offered lab time, only to have it postponed days, hours, or even minutes in advance. Mr. Stark’s excuses were valid - Miles had a fever - Rhodey was called to help Sam last-minute - Mr. Stark was having a bad day with his prosthesis and wasn’t feeling well. But the excuses did little to ease Peter’s chronic disappointment.

The disappointment was injected with resentment at the time that Mr. Stark told him that they couldn’t do lab time today without giving him a reason. And only an hour later, while Peter was sweeping the entryway, he looked outside through the ornamental glass front door to see Dr. Bruce Banner following Mr. Stark into the garage/laboratory.

No time? No - just no time for you, Peter.

But even through the tilt-o-whirl of things elevating him and then yanking him down like a little kid with a balloon, Peter found himself settling into a routine. It wasn’t a happy routine, but Peter always thrived under schedules and knowing what to expect - so even a less-than-ideal routine was still preferable to chaos.

He woke up at night and made bottles, and occasionally Mr. Stark would thank him in the morning. (Not that he did it for the thanks, but still - it was nice.) He cooked breakfast, did the laundry, looked around for things to clean (by this point he was working on landscaping and Gerald’s pen, having run through things inside and being too nervous to ask Pepper).

Then, Peter would convince himself it was time to sit down with his schoolwork to get something, anything done. The concerned emails from his teachers at Midtown were mounting. His remote learning results were “not in line with the expectations of Midtown’s students.” At least he didn’t have to worry about losing his scholarship.

Focusing on schoolwork was… it was hard. Peter would feel like he was jerked back by a hook in his navel into an amalgam of a memory of studying in the apartment with Ben and May. With May cooking and Ben going behind her back to fix what she did wrong without letting her know anything was wrong. The nightly game show lineup played on low volume in the background - Wheel of Fortune, and then Jeopardy. Peter could remember muttering the answers under his breath while writing out equations and chemistry compounds. He, Ned, and MJ always had a group chat between them to talk about the night’s homework, his phone chirping at irregular but plentiful intervals. Ned would complain about how much they had to do. MJ would question their intelligence and then give the help they requested.

School was always an oasis for Peter, somewhere he excelled, even if not socially. The classroom gave him confidence.

But now when he stared at the white computer screen, watching it go black from inactivity, Peter could only hear Miles’s crying and Pepper’s comforting shushes, along with Morgan asking for yet another snack even though dinner was in 15 minutes. He’d long since stopped sending messages to the group chat after he saw the long chainlink of messages from him without any in return.

Watching his grades drop was hard, but trying to do schoolwork while remembering all he’d lost was unbearable some days. So he didn’t. He was sure that word would get back to the Starks about his failure eventually, but with all the chaos, contacting his guardians about falling grades wasn’t on the radar.

Clicking the submit button on an organic chemistry quiz that he just completed, but could recall none of the questions, Peter didn’t even react when his results came back with a score of 2/10. It felt like the failing grade just bounced off the depressive armor in which he’d cloaked himself.

Peter sat slumped in his desk chair, no desire to try another chapter or another subject.

Giving into the sudden longing for a sense of closeness and security (two things sorely lacking in his life as of late), Peter tentatively stuck his fingers to the wall, then his feet, and he climbed slowly, every muscle movement made with measured intention. Once on the ceiling, he braced himself in a corner and sighed, leaning into the embrace the corner offered him.

Lately, Peter noticed that he’d been warming up to his powers again. Where he’d cringed and felt physically nauseated by his mutations in the days directly following the incident with Morgan, Peter had begun missing them as if they were an entire set of limbs that he’d decided not to use. How they were a part of him, down to his very DNA - which they actually were.

And while he was still wary of being Spider-Man - having his mask blown off on the battlefield - taking Thanos’s fist directly to the face - nearly being sucked into the vacuum of space while saving Dr. Strange - Peter felt that allowing himself to enjoy his powers again was a positive step toward normalcy.

Though he did try to avoid squeezing anything, the memory of that day was still too visceral. And he avoided using them around Pepper, because he didn’t want to make her any more uncomfortable with him than she was already.

Perched upside down in the corner of his bedroom, arms wrapped securely but not painfully around himself, Peter tried to locate a space of peace in his mind - or even a place of not feeling awful - he would even take neutral.

But as he focused on his breathing, his spider-sense alerted him to an incoming visitor.

“Hey Peter…” Mr. Stark opened the door, his greeting already half out by the time he could see the inside of Peter’s bedroom before looking around quizzically at the empty, sloppily-made bed and the vacant swivel chair. With a note of panic, Peter eyed his computer screen and was grateful it had gone into sleep mode, or that 2/10 grade would still be visible.

“Ah, there you are kid.” Mr. Stark said when he finally thought to look up. Suddenly, even in the protection of his corner, Peter felt vulnerable. Nonsensically, he wanted to tuck himself further back, make himself smaller.

If Mr. Stark doesn’t want to worry about you then you should make damn sure that you’re nothing to worry about, Peter.

“Can you go ahead and drop down here or should I go get the broom?” It was hard for Peter to uphold his morose mood in the face of Mr. Stark’s snark. He couldn’t help the smile that tugged up on his lips.

Unsticking himself, Peter flipped over to land feet first in front of Mr. Stark, saying “Hey, Mr. Stark” midair. In that moment, it felt like the good ol’ days, when Peter was new to the superhero gig and would do anything for Iron Man to look in his general direction.

Like you wouldn’t do anything for Mr. Stark’s attention right now… get real, Parker. You’re still the same desperate wannabe, just with less reasons for anyone to pay attention to you.

“How’s it hanging up there, kid?”

Peter couldn’t help but scoff at the bad joke, at the mock-offense of Mr. Stark.

“Come on, I’m supposed to tell dad jokes now. It comes with the territory.” Peter only raised his eyebrows at the man, an amused smile tugging his lips against the gloomy mood in which he’d been cocooned.

“Sorry Mr. Stark. I just don’t want to enforce bad humor. Maybe try again next time?” The mock-offense continued, and this time Mr. Stark pointed a finger directly at him.

“I’ll have you know Mr.-Stuck-Up-Sense-of-Humor, that Morgan thinks I’m absolutely hilarious.”

“She also thinks it’s funny when Gerald farts, which is kind of the same level of humor as your Dad jokes.” Peter’s smile kept widening until his teeth were showing, and he was even laughing. He didn’t even want to think about how much he’d missed these tête-à-têtes with his mentor. All he wanted to do was enjoy it and soak up the attention.

“Well, in her defense, it is really funny when Gerald farts. Have you heard that thing? Like a trumpet concert.”

Peter’s laugh sputtered with intensity, and both he and Mr. Stark couldn’t contain their laughter. If anyone came in to ask them what was so funny, they would have to say that they were laughing at fart jokes. It was so childish, so infantile, so Mr. Stark.

“See, you do think I’m funny.” Crossing his arms over his chest, Mr. Stark claimed victory, and Peter didn’t even mind.

“Hey, so I came looking for you to see if you wanted to join me in the lab for a bit.”

Peter’s entire disposition perked up at the offer. While he’d told himself unequivocally that the previously offered lab time was not going to happen, and no, he wasn’t disappointed - deep down he’d still held out hope for it.

“Yeah, of-of course! That’s awesome Mr. Stark. Thank you!”

Peter practically bounded out of the room, part of himself still not fully believing in his good fortune. He’d been waiting for things to get better, for something to truly look up for him. And this could be the start of it. Peter wanted to believe that his persevering hopes were being rewarded.

“Let’s go kid. We gotta sneak out before Morgan finishes her juice pop.”

This was the family that Peter had been imagining when he came to live with the Starks. What he thought was ruined by his carelessness might still be obtainable. Peter could still have the family he’d dreamt about.

And for that moment, he was able to forget about the words “I don’t need to worry about you.”

_____

Mr. Stark wasn’t acting quite right, Peter decided soon after they’d arrived in the lab. He expected AC/DC in the background at the very least, and he wasn’t sure he’d ever been in the lab with no music at all.

It wasn’t just that though. The man himself was quieter than usual. Following their conversation about jokes in his bedroom, Mr. Stark had been almost completely silent, only muttering sarcastic quips. And even those didn’t land with quite the conviction that Peter was accustomed to.

He decided that it was his own expectations that were the problem here, and calibrated them to be happy with whatever time he got to spend one-on-one with Mr. Stark.

Running his hand over the workbench’s smooth metal, Peter turned to his mentor and asked what they would be working on? Iron Man armor? Weapons? Stark Pad? Something new and top-secret?

But when he saw the glint in Mr. Stark’s eyes extinguished, how the man wouldn’t quite look him in the eye, and the smile that had turned regretful, Peter’s stomach took a freefall.

“Come sit down over here, would you Pete?”

At the awkward reluctance of the request, Peter wanted to shake his head vehemently and refuse. The vivid flashback of May starting a conversation with a clone of those words sunk its jaws into his jugular, and for a moment, Peter felt like he couldn’t breathe. It was so similar to the asthma attacks he’d had as a child that the remains of that sensation bowled him over as well.

This must be the goodbye - and right after you’d stopped expecting it too. You’re a fucking fool, Peter. Played by your own impossible, improbable hopes.

Peter didn’t give any outward indication of the vicious howling in his mind as he obeyed, sitting down reticently on the stool.

“What’s up Mr. Stark?” It took everything he had to speak normally and to subdue the frightened squeak that so wanted to escape.

“Oh, nothing much kid. Just a little bit of everything, you know.” The vagueness was maddening. The beating around the bush even more so. Mr. Stark’s face was entirely transparent with the need to say something, and from the wrinkles etched with concern, and the slightly nerve-wracked expression - it wasn’t something pleasant.

More and more, Peter’s fears about being asked to leave were being confirmed.

What else could it be? A trial run of several months had shown that he wasn’t a good fit in the Stark family, no matter how much he wanted and tried to be.

Any semblance of a casual atmosphere had evaporated, leaving dread, trepidation, and helplessness for Peter, and what looked akin to guilt for Mr. Stark.

Why wouldn’t the man just say something? His bitter inner voice snapped back.

Put me out of my misery, please. Then I can begin the work of scrubbing away this special shame of thinking I could belong to a family.

“Do you want to talk about something, Mr. Stark?” Peter said with feigned calmness, trying to expedite the process of what was about to happen to him. The less drawn out it was, the better.

Getting May to tell him the truth was a similar feeling to lifting the debris from that warehouse. It took days, nearly a dozen conversations, and superhuman effort to get her to admit that he no longer had a place in her life.

“Yeah kid,” the defeat and regret were deafening. “Pepper and I have been talking, and…”

Peter sucked in a deep breath, his lungs pressing against his sternum. He braced every single muscle, as if anticipating a physical attack from all sides. He willed his eyes to stay open.

“We think it would be best to bind your powers.”

Chapter Text

“What?” Peter croaked, knowing that he’d heard right, but his mind refusing to believe the words, and what they meant when strung together.

He couldn’t even look at Mr. Stark anymore, craning his neck so sharply that his chin tucked into his chest. The shame in which he’d prematurely let flush through his system in anticipation of being asked to leave was being repurposed for the shame of feeling inhuman, like a monster foaming at the mouth. Not to be trusted and ready to tear at any hand that reached out to him.

“Um, Pepper and I just think it would be best for… for everyone right now, if your powers were bound. You know, for the time being.”

Peter grimaced, hearing both the words and what was actually being conveyed by them. It wasn’t very much like Mr. Stark to speak so hesitantly, lacking the dazzling self-confidence that put him in absolute control of nearly every conversation he was in.

“Is this because of what I did to Morgan?” And the dead air drowned out any auxiliary noise in the lab - whirs, beeps, the air moving through the HVAC system - none of it could pierce through Peter’s dashed hope of Mr. Stark assuring him with utmost sincerity that, no, it wasn’t that he did anything to Morgan. All he did was try to save her.

“Listen bud, things are just really difficult right now - like more difficult than sitting down to read the Sokovia Accords difficult - more difficult than Thor not showing off his biceps any chance he gets,” Peter didn’t rise to the humor clearly intended to lighten the mood. When Mr. Stark began again, it was with several degrees of solemnity.

“And Pepper, she’s- she’s really struggling, kid. I’m doing my best, and I know you are too, kiddo. And you’re doing a great job, really. But after what happened, and, um, with two little ones around, accidents- they just happen.”

Peter heard what Mr. Stark was truly saying, loud and clear.

“We don’t trust you. You’re a menace and a threat - and if you want to stay here, you can’t have your powers because you can’t control them.”

“Look at it this way, Pete - we’re just childproofing you.” Mr. Stark was blatantly trying to inject humor into the situation, most likely to try and ease the atmosphere of wet concrete that pressed down on them. But it was the wrong thing to say, as Peter’s head wrenched up and he stared at his mentor/guardian, heart thrumming in disbelief that the man would try to make light of something so… life-changing. Something so personal to Peter. His powers were who he was, running through him like joists, keeping his life structurally sound when everything else was falling apart so spectacularly around him.

“Come on Pete, can you say something? Tell me what’s going on in that oversized brain of yours?”

Peter didn’t really think Mr. Stark would actually want to know what was really going on inside of him. How he wanted to scream, to tear his hair out, to throw the socket wrench that sat so idly, so temptingly on the table next to his hand. How he wanted to bemoan and complain about every injustice, perceived or otherwise, and complain that it wasn’t fair! Just like how Morgan did when she didn’t get to go hiking right when she wanted, or eat exactly what she wanted for dinner.

But Peter knew that he would never do any of those things. Not only were they not in his nature, but they weren't within the scope of his rights either. He had no leverage to bargain here. As a mutant within a normal family (as normal as Tony Stark’s family could be), Peter’s mind blanked on reasons why he should insist on keeping his powers. Or, reasons to keep his powers that weren’t selfish in nature.

It wasn’t like he’d shown substantial control over them in the post-snap, or been mature and responsible in his usage of them in the pre-snap. And as much as he wanted to assure Mr. Stark that what happened with Morgan would never happen again, there was no way to know he could keep that promise.

What if he tripped while holding Miles and squeezed him too hard? - Of course, that would require him to actually get to hold the infant; which was just an entirely separate can of worms.

Would Pepper be more comfortable with him if he agreed to have his powers bound? More importantly, would he be more of a part of the family if he didn’t have his powers? And most importantly, would they like him more, maybe even love him, if his powers were bound and he wasn’t a threat to their safety?

“You’re killin’ me here Underoos,” Mr. Stark stared at him earnestly, a dash of begging apparent in his desperation. “Say something, kid. Anything.”

Peter swallowed back the maelstrom of upset that wanted to spew out in a giant, ugly mess that would do nothing to help anybody. His feelings didn’t matter here and now. They certainly hadn’t mattered when he asked May to reconsider, that he would miss her too much…

“How?” The deadened, vacant quality in his question surprised even himself. And when Mr. Stark’s face brightened, taking his question as a leaning-toward-positive development, Peter felt some unidentifiable, but inexplicably important part of himself wither and shrivel like an old corn husk.

“Uh, well…” Mr. Stark started with a hint of a smile he was clearly trying to keep under wraps. “I worked with Brucie Bear; you know that he’s better with the ooey-gooey science-y stuff. And he, uh, he said that the most promising strategy would be to inject you with a serum that would block any non-human components of your DNA from being expressed.”

Betrayal and realization clashed with each other, causing his stomach to lurch. Dr. Banner thought this was for the best too? As quickly as the betrayal had flared, it ran through its fuel and Peter’s mind came to understand why the scientist would have agreed to help, and it made a crushing amount of sense.

Of course Dr. Banner would support the ability to suppress unwanted and dangerous mutations.

Well, Peter reasoned with himself, at least it was less obvious and far less crude than the solution than he’d immediately envisioned. A collar, probably thick and metal, with a blinking red light. A device that would either suppress his inhuman DNA or perhaps even shock him if he used his abilities.

An injection seemed like a minimal evil. Sure, needles sucked and what remained of his pride wouldn’t allow him to ask for a reassuring hand to hold while he endured it. But the ways in which binding his powers could be worse seemed infinite.

At his continued silence, Mr. Stark jumped back into his persuasive monologue.

“This isn’t permanent Peter. Bruce said that we would start small to see how you react, and then if it’s working and your body seems to tolerate it, then we can come up with a more accurate dosage for you.”

But at that point, it wasn’t even the science or the gritty details of how binding his powers would work. As it became acutely apparent how much thought and planning had gone on behind his back, Peter just felt deeply sad. To the Stark family, to Bruce Banner, he wasn’t Peter Parker - someone just trying to fit in and not cause trouble - to be part of a family. He was a collection of problems needing to be solved. A laundry list of things that needed to be corrected before he could be allowed to live among innocent people.

There was nothing that Peter felt like he could say without either exploding into an uncontrollable, chaotic disaster or a pathetic puddle of upset. So he remained quiet until he felt he had a reasonable grip on himself and he looked from the floor to Mr. Stark, who’s agonized desperation yanked on his heartstrings like pulling the curtain on a stage.

“What happens,” Peter started, his voice hoarse and scraped, before stopping to collect himself. Running his tongue over his lips, he tried again. “What happens if I say no?”

“Pete… please.” Peter braced himself for the pleas for him to sacrifice a part of himself.

“I know things are difficult for you around here. I know that, kiddo. Newborns are no joke, Morgan’s adjusting to being a big sister, and Pepper is having a hard recovery. You’ve been such a huge help around here, and I know I don’t say it much Peter, because of all the chaos, but we really appreciate all that you do.”

Peter’s taut, self-protective posture fought to stay rigid when Mr. Stark reached a pleading hand, his good hand, out to rest on his shoulder.

“But please, we need you to do this for us. Pepper, she’s- she is uncomfortable with you around the kids right now. And I know you’d never hurt them on purpose. I know that. You’re such a great kid, Peter.”

Peter heard the subsequent “but” before it rolled off Mr. Stark’s tongue. He closed his eyes, wanting to be anywhere but here. He wanted the floor to open up and for him to fall down a dark abyss. He wanted to curl up like a pill bug until his body was done living. Peter wanted to… he wanted to be able to see himself through everyone else’s lens, so he could see why Peter Parker was never quite enough.

“We just think that this will make everyone more comfortable. Including you.”

Peter shut his eyes against the hot blade of manipulation plunging itself into his gut. All at once he was sad, guilty, angry, remorseful, and helpless.

Mr. Stark hadn’t answered his question about what would happen if he didn’t bind his powers, which gave him all he needed to know about what would happen.

Most likely, he would be asked to leave, which had been his ugliest fear since arriving on their doorstep in the first place, suddenly a six-year-old boy again who knew that his Mom and Dad weren’t coming back for him and that Uncle Ben and Aunt May didn’t have to let him stay with them.

The roar of Ben and May’s one argument (or at least, the only one he witnessed) about taking him in snarled intrusively.

“We don’t have to do this Ben!”

“Of course we do. He’s my blood. My brother’s son.”

“This wasn’t our plan. He wasn’t part of our plan.”

“The plan changed, May.”

And if the Stark family didn’t immediately tell him to pack his bags, then how much longer would he be able to take living, or rather, existing on the outskirts of the family as he had been since Morgan’s incident?

Since the dreary, windy, wet day that Happy had dropped him off at the lake house, Peter had been all too aware that this was his last chance at a family. He’d been beyond lucky to get a second chance even, so he would do anything to hold on to the third chance.

Mr. Stark’s request really wasn’t a request at all, Peter came around to acknowledging. What it really was, he struggled to admit to himself, was an ultimatum.

Bind your powers or leave.

Bind your powers and have a family, or refuse and find somewhere else to live.

It was with a wheezing, tight inhale and stinging, blurry eyes that Peter finally nodded and quietly muttered that he would do it. He would do it for Mr. Stark because he couldn’t say no to the man. And he would do it for the little boy who sat huddled in the room next to his aunt and uncle fighting, curled up and crying over both the loss of his parents and the fear that he would be sent away.

Back then Peter would have done anything for a family. And the same was true now.

_____

After Peter conceded and agreed to have his powers bound, it felt like someone had hit the fast-forward button on everything around him. Mr. Stark brusquely pulled him into a hug, the first since the battlefield, and then started talking a mile a minute while motioning toward an area farther back in the garage-lab, an area Peter hadn’t seen before and hadn’t known existed. It made sense that there was more that he was kept in the dark about, Peter thought morosely, the resentment of Mr. Stark and Pepper making this decision for him, without him, whipping through him and leaving angry black lashes in its wake.

The tense, worried, anxious man from only minutes before was gone in a blink, replaced by the confident, self-assured genius, billionaire, (reformed playboy), philanthropist, that people thought of when they heard the name “Tony Stark.”

“Okay Underoos,” Mr. Stark said with a whistle, his arm gesturing toward what looked like one of the stainless steel tables utilized in the rest of the lab, covered in a white sheet and with a tray of sterile-packaged medical utensils situated next to it tauntingly.

“Hop up here and we can get this show on the road.”

In that instant, Peter thought he could feel his heels sinking into the smooth concrete floor with how resistant he was to move.

This was all planned. It was all set up before he’d even been asked. When Mr. Stark had asked him to come down to the lab for some catch-up time, his entire motive was to strip Peter of his powers and neutralize him as a threat.

Staring wide-eyed and stricken at the table, Peter had never felt less human and more like a science experiment.

It made him wonder what would have happened if he had actually refused. From the looks of this set up, Mr. Stark had been certain that he’d be amenable. And from Peter’s years of knowing the man, he was aware that Tony Stark usually ended up getting what he wanted.

Peter’s mind conjured up a graphic film strip of Mr. Stark’s nano-tech armor spreading over him in slow motion. The glowing white eyes and stern frown of the Iron Man helmet staring at him intimidatingly before Mr. Stark’s voice echoed, “It didn’t have to be like this, kid.” And then Iron Man launched an attack as brutal in its efficiency as it was in its physicality, restraining him so he could forcefully inject him with the orange-tinged liquid.

Several rapid blinks and the snapping of Mr. Stark’s fingers in successive fashion anchored him back to reality, which was unfortunately not too much more pleasant than his terrible delusion.

This time, when Mr. Stark asked him if he was okay, he didn’t even bother nodding his head, opting to just get on the table and get it over with. Sitting on the metal, he could feel its icy veneer through the thin sheet. Absently (or maybe just an effort for his mind to dissociate), Peter thought that he’d never seen such thin, scratchy sheets in the vicinity of Mr. Stark.

Still as a statue, his legs dangling like concrete entities, Peter awaited further instructions, which Mr. Stark sounded more than happy to give. Peter wasn’t sure if it was just his own hopefulness that added the hesitant, regretful crack at the end of the request to lay down on his stomach.

His spider-sense setting his nerves alight, Peter asked ambivalently if Mr. Stark was qualified to do this. He wasn’t a medical professional.

“Don’t worry kiddo, you’re in good hands, I promise. Brucie bear showed me all the ropes and he even made me practice on myself. Not that me and needles have a problem with each other or anything. Did I ever tell you about the prehensile armor that I developed back in, I dunno, 2013 or something? I had to embed these little chips everywhere I wanted the armor to land. And it was a lot of armor, let me tell you, kid. The pelvic armor still gives me night terrors…”

Mr. Stark’s characteristic rambling typically would have been comforting to Peter. In the past he would have listened to every word in fascination, as if Mr. Stark hung the moon and every single star in the sky. But now, he knew it was just a coverup, a ploy to make what was happening more palatable.

The effort it took Peter to remain still and prone on the lab table turned medical procedure table was monumental. It was almost as if he and the table were made up of opposing magnetic materials, and Peter was only able to keep himself in contact with the surface was through sheer force.

He flinched substantially when he felt the bottom of his shirt being pushed up his torso, revealing his lower back. It didn’t matter that he’d been anticipating the touch. Nothing about this was fine. Or even okay. Or could be considered calm and comfortable. The warm weight of Mr. Stark’s hand between his shoulder blades did nothing to calm him.

Mr. Stark was explaining what he was doing, but Peter wasn’t hearing any of it. After Mr. Stark’s explanation about the lack of suitable anesthetic that his metabolism wouldn’t burn through like a dry pine tree lit with a match (his one regret about the procedure apparently?), Peter didn’t want to hear anything more. He was trying not to feel any of it either. The wet, cold sensation of an alarmingly large area of his lower back being sterilized. Mr. Stark’s fingers poking and prodding around the area for the right injection site. The terrifyingly long and thick-gauged needle’s point resting against his skin the moment before being pushed into his anatomy.

Peter just sucked in a gulp of air, closed his eyes, and pictured himself as part of the happy scenes of the Stark family. Passing dishes around the dinner table as Morgan chattered on and everyone laughed at her outlandish stories. Movie night where he was allowed to be close to, maybe even curl into an adult who cared for him. Even his ridiculous pipe dream of one day calling them Mom and Dad, and Morgan and Miles his sister and brother, Peter allowed himself to indulge in as the needle just kept going in further until it scraped against bone.

Peter gasped in a shocked agony, to which Mr. Stark assured him that they were almost done. Just a little more and it would all be over.

If this is what it takes.

He gritted his teeth and tried not to scream as the needle plunged impossibly deeper into him. The needle breaching the bone and sinking into the spongy marrow nearly made him sick, but he managed to swallow back the bile that gagged him. What Peter wasn’t able to hold back were the hot tears that welled up and spilled down his cheeks and dripped off his chin. Though whether they stemmed from the physical pain or the emotional pain, he couldn’t know.

_____

After the procedure to bind his powers, Peter was too exhausted and wrung out to stay in Mr. Stark’s presence for longer. Really, he had a million and one questions running through his head that he seriously regretted not asking before allowing a giant needle to pierce him and inject him with what Mr. Stark called the “anti-super-soldier serum.”

But Peter felt like he was coming apart at the seams. His skin unknitting itself from his muscles. His very muscles coming unraveled from his bones. It was not unlike how he felt on Titan.

He didn’t even care if Mr. Stark dismissed him after he said that they were all done. Peter was choking on a sob that needed to be let free, and he didn’t want it to be in front of his mentor? Father-figure? Guardian? Whatever Mr. Stark was to him at that moment.

So he ignored the advice to lay down for a few minutes, and was he okay? Did he feel faint? Or sick? Did he feel any different, like it was working?

The pain in his lower back was searing and excruciating. It was a new pain, one that he was unfamiliar with, even during his tenure as New York’s famed web-slinging vigilante. This pain was unfathomably deep and just felt wrong.

On the way back into the lake house, through the door and up to his room, Peter hiccuped against the sobs that wanted desperately to break free. It was only once he was behind the safety of his closed door that he crawled gingerly into his bed, too achy to dive under the blankets like he wanted, that Peter let the full breadth of his upset out into the open.

With his pillow held over his head, he opened his mouth to scream soundlessly into the sheets.

How had things gone so wrong? When was the moment that it had all gone so wrong for him? When was that one specific time that if he had done just one thing differently, that things would have turned out better for him?

Peter agonized over the loaded question, tracing the binding of his powers back to hurting Morgan, and tracing that back to his carelessness, his carelessness back to being distracted by May’s choice to have him stay with the Starks. And then, and then, and then.

All of his problems were knotted together into a messy snarl, unable to be separated from one another and scrutinized without finding another obscure reason to explain how he’d ended up here.

Once Peter silently screamed himself into a throbbing headache, he let the fatigue press him down into the bed, making his limbs feel like jelly. His back didn’t hurt any less. If anything, the pain was even more fierce now, the type of pain similar to getting a flu shot, only magnified a thousand times.

Sniffling and coughing away the remnants of his crying, Peter delicately rolled to his side to reach his phone charging on the bedside table. To his surprise, he had a notification. Two, no- three notifications.

A text from Rhodey: Hey kid, just checking in on you. Wanted to see how big bro life was treating you. You can call or text me anytime. XOXO - War Machine

Peter couldn’t help but snicker at the message’s signature. Next, he saw that the missed call was from Rhodey, which meant that the voicemail was also from him.

Hey there, Pete. Just calling to see how you’re doing. I know it’s probably chaotic over there, so if you ever want to take a break from the kids, schoolwork, or whatever keeps teenage superheroes busy these days, just give me a call. Send me a text to let me know you’re okay, got it?

Despite the caring messages from someone who seemed genuinely concerned about just him, Peter was left sorrowful. Rhodey had such good intentions, and he was reaching out when no one else in Peter’s life was, but he had no idea what things were like for him. And Peter wasn’t in a hurry to tell him. It was just too humiliating to tell Rhodey just how wrong he was about the family, Spider-Man, and just about everything else he thought about Peter.

So he didn’t respond as awfully as the guilt churned thickly in his gut. Peter couldn’t bring himself to respond to the text, nevertheless actually call back. The mental gymnastics had twisted, turned, and flipped around so much that Peter was even convinced that responding would be putting a burden on Rhodey.

Acutely remorseful, but unable to do anything to make it better, Peter dropped his phone and closed his eyes. He hated ignoring the messages, the only helping hand that had been extended to him in months. But it didn’t matter. Talking to Rhodey would mean either telling him what life was actually like right now, or deceiving him by faking that it was all fine and dandy.

Both options were unpleasant and exhausting to consider.

As Peter closed his eyes, wishing adamantly for a long and peaceful sleep to release him from the suffering in his mind and body, he wondered when he would start to feel the effects of his powers being bound. And whether it would hurt. And if it did, how terrible would he feel?

If this is what it takes. This is worth it. Worth a family.

Chapter Text

Back when Peter had been bitten by a radioactive spider at Oscorp, the onset of the changes in his body (what he later knew to be his very DNA altering and developing his powers), happened relatively quickly. He was bitten in the afternoon and by the next morning, he was muscular, he stuck to things, he could breath fully without wheezing, his sight was clear and sharp, and he could hear Mrs. Enriquez on the second floor feeding her cats (and he swore he could smell the tuna-flavored pellets too, oddly enough).

That transformation had been quick and agonizing. Through the night, Peter had thought his skin turned to hot coals, then to slushy ice, and finally to vellum as he was sure if anyone even touched him that it would tear a giant hole in him. His not wanting to be touched was the hardest thing for his Uncle Ben. The man had been forced to sit on the sidelines of his suffering, watching and not even being able to reach out a comforting hand to his shivering, nearly convulsing nephew.

The entire situation had been dramatic to say the least.

So Peter suspected that it would happen that way when reversing his powers. Anxiously, Peter waited for his tepid misery to take a sharp tumble off a steep cliff into a horrific abyss. Cocooned under his comforter, he laid curled into a ball, biding his time before it began. During this interlude, Peter slipped into the wispy, fluid state between being asleep and awake. That bizarre existence when his thoughts were still his own, but he wasn’t aware of anything else around him.

When someone knocked on his door, he startled wildly, jerked back toward the side of wakefulness, Peter was confounded that he wasn’t yet feeling the physical effects of altering his DNA. Surprisingly enough, it was Pepper who had come to check up on him. When she told him that dinner was ready, Peter faltered and muttered that he wasn’t hungry, just tired. Peter wasn’t ready to face anyone. Not with the shellshock and horror that still felt like it bled from his eyes, nose, and ears all at once. Not when he had to actively shove away the reminder of how the needle felt sliding deeper and deeper, so deep he was afraid he would be run through.

After Pepper told him to get some rest and feel better, closing his door behind her, Peter’s rage inflated in his chest like a hot air balloon. Suddenly he wished he could spit venom at her. The most civil she’d been with him since before the incident with Morgan, and it directly followed having his powers sheared away. Bitterness crept up his throat, leaving a corrosive aftertaste.

Wasn’t this exactly what he had wanted? Peter had been hoping for kindness and acceptance, or at least civility and cordial acknowledgement from Pepper from the moment they’d gotten home from the hospital with Morgan’s arm in a bright purple cast. When it became overly apparent that those hopes were nowhere within his reach, hadn’t Peter started, unconsciously maybe, to find ways to make amends and earn her favor again?

Wasn’t being included as a real part of family dinner a fantasy he’d indulged in during the procedure to convince himself that everything he was enduring was worth it?

And now Pepper smiled kindly at him, spoke to him gently. Offering him what he wanted so accurately that she may have been reading his mind. And all he could do was decline miserably and try to push down his fury.

What you wanted was for Pepper to love you for you. All parts of you. What you wanted was for her to act like your mom too. To love you like she loves her children.

The truth was as easy to read as a flashing neon pink and green billboard. Whatever Peter’s place with the Stark family was - son, brother, ward, charity case - it didn’t matter, because it was conditional.

_____

Around one week after the initial injection, Peter started to notice the physical changes of his body reacting to the power-suppressing serum in different waves.

It wasn’t like when he’d been bitten, when it all happened in one fell swoop. Slowly, one by one, Peter could see and feel himself reverting to the Peter Parker he’d been pre-spiderbite.

The first thing he noticed was that he began dropping things almost constantly. Mr. Stark would jestingly call him “butterfingers,” and Peter would half-heartedly chuckle along like it wasn’t significant. It was after Peter went to lift an overstuffed laundry basket and he couldn’t budge it with his average effort that he realized that the changes were happening. Drawing further on his strength, he lifted the basket, but Peter was rattled by how he had to grit his teeth and heave the basket up the stairs.

And in the same instance, when Peter stopped focusing on his task for only a moment, he dropped the basket, his grip slipping like the handles had been suddenly slicked with oil. The basket tumbled back down the stairs, clean clothing falling and scattering along the stairwell like confetti.

It was then that Peter realized how unconscious his restraint of his enhanced strength and sticky characteristics had become in his tenure as Spider-Man. At age 14, a crash course, or more accurately, a crush course in how strong he actually was, had forced Peter to develop a way to rein in his strength constantly. Breaking the handle on the refrigerator was only acceptable as an accident one time. And the scenario with his stickiness was almost identical. Somewhere along the line, Peter no longer had to hyper-focus on holding back his strength and not sticking to objects because his restraint had become second nature.

And now that those qualities were leaving him, his loose grips and soft touches didn’t make him appear normal, only weak.

Peter had been startled enough by witnessing the changes that he’d gone to Mr. Stark to ask him some of the questions that, had he been in his right mind (and not completely ambushed and horrified by his favorite past-time being irreparably ruined), he would have asked before the procedure.

Most pressingly…

Mr. Stark, how will we know if it’s working how it should? And Mr. Stark, is this going to just weaken my powers, or will they just be gone?

Peter had felt like a scared, timid child asking those questions. Afraid of the answers, but more afraid of going through the changes alone and without knowing any of what to expect.

But how Mr. Stark looked at him, so fondly, actually looking happy to see him and to help, Peter’s apprehension had dropped a few degrees. Without a doubt, he was still angry and upset to a degree that he hadn’t thought possible, but wasn’t acceptance from the Starks the entire reason he’d undergone that hellish, humiliating procedure?

So why was it so reflexive to push back against the kindness and acceptance tossed his way?

Because. It. Is. CONDITIONAL. Last week they thought you were a monster. This week they act like nothing untoward had ever happened between them. What’s the difference, Peter? Close your eyes and think real hard and I’m sure you can come up with the answer.

Still, though the thick, polluted sludge of his emotions, Peter plastered a smile on his face and followed Mr. Stark, recoiling when he saw they were headed back to the lab.

“Don’t worry Underoos. No needles this time, I promise. Scouts honor.”

How casually the man referred to hacking away a big part of what made Peter himself, Peter’s nostrils flared. He wanted to yell and pout and scream and stomp about every unfair thing until his throat was raw and his voice was ruined. Peter wanted to pound his fist into the floor to see which would crack first, the concrete floor or his hand.

It’s not fair. It’s not fair. IT’S NOT FAIR.

But he didn’t do any of that. Dutifully, he’d followed Mr. Stark back to the lab, hating the sensation that he was walking into a punishment. How excited he’d been only a few days ago when he thought Mr. Stark wanted to spend time with him. It was hard for Peter to deflect the shame and urge to blame himself for falling for what was now clearly just a ruse.

How had he been to know that he was walking into a trap? Mr. Stark had used the only place aside from his room that he felt at ease and flipped it upside down into a haunted house of horrors. In the end, Peter did not blame himself for being so hopeful for that opportunity to spend time with Mr. Stark.

Still, the experience hiked up his cautiousness around the man who he’d used to try to be as close to as possible. Peter followed a few strides behind instead of walking next to him. When Mr. Stark asked him something, his answers were clipped and vague.

It wasn’t like Peter wanted to distance himself from the closest thing he had to a parental figure, but he wasn’t eager to let himself be crushed again either.

Back in the lab, Mr. Stark had explained genially how he’d developed a battery of tests for Peter to undergo so they could get some baseline readings of his abilities, and then do the tests again in a week to see if the numbers were moving in the “right” direction.

The direction that makes it so you won’t be able to hurt anybody.

With each test Peter’s shame only escalated as his fear of being experimented on became a reality. Peter had always feared one day he would be captured, maybe by the scientists at Oscorp, and experimented on like a lab rat. His entire being reduced to numbers and charts. He’d never expected that the one doing the experimenting to determine those numbers would be someone with whom he’d placed the entirety of his trust.

With the casual attitude of how the man asked Morgan which movie she wanted to watch, Mr. Stark measured his grip strength, asked him to climb a wall (which took far more concentration than usual), had him throw, lift, jump, do push ups, sit ups, pull ups, and more. If there had been a treadmill present, he was Mr. Stark would have asked him to run as well.

All while Mr. Stark asked FRIDAY to note the numbers from each test. Every time FRIDAY replied “Got it boss,” Peter was flummoxed by how he could feel so betrayed by an A.I. It seemed like Gerald may be his final ally in the household.

By the time Mr. Stark told him he’d gotten all the data he needed, Peter was wiped out and drenched with sweat that stung his eyes. His shoulders and knees already ached and trembled and his chest heaved with exertion. It was the type of exhaustion he would feel after a long, uninterrupted night of patrolling the streets of Queens, web-slinging and fighting crime for hours on end.. The type of exhaustion he’d felt after the Washington Monument debacle or the fight with the Vulture.

Not overly keen on letting Mr. Stark, or more accurately, Iron Man, see him in such a debilitated and drained state, he hastily muttered a lame excuse to leave. As quickly as he could hurry on his quavering, fatigued legs, Peter made his way toward the door.

“Hey kid,” Peter stopped his breath still shuddering, but did not turn around. “I’m proud of you.”

This time, Peter wasn’t sure if he wanted to sob or scream. Both urges were so strong and he felt his vocal cords vibrate with the beginnings of his rage and pain. Either reaction would be mortifying, Peter knew, so he eked out a breathy “thanks” before hastening his exit.

Again, Peter was struck by that paradoxical, tangled knot of getting exactly what he wanted but being too shattered by the price he’d paid to savor it. Hadn’t he always wanted Mr. Stark to be proud of him? He’d never even cared if it was as Peter Parker or Spider-Man - just the acknowledgement and admiration would have more than filled his cup.

And now here it was. So why did it feel like a punch to the sternum?

Maybe for the same reason that Pepper still didn’t want him anywhere near baby Miles. Because none of this was genuine. It was all an intricate, gaslighting game of charades. Like they were playing a game that Peter couldn’t keep up with, but when he asked for their help, they would insist that there was no game.

_____

The only person Peter didn’t hold ill-will toward for being kind to him (how crazy did that sound?) was Morgan. Morgan warmed back up to Peter at lightning speed, returning to wanting to play with him constantly and acting like nothing had ever happened between them like only a six-year-old could.

“Petey, come outside and catch bugs with me!”

“Will you take me to go see Gerald, Petey? Pretty please!”

“Let’s have juice pops for lunch! I won’t tell Daddy if you won’t.”

While he held burgeoning grudges for both Mr. Stark and Pepper, reacting lukewarm at best to their sudden change of attitude, Peter couldn’t bring himself to stay mad at Morgan. He didn’t blame Morgan for how she acted after what happened. And it wasn’t like Morgan’s parents encouraged her to treat him better.

Peter thoroughly enjoyed being back in her good graces though, remembering how playing with Morgan and taking care of her prevented him from dwelling on the unpleasant things that swooped down like vultures to pick at the meat on his bones.

Like Ned and MJ’s responses when he reached out to their group chat to tell the “F.O.S” or Friends of Spider-Man, that his powers were bound. Each of their responses had made him uncomfortable in their own way.

From Ned: “Dude, does this mean that Spider-Man isn’t a thing anymore?”

From MJ: “Why would Stark do that to you? You’re not the boogeyman.”

Or like how the anniversary of Uncle Ben’s death was fast approaching and May had been unresponsive to his messages asking her if she wanted to spend the day together like they always had. Or how she hadn’t actually responded to anything from him in nearly three weeks.

And the burning shame Peter felt with every kind, supportive message from Rhodey that he was still too embarrassed to respond to. Hell, at this point, Peter was too ashamed to even read the texts or listen to the voicemails. It was a vicious cycle as well, because with every single notification from Rhodey that Peter couldn’t bring himself to reciprocate, he was certain that it would be the last. That the man would give up on him. Why wouldn’t he? Peter was being unforgivably rude and horrendously ungrateful. He deserved to be given up on.

But the times that he did consider responding, Peter quickly thought better of it, the energy of keeping the facade up already exhausting him before even getting started. Rhodey clearly thought he was a different kid, a better kid, than he actually was. And Peter wasn’t keen on the possibility of getting closer to Rhodey and watching as the man realized this about him, and then having Rhodey retreat from his life too.

It was better if Peter kept on ignoring and Rhodey eventually stopped. At least then, Peter could blame his actions and not some foundational flaw within him that seemed to chase people away after knowing him for so long.

The irony that he was anxious and upset about Aunt May not responding to him while also determinedly not responding to Rhodey was not lost on Peter. But it did nothing to change his actions.

Sometimes when he needed a lift from a toxic, self-loathing mood, Peter would go through some of the older messages, the ones he knew were kind and supportive (he was terrified that the newer messages would be full of insults and vitriol for his disgraceful behavior, so he didn’t open them), and re-read them, imagining himself as the kid Rhodey saw - that better, fictional version of Peter.

All of these were the rabbit holes Peter felt trapped in trying to avoid, petrified he’d fall in and be stuck thinking about his parents deaths, or Bens, or how May didn’t want to be his family anymore, or how he was doing everything he could to convince Mr. Stark and Pepper to be his family now. And how even if he did convince them, he would always know how hard he’d had to try and just how conditional it was.

At least Morgan brought him a reprieve. And the times he could pretend he was her big brother helped soothe the raw, exposed nerve of what it took for him to have a family.

_____

“So how long did it take for your powers to show up in the first place?”

Relentlessly, Mr. Stark kept asking Peter question after question, trying to act casual while injecting him for the second time with the “anti-super-soldier serum” (Peter really wished he’d stop calling it that. He couldn’t pinpoint exactly why, but the term humiliated him.)

Suppressing the gasp of pain better this time around, knowing to anticipate the revolting sensation of the needle clashing with his bone and the agony of it being pushed deeper to where it didn’t belong, Peter waited until the worst wave of pain passed before answering.

“It was pretty much immediately. Overnight.” Peter tried not to tense against the pressure of the substance actually being injected, but it was too hard and he shivered against the coolness spreading through him like frost lining his veins.

“Gotcha,” he heard Mr. Stark say, just as all of the stimuli clashed and became unbearable and he was biting his lip and squeezing his eyes shut. “All done here. Great job kiddo.” It wasn’t even a relief for him when he felt the drawn out process of Mr. Stark removing the needle. Now he was just left with the excruciating ache in his back.

“So it’s not exactly a reversal then, is it?” Mr. Stark asked, but Peter pretended it was rhetorical and decided not to answer. It was two weeks after the first injection, the grisly occasion of being ambushed and given an uncleverly disguised ultimatum to bind his powers or leave, and Mr. Stark had him run through the battery of tests once more.

This time, as Mr. Stark recorded each result with a grimace, Peter was left feeling acutely like a failure and a disappointment, as well as completely wiped out. How could he be failing at having his powers bound?

After the round of grueling tests, Peter’s breathing was more akin to wheezing, though he tried to hide his defect. Apparently the numbers weren’t “moving as quickly toward the finish line as I’d hoped,” Mr. Stark reported back, pouring over the charts and data, projected versus actual. Apparently the first dose hadn’t done as much as he’d hoped.

Mr. Stark didn’t look quite as guilty this time when he asked Peter to get back on that godforsaken table to get stabbed in the back again. For Peter, it was thoroughly depressing how quickly this seemed to be becoming a routine. At times, Peter wished that the process had just been a reversal, just like how he’d gotten his powers. Sure, it would have been awful, he would have been sick, achy, feverish, verging on an agonizing death, but then it would have been over and there would be no more questions about whether or not his powers were suppressed enough that he could be considered a kid rather than some untrained feral animal.

Dizzily, Peter slid off the table, stumbling until Mr. Stark caught him by the bicep.

“Woah there Pete, take it easy. You okay?”

No no no! I’m not okay! It hurts and I was still sore from last time. Did you not see the enormous bruise or did you just not care? Clearly my healing is slowing down, so why aren’t you happy? Why don’t you care? I want you to care but I’m too afraid of being a problem and having you ask me to leave. I wanted to be your family, don’t you get that?

“Yeah, fine,” Peter muttered as Mr. Stark steadied him. As he tried to pull his arm away, he was instead led toward the couch where Mr. Stark had fallen asleep during their lab time - a time that felt an impossibly long stretch in the past now.

“Yeah, your pale face and shaky hands are really selling it.” He was released to tumble back gently onto the couch, but not even a soft landing on plush cushions could prevent the puncture in his back from sending a binding cramp up his spine and down his legs. When he hissed in pain, nearly whimpering, Peter wasn’t sure if he was more embarrassed or angry with himself.

“Want to try that lie again? I need you to really sell it this time, Parker. I can give you a couple minutes to rehearse?” A cold and wet water bottle arrived in his hands, along with a soft throw over his shoulders. Peter was so uncomfortable and a confusing temperature, clammy and sweaty, but also shivering with goosebumps spreading down his limbs. The contrast of the blanket and water help to neutralize him somewhat.

And Mr. Stark’s attention to him, his preemptive care and the way he pushed a damp strand of hair back from where it stuck to his hot forehead actually provided a measure of comfort. Though having that comfort did also make him realize how sorely he’d missed having it.

As much as he was embarrassed to admit it, he missed the physical affection of shoulder squeezes and pats on the back - really, any physical contact that didn’t involve stabbing into his bone marrow with a thick needle.

This time, when Peter said he was fine, and Mr. Stark affectionately rubbed up and down his arm he looked at the man with eyes glistening with admiration.

It takes so little to make you happy these days, Peter. How long is it going to be before you’re excited that he remembers your name? Pathetic. Pathetic. Pathetic.

But he really couldn’t help it. He still wanted Mr. Stark to be his parent. He still wanted to make the man proud and to be more than just a good deed charity case for the Stark family. So as much as Peter hated himself for it, he leaned into the familiar banter and contact, choosing to turn a blind eye to the circumstances that blurred and contorted anything kind about the gestures.

The pair sat in silence for several minutes, Peter not wanting to say anything to shatter the illusion of having what he wanted, with Mr. Stark’s good arm slung over his shoulders. If he squinted, like really, really squinted, this could be okay. He could adjust to this, right?

Of course he could. He’d adjusted before. After losing his Mom and Dad. After Ben’s passing. After coming back from being dead for five years. And besides, what choice did he have?

Peter leaned into Mr. Stark, his heart’s loud percussion finally relenting and the sweat on his forehead drying into a salty coating. The comfort was everything to him right now.

“Let’s get you back inside.” Peter protested, his eyes heavy and the ache in his back finally receding because of his stillness. “ I know kiddo, we’ll keep you resting Underoos. It would just be better if we did that inside.” Peter hated how the nickname made him wince now, but he didn’t protest.

“What do you say we wrangle that little gremlin and watch a movie?” And Peter wasn’t lying when he said that it sounded nice.

_____

That evening, after Miles was settled into his bassinet and Morgan came back downstairs after her bath, the family settled down in the living room for a movie of the little girl’s choosing. Much to Peter’s surprise, when she picked “Moana,” she asked him for his approval.

Peter had instantly agreed, in awe of her regard for him. How she made him feel included.

Peter had situated himself a good distance away from Morgan and her parents, trying to respect their boundaries just as much as he was trying to protect himself from any situation with the potential for rejection. But during the opening scene, as the Disney castle was appearing on the screen with the fireworks, Peter was struck dumb when the little girl launched herself at him.

“I’m watching with Petey!” Her decisive declaration, along with her vicinity to him caused Peter to spiral into a panic.

What if Mr. Stark or Pepper yelled at him for being close to her? What if they were still uncomfortable with him being around her? After all, his powers weren’t yet completely bound and Peter could ruin the entire evening by making Pepper uncomfortable?

Peter didn’t want to push Morgan away from him, but he was beyond terror-stricken that he would be scolded for being so close to her. It didn’t matter that she was the one who approached him, he was the one with the problematic powers.

But no objection came. The movie kept playing. Mr. Stark covered himself and Pepper in a warm blanket, and neither of them looked at him like he was committing a crime.

It was the first moment that Peter felt that surrendering his powers, getting experimented on, tested, injected, humiliated - was all worth it. He was being treated like part of the family instead looked at sideways like a looming threat.

Peter didn’t care in that moment that he could hear a crackle in his lungs, or that he had to squint to see what was happening in the movie, or even that Morgan felt like a much heavier weight on his lap than usual.

His sacrifice had finally returned its dividends. Peter was part of the family.

Chapter Text

"Miles will nap for three hours at a time right now, so once you have him down you should be good-to-go for awhile. Morgan is going through a phase where she doesn’t want to be inside. Like, at all. She will try to sneak out if you don’t keep an eye on her, but we also put FRIDAY in a few more places, like every single doorway and a few windows to try to convince her to stay inside and to let us know if she’s escaped.”

Peter laid in his bed, half-listening, half-not to Mr. Stark downstairs giving instructions to Rhodey. The same instructions that Pepper had relayed in fewer words and more detail a half-hour before.

“Remember that Morgan is allergic to strawberries but she will deny that and say she wants strawberry ice cream, which we don’t keep around the house anymore. Don’t fall for her tactics. And when Miles wakes up from his naps, he’s usually pretty grumpy for a few minutes before he’ll take his bottle. Just pat his butt and he’ll calm down. The harder the better. Don’t soft-hand the kid Rhodey, he’s a Stark, he can take it. But not too hard you know, because he’s still a baby-”

“I’ve got it, Tones. I can manage not to physically assault your child. It’s one of my most promising qualifications.” Rhodey said, his amusement and impatience blending into one entity, but still going over the worried Mr. Stark’s head. The man had been running around in a panic since before the sun rose that morning, making sure everything was ready for his and Pepper’s weekend away.

“I know Rhodey, and that’s why you’re the best candidate for the job.” A heavy shoulder-clap could be heard, though it sounded muffled and gauzy. “I’m afraid Cap would have used his shield as a bassinet, or tried to use logic and patience with Morgan. That would have been a disaster.”

Peter couldn’t agree more, holding back a laugh at the image of Steve using his serious, battle-speech tone with Morgan to tell her that dinner needed to be eaten at the table, not on the couch. It has been a battle every single meal time lately, and somehow, Peter didn’t think that Steve’s brand of plain, matter-of-fact persuasion would budge Morgan from her plans.

“Tony, If I could keep you alive during your college days, taking care of your offspring will be cake. Especially if they have an ounce of Pepper’s common sense. And besides, I’ve got the Spider-kid around to help.” There was a pause in the conversation, Peter heard, his brows and his ears perking up at the mention of him, his lackadaisical mode of listening abandoned.“Speaking of the kid… where’s your mini-me, Tony? He isn’t hanging from the ceiling or anything, right?”

“Eh, not at the moment. Pete hasn’t been feeling well lately. Bad bout of bronchitis that just keeps coming back for more. The doctor’s say that it hasn’t been pneumonia yet, but to keep an eye on him. Pep and I are obviously trying to keep him resting and away from the kids so he doesn’t hack his germs onto them.”

His interest piqued reluctantly, Peter moved from his nest of blankets on the bed to the closed door, laying his head down so he could hear more clearly the rushed conversation between Mr. Stark and Rhodey.

“Oh, that sucks for the kid. I didn’t know super-spiders could get sick like that.”

Unconsciously, Peter tried to hold his breath against his scratchy inhales and exhales. He wanted to hear with utmost clarity what Mr. Stark would say to Rhodey. Whether or not he would mention the binding Peter’s powers, or what led to it.

Sometimes, living out here in the lake house felt like they existed in their own little world, where nothing they did impacted the outside world, and likewise, nothing the outside world did touched them. Peter was well aware that everyone in the Stark house knew that he didn’t have his powers anymore. It was how they explained it to Morgan why Peter was allowed to give her piggyback rides again and hold Miles while he napped. The issue had become so commonplace that Peter had forgotten that other people didn’t yet know. And now, when confronted with it, Peter was curious whether Mr. Stark would admit openly to what had been done to him, or whether he’d skirt the question like it was a dirty, indecent secret.

“Spider-kid or not, he’s still a kid. And kids get sick. Our resident Mr. Parker is no exception.”

It was a clever workaround, Peter would admit disappointedly. No hint of a lie detected; just an omission of truth that put blame on no one and didn’t even come close to suggesting what had happened.

A dry cough ended his attempt at silence to better hear the conversation downstairs. Peter’s enhanced hearing was one of the first of his powers to disappear completely, everything else slowly seeing a slow decline. While the silence would probably be enjoyed as peaceful to most, Peter just found it eerie - like he had no idea what was going on around him. And how could he protect the Starks if…

You don’t protect them, remember? You never did. The most good you did was to give Morgan a broken arm instead of a concussion. Way to go, Avenger.

“Well, even if he’s sick I’m still looking forward to spending some time with him. All of my nieces and nephews need some Uncle Rhodey time.” Peter’s chest constricted from guilt, rather than congestion this time. He’d been almost certain that Rhodey wouldn’t want anything to do with him after all of the ignored messages and calls. Peter’s plan for while Rhodey watched the kids was just to hunker down in his room to avoid the unbearable awkwardness of having essentially ghosted the man.

“I wouldn’t get your hopes up too far there Honeybear. The kid hasn’t exactly been in the mood for company lately. He’s been up in his room most of the time. Pretty quiet. Maybe doing schoolwork. Maybe solving a murder mystery. Maybe just watching that clock app, or whatever it is.”

“Tik Tok?” Rhodey suggested.

“Hey, quit trying to push me out the door here. Pepper said we don’t have to leave until ten after.”

Peter wished he could see the deadpan face that he imagined on Rhodey’s face at that moment.

“Yeah...” Rhodey replied, not bothering to address the other man’s cluelessness, but Mr. Stark jumped back in.

“Oh don’t look at me like that Platypus. Of course I know what Tik Tok is. I own the largest technology company in the world. I’m not clueless like Cap. What I don’t know is why teenagers act the way they do, so I don’t know why mine is suddenly holed-up in his room like a mole person. Good luck with that.”

Despite the affirmation of Mr. Stark’s declaration of ownership, Peter grimaced and retreated back to his bed and under his covers, not in the mood to listen any further. He was sure Mr. Stark’s words weren’t meant to be scathing, that was how they felt when they sunk into him.

Mr. Stark didn’t know why he’d withdrawn so suddenly and completely? Aside from his stubborn illness, for which Peter had obeyed Pepper’s wishes for him to keep away from baby Miles, Peter had been dealing with far more than he’d shared with Mr. Stark. Of course, it wasn’t like the man had done much digging beyond the surface.

“You’re looking down there, Peter Piper. Something eating your peck of pickled peppers?”

“No, just tired.”

His response had been so lame and so sluggish, but Mr. Stark hadn’t bothered questioning him any further. The dismissiveness had stung, but Peter had scolded himself for even entertaining that he was in the right.

He asked you if you were okay (in sort of a roundabout way, but he did), and you said no. If you wanted to talk to him about it, you had your chance. Don't blame him for listening to exactly what you said. Don’t play games, Peter. It’s manipulative.

Still, Peter fondly looked back on the times when Mr. Stark would relentlessly ask and ask him to tell him what was wrong when he had been tired or hungry or beaten up from patrol or behind on his homework, or all of the above. He would ask so much that it was annoying. So insistent that the man had threatened to call “Aunt Hottie” to tell her that her little baby boy had a boo boo and needed a nap and a bottle of warm milk.

Peter slammed the door of his mental safe shut on the memories of his aunt before addressing the remainder of the amusing memory. Back then, he’d been Mr. Stark’s only “ward,” or “kid,” - the semantics didn’t mean anything - Peter been the only person whose care that Mr. Stark had taken responsibility for. With that in mind, it made sense that the man would badger and bother him about the finer details of his life with the persistence of a bored kid on a road trip asking if they were there yet.

Now, the circumstances were different. There was a standing list of people whose needs came before his and Peter knew that and was okay with it. Mr. Stark needed to tend to Miles because he spit up on Pepper three times in a row and she needed a break. Mr. Stark needed to read stories to Morgan because he did the voices the best and that was her bedtime routine. Mr. Stark needed to spend time with his wife and make sure that she was getting the help and support she needed after having their baby.

And if all of that was checked off, then Mr. Stark deserved to take care of himself for a long while before asking Peter for the real reason why he was so sad and withdrawn. And if, during that time when Mr. Stark was caring for himself, one of those other people needed him, well then Peter would go ahead and knock himself down the list of priorities so he wouldn’t have to see it done to him first.

So Peter wasn’t exactly forthcoming with how upset he was that the anniversary of Uncle Ben’s passing was tomorrow, and he couldn’t be upset with Mr. Stark for not knowing. It was like telling people it was your birthday, Peter mused. You hope people will remember and if they don’t, it just feels cheap and attention-seeking to bring up.

“I don’t need luck. I have that irresistible Colonel James Rhodes charm. Peter won’t be able to resist laughing at that joke about the tank Boom, you lookin’ for this?.”

Though he had to strain to hear the conversation by this point, as the bags and suitcases were being maneuvered toward the door, Peter couldn’t help but smile about not being easily dismissed and forgotten.

“I wouldn’t be so sure. Sometimes I think that his sense of humor was one of his superpowers, because it disappeared along with the rest of—”

“Tony, how many times did I tell you that if we weren’t out the door by five that Happy will make you and your bags switch places on the jet?” Pepper’s interlude came in, urgent and jesting all at once.

“No, you told me ten after!”

“I said that Happy wanted us on the main road by ten after, out of this big hexagon of “off-the-grid” that you’re so fond of.”

Pepper and Mr. Stark continued their bickering, though it was more playful than not. It was common knowledge that Pepper was the detail-oriented one between the couple and that Mr. Stark was notorious about being late to everything. She hadn’t been his personal assistant for nothing, after all.

Over the din of the bags being taken outside and Pepper offering a few last minute reminders to Rhodey, he heard her ask Mr. Stark if he’d said goodbye to the kids yet.

“Yep, hugged, kissed, informed what they're getting in my will if I don’t come back.”

And then, following another round of goodbyes and safe travels, the door finally closed and Peter was left in his silence.

Peter guessed that Mr. Stark peeking his head into his bedroom a few hours ago and telling him there was extra milk and cheerios had been his goodbye.

_____

An old flannel shirt (red and black), with every inch of the fabric pilled. A worn wallet made of black synthetic leather, within residing three pictures: one of himself, one of his father and Ben when they were children, and a wedding photo of Ben and May, among a few other discount and debit cards. An old blue suitcase with “B. Parker” engraved near the handle.

These were the only things Peter had with him that used to belong to his Uncle Ben. It didn’t mean they were the only things powerful enough to conjure the man’s memory though. Peter’s web shooters, twin black cuffs that looked like they fit around an adult’s wrists, rather than his own, were weighed down in his hands. He couldn’t imagine putting them on - both the day’s occasion and the implications of the past month’s loss of his powers making it unbearable.

The weathered picture of himself and May was another one of those objects. And even though Ben wasn’t in the picture (if memory served correctly, he was behind the camera for this one), all of the happiness within the frame was because of him.

When he’d been packing his bags - an embarrassingly abbreviated process, he remembered - Peter had wavered on whether or not to take this picture with him. The woman in the picture’s smile was no longer for him, and the happiness contained in the picture was bottled and lost a long time ago. But in the end, he’d packed it - there was always a chance things could turn around, right? And if that was the case, then he didn’t want this treasured memory to be lost forever. Right now, its value was dependent on whether or not May would ever be part of his life again.

From how things had been going as of late, that scenario was looking less and less likely.

The anniversary of Uncle Ben’s death arrived quietly, or as quietly as a morning in the house with Morgan up watching cartoons and asking (read: demanding) apple juice refills, and Miles squawking through his prescribed morning tummy time session. So it really wasn’t quiet at all. Still, Peter was grateful that the weather at least had the courtesy of being dreary and overcast to match the occasion.

That morning, Rhodey had greeted him with a sincere smile and tight hug that made him so uncomfortable that he had to force himself not to pull away. It wasn’t the touch or the affection that bothered him. Those were nice and he knew he would savor them when they were gone. No, it was the fact that Peter both done nothing to deserve the man’s kindness and everything not to deserve it.

Dozens of kind, concerned messages flat out ignored. Not even read and some just instantly deleted. Voicemails erased without listening. No returned calls. All because he couldn’t bear to face Rhodey learning the truth about him. How his role in the Stark family came with an asterisk and a list of terms and conditions. And now how he’d accepted those terms and conditions, in a binding contract (See? Mr. Stark was wrong. He still possessed his sense of humor. It was just more cynical now.)

Peter had hardly wanted to show his face around Rhodey, afraid that the man would instantly notice his diminished stature and frame. Perhaps he would make a big deal of the glasses that Peter had struggled immensely to ask Mr. Stark for until his inability became apparent when he’d poured heavy whipping cream into his cereal instead of the skim milk.

“Going blind there Pete?”

“I uh, I think my vision is going back to how it…” He struggled for the words. “I had really bad eyesight before the bite.”

“Oh.” The pause was interminably and humiliatingly long. “I guess you’ll need some glasses or contacts then?”

Peter could only nod. He wasn’t in the mood to explain his optical diagnosis that prevented contact lenses, but it was enough that Mr. Stark knew he needed glasses.

In Peter’s mind, he still saw Rhodey as a hero first, and Mr. Stark’s long-time friend second, so the thought of War Machine knowing just how weak he was made him nauseated. He didn’t want to answer the questions, reveal why it happened, or justify why he’d agreed (some days, it was hard to recall). The potential embarrassment was almost enough to keep him holed up in his room like the mole person Mr. Stark accused him of being.

Almost.

If it weren’t for the guilt of leaving Rhodey entirely responsible for the craziness of Morgan and Miles, he would have grumpily hid himself away like Oscar the Grouch in his garbage can. However, Peter knew plainly that the man would need help, and Peter knew how to provide that help. Sure, it went against Pepper’s request that he keep his distance due to the germs, but he didn’t think a few germs were worth leaving Rhodey out to dry while Miles wailed and Morgan threw yet another tantrum.

While the morning had been nice though, Peter’s mood was still sunken and sullen from the day’s marked occasion. If Rhodey suspected anything about his physical state or his tanking morale, he didn’t say anything. He only had nice and supportive things to say. Attempts to make Peter laugh that reminded him of how things used to be with Mr. Stark. And not once did he bring up Peter’s complete lack of responsiveness on the phone.

For Rhodey’s reprieves, Peter was so grateful that he ached.

Because with those worries off his plate, he was able to turn his mind entirely to remembering his Uncle Ben. The day was something of an exercise in self-punishment for Peter. He would force himself to think of everything he could have done to prevent what had happened.

You had your powers. It was his fault you were out. You deserved to die. Not him.

And any moment he caught his thoughts straying away from Uncle Ben and the extensive list of his own wrongs, Peter heavily scolded himself for disrespecting the man who had given him so much. The man who raised him when he didn’t have to, and made him feel loved and wanted every day of his childhood. The man who had taught him morality, manners, and the meaning of responsibility.

This day was all about his Uncle Ben, and Peter was determined to give the closest father-figure he could remember the consideration he deserved. So it wasn’t really ideal that most of his thoughts that day were stuck on his Aunt May. Whether he could claim that title for her any longer, he wasn’t sure, but on a day like today, he needed any scrap of familiarity to tether himself to.

The spotty communication in which they had traded had disappeared completely in the weeks leading up to the occasion. Weeks before, Peter had typed out a message letting her know that he wouldn’t have his powers anymore, and he’d debated for days about sending it before cowardly backspacing all of it. Peter knew exactly what he’d been hoping to get in response if he’d sent it, and the response was so outlandish and unlikely that he was angry at himself for even considering that it would happen.

His correspondence being ignored for weeks stung like rubbing salt crystals into a burn, but Peter put in an honest effort to see things from her perspective. He had lost an uncle. May had lost a husband and her life partner. Even though she wasn’t aware of the full circumstances of how Ben died, with Peter’s powers present to help, but too frozen to do so, he couldn’t pretend that he’d lost more than she had, or demand that she grieve the same way he was.

Still, they were the two people who remembered Ben the most, and Peter yearned for the comfort of her presence, through phone call, text message, email (he’d given up asking about an in-person visit after she’d left the request unacknowledged three consecutive times).

While Peter knew that, for him, the anniversary felt far fresher (two years instead of seven), he hoped that the levity of Ben’s presence in their lives would be enough to heal their estrangement, if only for the day. A strange blend of hyper-focus and dissociation about the day and its implications had Peter turning his phone over and over in his hand, wishing for a phone call or a message that wouldn’t come.

All day he’d contemplated what to do about Aunt May. God, he wanted to talk to her so bad. Just to connect with the only other person who could comprehend the trauma he was reliving and the immense depth of Ben’s loss. He’d left Rhodey out to dry when it came to caring for the kids for the majority of the day, as terribly guilty as it made him feel. But Peter didn’t have the emotional endurance to deal with shakily heaving the façade of strength and fortitude in front of War Machine. Aside from a trip to visit Gerald out in his enclosure for a dashed hope that the company would help, he’d spent all of his time in his room.

Rhodey was most likely angry with him, or at the very least, sincerely annoyed with his flakiness.

By the time Peter had listened to Rhodey go through both of the children’s bedtime routines, complete with Morgan coming out of her room four separate times for cheese, more water, a less-bright night light, and her blanket with the hearts on it, and Miles being put down for the night after a bottle, only to spit the entire thing up a few minutes later, he knew that time was running short and his chance to talk to his aunt was expiring rapidly.

When he turned on the screen, it was still on her contact page. The green call icon looked so simple to press. How could he not do this?

If you don’t talk to her today, it is all your fault. How disappointed would Uncle Ben be in you if you couldn’t even muster up the wearwithall to call his wife on the anniversary of his death? If anything could make him more disappointed in you than letting him die, this is it. Don’t disrespect his memory because of your own shortcomings.

Like an electric shock making him tic, Peter’s thumb hit the green button and he pressed the phone to his ear in one fell swoop.

The only sounds he could grasp were the percussion of his heart beating a rut into his chest cavity and the tight rattle of his breathing.

“You have reached a number that has been disconnected or is no longer in service. If you feel you have reached this recording in error, please-”

Peter ended the call abruptly. Panic lapped at his ankles like an encroaching tide, but he resolutely tried the number again. He was certain it was just a fluke. One of those times that the call just doesn’t go through how it’s supposed to…

“You have reached a number that has been disconnected or is no longer in service. If you feel-”

Again, Peter mashed his thumb against the red button to end the call. The contact must be wrong. How that could possibly be, Peter didn’t have the mental flexibility to work out, but it had to be the answer. Desperately attempting to ward off the descending hysteria, Peter typed her number in manually. He knew it by heart and remembered reciting it back to her proudly when he was a little boy. Each number was pressed pointedly and determinedly. Peter read over the number ten distinct times before inhaling and pressing the call button.

“You have reached a number that has been disconnected or”

“FUCK!” With every ounce of his reserved strength, Peter launched his phone against the wall of his bedroom, making a solid crack against the drywall and clattering dramatically when it fell to the floor, screen black and splintered.

Peter felt thin and hollow and full to bursting all at once as his mind tried to wrap itself around the blow it had just been dealt.

She changed her number. She disconnected her number. She hasn’t been answering you. She never said goodbye.

The immediate silence after his phone was shattered felt like the moments after an explosion. He was too in shock, his ears ringing too loudly to make sense of what happened. Peter felt himself stumbling off his bed, tumbling to his knees, one at a time, unable and unwilling to understand the sensation of the iron spikes of agony that plowed themselves slowly through his veins. He was dizzy, lightheaded, and it felt like the floor underneath him was moving with the motion of thrashing ocean waves.

When his senses came back, they all came back at once. Miles was wailing. Morgan was scared and repeatedly asked what was going on. There was an insistent knocking at his door, along with Rhodey asking, then demanding that he open the door.

And then, Peter couldn’t breathe. The familiar dreadful sensations of an asthma attack slammed into him. His airway constricted and he could visualize the walls of his larynx thickening from the beginning of his throat down to his lungs. His deflating lungs that would shrivel up and detach themselves. Peter’s eyes bulged like they would pop out of his skull and any air he managed to suck in was a labored wheeze.

He couldn't help the panic taking over, though he faintly remembered being instructed to stay calm when experiencing an asthma attack. He was supposed to stay calm and-, and what? What else had everyone in his life, his mom and dad, his doctors, his Uncle Ben and Aunt May instructed him to do?

Stay calm and locate your inhaler.

An inhaler that he didn’t have. That he hadn’t had for three, or would it be eight years? The inhaler that he’d hoped vehemently that he wouldn’t need because he was far too ashamed to ask Mr. Stark for one. Admitting to needing glasses had been a steep enough mountain to climb and he didn’t have the fortitude for this Everest.

Peter’s panic expanded at the same rate it felt like his chest was constricting. Through the blurry fight or flight signals his body was throwing out as a last ditch attempt for survival, only two truths were plainly clear: Peter was alone with no one to help him. And he had no way to help himself.

When he heard the commotion of his door being shoved in, Peter thought it sounded like he was drowning at the bottom of an aquarium. Everything was a faint, distorted echo of what it should have been.

“Peter!” The figure kneeling next to him appeared in slow motion, almost buffering. He couldn’t respond. He couldn’t even think at this point. He was losing feeling in his face, his fingers, his toes. Nothing he did could bring in the life-sustaining oxygen he so desperately wanted to cry out for. But he couldn’t even do that.

“Peter!” Rhodey sounded even farther away, like he was screaming at him from the surface of a pool and he was stuck at the bottom of the deep end.

Well, at least he wasn’t alone anymore.

Chapter Text

The soft Uncle Rhodey side of him wanted to panic. The baby’s crying, echoing from the nursery, was bordering on howling at this point. Morgan stood in the doorway outside of Peter’s room, looking terrified and wide-eyed, hugging her stuffed alpaca tightly. And Peter - gray-faced, blue-lipped Peter, with his mouth agape in a silent plea for help, his breathing hardly meeting the bare bones definition of act. A pathetic wheeze, like a dog’s ruined squeak toy.

Panic felt like the only reaction within Rhodey’s grasp just then, having been firmly seated in his uncle mode, cooking, entertaining, changing diapers, and worrying about the three children left in his care.

But Colonel James Rhodes was not one to panic. War Machine did not panic.

Instead of futilely continuing to ask Peter what was wrong, Rhodey shifted gears, letting the logical, objective, crisis-containment part of himself that earned him his rank take hold. Sharply, he knelt down next to his nephew, whose hand was grasping his chest, tendons protruding as his fingers curled into his shirt.

His medical training kicking in, Rhodey could obviously deduce that Peter could not breathe. That narrowed the list of possible ailments and treatments, but not by enough.

“Peter, are you choking on something?” He kept his voice calm, but authoritative, which was difficult considering the demanding situation.

The shake of Peters’ head was barely discernible, but Rhodey proceeded down the list. Next he asked if he was having an allergic reaction. Again, Peter tried to shake his head, the miniscule movement enough for Rhodey to interpret.

“Peter, are you having an asthma attack?” Rhodey sprung into action when a hardly noticeable dip of his chin toward his chest affirmed the diagnosis. Taking into account Tony’s comment about Peter’s bronchitis, the situation further unraveled.

“Where’s your inhaler?” Peter’s eyes only scrunched shut, his forehead wrinkling into valleys and he shook his head more noticeably. He asked if Peter had an inhaler at all, and he nearly reverted back to panicked Uncle Rhodey when Peter shook his head again, looking afraid as a tear squeezed from the line of his eyelashes.

There wasn’t time to get Peter an ambulance or to rush him to the hospital. Whatever Rhodey did, it had to be here, and it had to be quick. His nephew was depending on him.

“I need you to sit up Pete,” he put a grounding hand to the boy’s back, encouraging him to straighten from his hunched, furled posture. “Can you do that for me?” Really, he didn’t expect the kid to do anything, as Rhodey was handling all of Peter’s movements at the moment, but he wanted to keep talking to Peter, to keep a calm, reassuring voice in his ear for whatever comfort it offered.

When Peter was sitting up straight, shoulders pushed back to open up his chest and lungs, Rhodey re-situated himself between his splayed legs and put his own steady hand over Peter’s strained one.

“You’re going to be fine Pete,” Keeping himself from dissolving into a frenzy was even more difficult now as he stared into Peter’s frantic, desperate eyes, his pupils blown wide with fright. “I promise you kiddo.”

“Now I need you to try to focus on your breathing okay?” Peter shook his head vigorously. “You can do it, kiddo. C’mon Spider-Man. Focus on your breathing. Try to close your mouth. Breathe in and out through your nose. Let’s do it together.”

Immediately, when Peter prised his mouth closed, Rhodey thought he was making a mistake - blocking an airway during an asthma attack? But the bullet points of his training reminded him that this was the prescribed plan of action in a case like this. Drawing air in through the nose instead of the mouth serves to make the incoming air warm and moist, which will lessen the sensitivity of Peter’s airways. As many times as he repeated the medical facts in his head, mantra-like, Rhodey still found them hard to believe. Peter was suffering and this was all he could do?

Still, they kept at the process. It was slow and scary going at first. Peter, understandably, wanted to resist. He clearly felt he was suffocating and what Rhodey asked of him must have only felt like it hastened that inevitability. But Rhodey stayed consistent. He stayed close. He gave instructions that were gentle and firm in the same instance. And he repeated over and over what a great job that Peter was doing, how proud he was of the kid.

It could have been an eternity, each moment more nerve-wracking than the last, but Peter’s breathing at last began to steady. He shuddered and wheezed still, but things looked to be getting better rather than worse.

“You’re doing amazing, Spider-Man. Look at you go.” Soon, the hand that Rhodey held over Peters, which was still sprawled over his chest, began to move up and down in an even rhythm, sinking and rising deeper by the minute.

Finally, when Peter seemed to come back to himself, emerging from the horrific chrysalis of impending death, Rhodey fell back and gave him space. The brown eyes regained their warmth and looked to belong to Peter once more. And pink tinges were staining his lips instead of the sickly blue. His face was still frighteningly pale, like he’d been doused with wood ash, but Rhodey felt secure that the immediate danger had passed.

But that did not mean that Rhodey was at all settled and certain about the situation. All he had done was keep Peter alive in the moment. How long had he been unable to breathe? How did his bronchitis impact the chances of recurrence? How in the world did this kid not have an inhaler?

“You doing better Pete?” He asked carefully. The kid looked too wrung out and sick to really say anything, but a breathy “yeah” helped reassure him that they were out of the immediate dire straits.

“You did a great job kiddo, I’m so proud of you. Listen, I still want to get you to the hospital though, okay?” Peter’s body language tensed and he immediately started in on a vehement refusal. But Rhodey wasn’t having it.

“Nope, that wasn’t a question, Spider-Man,” he said, but Peter’s refusal only continued, growing fervid and Rhodey started to worry that the kid was headed back toward the throes of another attack. Like a rope meant to moor Peter to a tranquil here and now, he put his hand back on his chest. A reminder to concentrate on his breathing, to control the intake and expulsion of air through his nose instead of letting loose the wild, untamed compressions of his chest.

“Hey, Pete,” this time, he practically crooned his words to promote a calm he himself did not feel. “I’m just worried about you, okay? Can you do it for me, just to make your Uncle Rhodey feel better?”

It was almost in slow motion that Peter’s frantic dissent dissolved, and when he did finally agree, Rhodey was relieved that it didn’t appear to be in defeat or resignation.

With the consent, Rhodey sprung into action, the adrenaline required to effectively oversee a catastrophe still pushing through him at full throttle, like rapids in a river. He helped maneuver Peter back onto his bed, instructing him in earnest to keep sitting up. The kid still looked ready to topple over, so he arranged pillows around him to act as a prop.

Next, he had to call in reinforcements. Someone to watch the kids while he took care of Peter. As he left Peter’s room, careful to keep his footfalls soft so as to not alarm the kid to his own alarm, he nearly tumbled over Morgan, who still stood as she had, embracing her toy in comfort, fear pulling her features into a frown.

“Hey Momo, everything is going to be okay, sweetheart. I’m going to take good care of your brother, okay?” He knelt back down, the exoskeleton embracing him from the waist down whirring in the silence. A silence that concerned more than comforted him. Stroking her hair and her cheek, noting with a lurch how the soft skin was damp with tears, Rhodey told her he needed to check on the baby, but that he would be right back for her.

In the dark, quiet nursery, the mobile above Miles’s bassinet turning and lilting a low, slow lullaby was the only noise to be heard. Baby Miles was back asleep, his swaddle looser than before, but peaceful. Just as the slow rise and fall of Peter’s chest relieved him, so did the same smaller-scale motion from Miles.

Fears alleviated, Rhodey left, shuffling as quietly as possible. He regretted that Miles had been left to cry himself back to sleep. It stung like a failure that he hadn’t comforted the poor kid And more than that,it hurt him that he wasn’t able to tend to both his nephews and his niece all at once, but Rhodey knew, without a sliver of doubt, that Peter needed him most in that moment.. And if presented with the same set of circumstances, he would choose Peter again. Miles hadn’t been in danger. The infant would be no worse for the wear, he tried to convince himself, but Miles crying himself to sleep still sat heavily within him.

Rushing back to check on Peter and Morgan again, Rhodey pulled out his phone to call the next person on Tony Stark’s “List of people I trust to take care of my kids because they know how screwed they would be if they messed up and hurt one of my angels.” Apparently it was a working title and Tony was still developing a quippy acronym.

“Is Petey okay?” Morgan asked him, her young voice softer than he could ever remember. Rhodey bent down and picked her up, her arms wrapping around his neck offering as much security to him as it did to her. Together, they walked into Peter’s room so Rhodey could keep a closer eye on the kid. Seeing Peter struggling so hard against his own body was not a sight that he would easily forget, and just seeing his chest move up and down evenly served to keep him at ease. him sitting in the same exact position he’d been left, eerily still. The only indication he’d moved at all was that his glasses were now perched on his face instead of on the floor where they’d haphazardly fallen in the commotion.

“Yes, I promise. Your big brother is just fine. He’s just a little bit sick right now, but I’m going to take great care of him.”

“Petey’s been sick a lot since Daddy took his superpowers.”

Rhodey went cold and heavy, like a damp clump of leaves had been removed from a gutter and dumped into his stomach. He couldn’t have heard that correctly. Or Morgan could be telling tall tales, being an imaginative six-year-old, after all. Sneaking a look at Peter from behind Morgan, somehow the kid had gone even more still, as though inanimately frozen in time instead of only trying to avoid moving.

“What was that, Momo?” He asked, struggling to keep the tremor under wraps. Rhodey was certain that he’d feel like a fool once he figured out what she actually meant. Earlier, she’d told him how Gerald had taken her flying over the lake and then that his coat was made of cotton candy. Surely this was something ridiculous like that.

“Petey’s been sick a lot. He coughs a lot at night and it’s really annoying ‘cause I’m trying to get my beauty sleep like Daddy says.” The little girl just kept going, each word worse than the last. “It’s ‘cause Daddy took Petey’s super-duper powers after he hurt my arm. ‘Member my purple cast!”

For Rhodey, the sudden, foreboding sensation of absolute wrongness reminded him of when he was helplessly free-falling toward the ground in his War Machine suit. It felt like when he was slowly trudging through the brush in Wakanda, calling out Sam’s name after Thanos snapped his fingers, not yet realizing what the odd remnants floating through the air meant.

In that moment, he had to remind himself to breathe, much like he’d had coached Peter through his asthma attack. Rhodey sat Morgan back on the ground, and looked again toward Peter.

“Peter…” he said, helpless and not even sure what he wanted to say, what he even could say. It made sense; how diminutive the kid looked now compared to before, shorter somehow, and narrower. How he suddenly needed glasses, and getting sick when he’d never even heard the kid sneeze before.

Sitting up on his bed, Peter was stock-still, tense, and wound tight. It was easy to tell that what Morgan had said upset him, which pointed horribly to Morgan’s ramblings as truth. And Peter listening- hearing something so deeply upsetting casually blabbed by his little sister... Rhodey almost expected the regression when he curled back in on himself, his back starting to shudder.

“Hey, hey, kid.” Rushing over, he righted Peter’s position again and calmed his breathing. The urge to interrogate the kid about what Morgan said, to unearth every detail and every explanation flared intensely. But now wasn’t the time, Rhodey chastised himself. Peter still needed professional medical care, and getting that for him was his responsibility. Tony trusted him to take care of his kids, afterall.

Rhodey called Bruce, who agreed to rush over as quickly as he could to watch the two younger children while he took Peter to the hospital. He knew that he should call Tony as well and fill him in on everything that had gone on, but at the moment, he was too bizarrely confused about what Morgan said to talk to his closest friend. He really didn’t want to jump to conclusions when a better, more palatable answer was almost certainly available.

After he was certain that Peter was okay, then he would call Tony.

While they waited for Bruce to show up, Rhodey struck a delicate balance between giving Morgan the attention she needed to keep her entertained and out of trouble (she was not going back to bed, she’d told him adamantly), and keeping Peter soothed enough that he wouldn’t slide back into another attack. All the while listening closely to make sure Miles didn’t wake up hungry and wet, and trying to not focus too hard on the implications “Daddy took Petey’s superpowers.”

It was beyond exhausting, but his adrenaline, while more tepid than before, continued to sustain him until FRIDAY let him know that Bruce had arrived and she had let him into the house.

In the years since Bruce had bridged the divide between himself and the Hulk, Rhodey had become used to seeing the massive green silhouette of the “other guy,” often smartly dressed in business casual attire and glasses that Bruce preferred. If anything, the change had made Bruce more confident in himself - less twitchy and unsure of everyone and everything around him. He no longer looked terrified that something would trigger him into becoming a monster who couldn’t control who or what he hurt.

Rhodey relayed some of Tony’s care instructions for Morgan and Miles, getting ready to leave and making sure he wasn’t leaving anything important behind. But before he went to get Peter, he stopped so stiffly that it could have been an exoskeleton malfunction. Rhodey was compelled to ask Bruce if he knew anything about the superpower issue. He hardly even knew how to word his inquiry without coming across as an accusation against his brother in all except blood.

“Bruce, has Tony said anything to you lately about Peter’s powers?”

“Uh, yeah,” Bruce replied, looking toward Peter’s room and then moving away from it so as to not be overheard. The worried inkling in him grew as he realized that Peter would overhear anything if still had powers. Moving just down the hallway would have been useless.

“Is everything okay?” Bruce asked, looking more like his old, chronically over-worried self.

“I really don’t know. Pete’s not acting at all like himself. Tony said he was sick, but he didn’t say anything about the kid’s powers. But Morgan,” he lowered to a whisper. “Morgan told me that Tony took his powers?” He asked more than he said, hoping that Bruce would laugh it off and explain it as some sort of bizarre misunderstanding that Morgan had taken creative license to retell.

However, when Bruce didn’t look puzzled in the least, Rhodey knew that his instincts urging him that something was terribly wrong with Peter were not mistaken.

“I mean, yeah, Tony did the actual procedures, but it’s a lot more complicated than that.” And in that moment, Rhodey felt that it wasn’t just that something was wrong anymore, it was that nothing was right.

“Tony told me what happened with Morgan, how Pete broke her arm when he caught her from a fall. Tony said that Peter was afraid of hurting her and the baby so that the kid wanted to see if there was any way he could get rid of his powers for a while. Told me the kid was too embarrassed to talk about it because he didn’t like to think about what happened with Morgan. Didn’t want anyone to think he was a monster.”

As the narrative unfolded, Rhodey kept looking for reasons to doubt Bruce, but he came up empty each time. It was easy to doubt Morgan. She was six and told all kinds of outrageous lies and stories. But Dr. Bruce Banner? Seven PhDs Dr. Banner? World-wide leader in gamma radiation research? This man had no reason to lie, and part of Rhodey believed he wasn’t even capable of it. All at once, the implications of that exposition being true tangled into one big ugly snarl of ethics, morals, responsibilities, and emotions.

I know what it’s like, wanting to do anything to make sure people don’t see you as a monster, so I told Tony I would make something to help Peter.”

“So you talked to Peter about this?” Rhodey asked reflexively, defensive, but none of it pointed at Bruce, who looked puzzled and slightly troubled by the question.

“No, no. Tony told me that Peter didn’t want any part of it. And I didn’t want to make the kid feel even worse with how much Tony told me he was struggling- Oof!”

Morgan ran straight into Bruce’s legs in an enthusiastic embrace, and though Rhodey knew such a little being hadn’t thrown him off-balance, Bruce liked to pretend he still had the same strength as the original Bruce Banner.

Morgan’s excited “Uncle Brucey!” derailed their conversation. And though Rhodey sincerely regretted not being able to talk more with Bruce about it, his primary concern was still Peter - his health and well-being, which seemed to be more in jeopardy with every new bit of knowledge he learned.

_____

The drive to the hospital was long. Longer than Rhodey expected. Every mile they covered made it seem like the road was unfurling and putting more and more distance between them and their destination.

Peter looked stiff and uncomfortable in the passenger seat, entirely despondent and subdued with closed eyes. Silent except for the dry, throat- and chest-irritating coughs that ripped from him in sporadic fits. His glasses were wrapped in his left hand and his right supported his forehead.

Rhodey spoke to Peter soothingly the entire drive, even though he didn’t feel the lightheartedness in his voice. He regaled stories about battles, villains, missions, and time with the Avengers. He told stories about Clint and Natasha, about Thor and Bruce, about himself and Tony during their college years and after. Anything he could think of to take Peter’s mind off the discomfort and misery he was surely enduring silently.

The circumstances that he’d learned about back at the lake house sat in the forefront of his mind through all of this, ready to pounce and take over at the first possible moment. But this time was still about Peter and making sure his nephew was okay. His own grievances and questions could wait. Trying to make sense of all of this could wait.

He didn’t even have certain evidence that there was any wrongdoing committed. Unethical, sure. Far past the wrong side of moral ambiguity, definitely. But Bruce said that it was all on the up and up. That, according to Tony, Peter had even instigated the process. So many questions for both Peter and Tony crowded his head, swirling between each other and making him feel sick.

Why didn’t you tell me you didn’t have your powers?

Did you agree to this? Was this something that you wanted?

Why do you think you’re a monster? You’re the furthest thing from it.

Why didn’t you tell me what was happening to you?

Why didn’t you let me help you?

The host of pointed, barbed questions for his closest friend were an entirely different matter. The circumstances were moot. Whether telling the prescribed truth about Peter asking for it was true or not, Tony had still betrayed both him and Peter.

How could the man not tell him such important information about his nephew? With Morgan and Miles, he’d been so detailed that Rhodey now knew that Morgan didn’t want her cereal too crunchy, but if it got too soggy, that was even worse. He knew that Miles had three different rash creams for three different diaper circumstances. He even knew that Gerald’s favorite treats were goji berries, but not to give him too many.

How was his oldest nephew undergoing a procedure, more than one it sounded like (whatever that entailed, he thought chillily) to have his super powers removed, bound, or whatever had happened - not worth a passing mention? Peter had hardly said a single word to him since he arrived, and Tony just said he wasn’t in the mood for company?

Rhodey seethed. At this point, it didn’t matter whether or not Peter had removed his powers all by himself. Tony was his guardian, his parent for all intents and purposes. May trusted him to be Peter’s parent and Tony would just let him wallow in his own sorrow and sickness, not even telling the person charged with taking care of him what he was going through. It was enough to make him pause to push down his ill feelings.

What was important right now was Peter. His nephew needed him here and now, and Rhodey was going to come through for him, no matter the obstacles. Not letting Peter have even a hint of his inner turmoil, he started in on the tank story, knowing he wouldn’t get the laugh the story fully deserved, but willing to do anything to keep Peter’s mind light and distracted. Wanting to do anything to make sure Peter knew how much he cared.

_____

Nearly two hours later, Rhodey was finally able to let the panic and worry dissipate enough to let the burgeoning anger knock down the doors and crowd him.

Peter was safe. He was out of danger. The kid looked to be sleeping in the examining room, a nebulizing mask strapped around his head. The breathing treatment appeared to relax him almost immediately, loosening every taut muscle and making his scrunched expression go slack.

Rhodey watched him sleep for a few minutes, letting Peter’s tranquil slumber bring down his own stresses. He pushed the hair back from the kid’s forehead, relieved that he was finally getting the rest he needed so acutely.

“Peter, I’m going to go call your Dad, let him know what’s going on,” Rhodey whispered to the sleeping teen, watching as the mask fogged and cleared predictably. Leaning in, he pressed a kiss to his forehead where he’d pushed back his hair. “Uncle Rhodey is always here for you, Pete. Always. No matter what.”

Chapter Text

Tony didn’t suspect anything to be amiss when he saw an incoming call from “Your Honeybear” pop up, a holograph of an old photo of himself and Rhodey after college, in a rare afternoon of sobriety, enjoying one of his parents’ Malibu properties’ pools.

“Hello, you’ve reached Stark Industries. For English, press one. Para español, oprima dos. If you would like to speak to the great Tony Stark, Savior of the Universe, the hold time is currently 14,600,605 minutes. If you’d like to leave a callback number, don’t bother—”

“Cut the shit, Tony. You and I need to talk.”

“Woah there Honeybear, don’t let Cap hear you say those kinds of words. He’s a delicate sort—”

“I told you to cut the shit.”

Tony paused, miffed at the accusatory tone. It had been a long time since Rhodey had spoken to him like this. Commandant-esque, judging him, cutting him down even over a phone line. It was a common occurrence back in their college years and the ones that followed soon after his parents’ deaths. And of course the shining example of it was back when he believed he’d been dying of Palladium poisoning and he’d handled everything with the sort of reckless abandon that put everyone around him in danger (and okay, he’d peed in his suit, which wasn’t a great look) and Rhodey had taken the spare suit. The suit that had been Rhodey’s all along, but Tony would deny this fact up to his dying breath.

“All right, you’ve got my attention Rhodes. What’s going on? Are the kids okay?” Even calling him “Rhodes” was as uncommon as Tony admitting to being wrong to anyone but Pepper. But he really wasn’t in a position to joke around with the man taking care of his children, so he adapted the same stern demeanor on the other side of the conversation.

“Morgan and Miles are fine.” Rhodey responded curtly. Tony was relieved, his immediate concerns assuaged with that information.

When parents leave children behind and then get a phone call, no matter the circumstances, the first thought that runs through their mind is the worst-case scenario. Tony had found out the first time he and Pepper left eight-week-old Morgan with Happy for an afternoon to themselves and the man had called 15 minutes later to ask whether the formula in the refrigerator was still good. Both he and Pepper had assumed the worst, seeing his incoming call. Pepper had it worse, of course, the post-partum depression skewing every thought and worry toward catastrophe. And, to be fair, Tony mused, they had actually gone through the worst-case scenario. So it wasn’t like expecting the worst came without precedence.

“Good, they’re in bed I’m guessing? Did Miles go down okay?”

“Peter is in the hospital.” Oh shit. Shit.

Tony immediately shot up from his lounge chair in the open-air courtyard, startling Pepper who dropped her book from in front of her face, stricken and fearing the worst. He mouthed at her not to worry, but he didn’t stay long enough to see if his lackluster attempt at easing her mind worked.

“What? What’s going on over there Rhodey? Who’s with the kids?” Rushing out of the resort, Tony listened intently through the billowing wind that filled his ears with staticky feedback.

“Peter is fine, thanks for asking.” He flinched against Rhodey’s off-brand cool sarcasm.

“Bruce is with your kids, so please, save some of that concern for your son. Peter had an asthma attack tonight. And he didn’t have an inhaler.” Tony felt the biting enunciation of each word, even through the supplementary white noise. His entire stomach sank like one of the big rocks that Morgan liked to chuck in the lake, with a splash and a glug that nauseated him.

And on top of that sickening feeling, Tony loathed to admit that he felt caught off-guard in hearing Peter referred to as his son.

“Here, I’ll give you some time to rehearse your fatherly-care. Peter’s is going to be okay. He’s getting a breathing treatment and they’re sending us home with an inhaler.” Rhodey’s biting insult and good news made Tony hop from immense annoyance to relief like some emotional parkour. It felt like the vines that had constricted around him in hearing that the kid was in the hospital had loosened and fallen away, knowing that Peter’s condition wasn’t serious (that he hadn’t caused real damage). But something in Rhodey’s voice evoked an unprecedented scorched-earth solemnity that sent a tremor down his spine into his toes.

“Asthma? I didn’t know the kid had asthma,” Tony said, trying and failing to quell the black pit of fear opening up in his gut. He’d known the kid was sick, but it was just bronchitis. All kids got bronchitis. It was supposed to be just bronchitis that the kid would recover from and bounce back to his typical chatty-Cathy, bright-eyed, bushy-tailed self.

“Apparently a pretty bad history of it,” Rhodey said matter-of-factly, as though this was information that he should have already known, like Morgan’s blood type.

“I didn’t know Rhodey. He never said anything to me…”

“Because he’s been antisocial lately, is that right? Just acting like a moody teenager?” Rhodey clearly didn’t want an answer to his question, so Tony stayed quiet, chastised.

“How about the fact that it’s your responsibility as his parent to know these things, Tony?” Grimacing at the accusation, Tony recoiled, his habit of being offensive while going on the defensive sneering hostilely.

“You want to back off there a bit, Rhodes?” He bit back. “Peter is a teenager. He’s almost seventeen. If he wanted to tell me he had asthma, he would have. I’m not one of those mind-reading Avengers.”

“No, you’re just his parent, Tony! Take some damn responsibility! I know you’re a great father, so where is any of that for Peter?” But instead of being properly admonished by Rhodey, Tony only felt the urge to bite back harder.

“What’s with the blame game here, Rhodey? I’m doing my best. I’ve got a struggling wife and two crazy little kids to take care of, an arm that’s supposed to be the latest and greatest fucking technology from Wakanda but it still feels like a meat hook dangling by my side, and not to mention the memories of that goddamn battle where I chose to leave my family to snap my fingers like it was the right thing to do. So what the hell more do you want from me?

Tony was panting with exertion and emotions. He hadn’t had an outburst like that since - well, it would have been when he’d accused Steve of being a liar before falling to the floor in a heap of malnutrition and exhaustion. He thought he’d been keeping things together pretty gosh darn well, all things considering. An attack from his best and closest friend was unexpected to say the least. And criticism coming from his brother? Every word struck him like a drop of alcohol on a bloody, gaping wound.

A silence stretched between them, and Tony couldn’t begin to determine whether or not his struggles had struck a chord.

“I want to know why Peter doesn’t have his powers anymore.”

All at once, Tony felt like the entirety of the Spider-Man/Peter Parker situation - every single frame from their hug on the battlefield to that very moment - rushed past him like he was standing an inch away from a locomotive, horn blaring, tracks rattling, so fast that his entire world blurred.

It was exactly the direction he had fervently hoped the conversation wouldn’t turn to, and dreaded the moment he was suffocated by its inevitability.

“I’m not talking about that with you right now, Rhodes.” He replied sternly, intensely irritated by Rhodey’s reflexive and condescending scoff.

“Let me talk to my kid,” he commanded, any remaining patience with the conversation having evaporated in an instant.

“He’s sleeping.” Tony groaned, running a hand over his face in frustration. Rhodey wanted him to show he was a parent to the kid, but when he tried to do better, the man shot him down cold.

“Have him call me when he wakes up.”

“So that’s it? You’re just going to avoid talking about why a kid who can hold up a jet bridge suddenly can’t breathe when I’ve never even seen him sniffle before?”

“Yep, that’s what it’s looking like there Platypus,” he sneered back, hating the tremor that betrayed the cool facade he was trying to enact. “Later, Rhodes.” And Tony hung up the phone.

_____

Tony’s steps back to their penthouse suite were slow. More trudging than walking. Guilt had a way of weighing him down and making him move slower, like a pesky computer virus impacting his performance. By this point in his life, nearing fifty and having saved the world on at least two separate occasions, Tony would have thought that he would have the foresight to see situations before they would turn out that way. Or at least, he would see his own pattern of behavior that led to such guilty instances.

It was nearly always caused by his own ability to communicate, he lamented. Communication had never been much of a valued trait in the Stark household growing up, so even if it felt cheap to pass the blame on his poor communication skills, he was still going to claim that deficiency on his upbringing.

Finally, his feet having led him at a slower-than-leisurely pace back to their suite, Tony found Pepper wearing the same fretful expression in which he’d left her. Her arms were clamped tightly to herself, one hand over her tucked lips pensively, eyes showing her lost in made-up scenarios, each worse than the last. A cycle of recycled circumstances in which she lost him, Morgan, Miles, or any combination of the three, then including her parents, Happy, Rhodey - anyone important in their lives.

Tony’s body physically ached when he saw his wife in such a state. Her terrified despair had been a constant presence for nearly six months after Morgan was born. And through all that time, he’d been entirely helpless to fix it. Tony Stark - Mr. Fix-it - the guy who created an arc-reactor and an entire freaking Iron Man suit in a cave in Afghanistan - was completely illiterate in how to help his wife with her struggle with postpartum depression.

“It’s okay, Morgan and Miles are just fine,” he led, hoping to erase that stricken, suffocating air.

What Tony hadn’t been expecting, however, was for Pepper’s face to lose all of its tension at once, for her shoulders to ease like gravity had lightened its force, and for her to let out a relieved breath of air. Only two of their three kids were fine. How could she be okay?

“Was that just Rhodey checking in then?” She asked, a little too casually. It irked him. “You seemed worried on the phone, so I thought something was wrong.”

“Yeah… uh,” Tony struggled with the words. Sometimes, it felt like Pepper was the only person with whom he struggled to speak. With whom his dazzling wit and brazen confidence were washed away with one stern, judgemental glare.

“Rhodey said that Pete had an asthma attack tonight and had to go to the hospital for a breathing treatment,” he paused, waiting for a mother’s worry to pounce with the fierceness of a predator on vulnerable prey. It came, watered down and a few beats too late, but Pepper did gasp and ask if he was okay.

“He’s fine. Rhodey said they’re going back home soon.”

“Who is taking care of the kids?” Her attention for Peter instantly swept away, Pepper’s concern turned back toward their younger children. He couldn’t entirely blame her, Tony supposed. How could he blame the mother of his children for wanting to know who was taking care of their babies?

“Brucie is there with Morgan and Miles.” Pepper unfurled from her stressed coil once more.

“Good, I’m sure Morgan was excited to see him. She loves time with her Uncle Bruce.”

And that was the end of the conversation, Tony sensed as Pepper turned away from him and went back to her evening skincare routine like he’d told her tomorrow’s weather or their plans for the next evening’s dinner reservations at the rooftop chicken wing restaurant. Actually, Tony mused, she would have been more expressive about the dinner reservations, most likely telling him that there was no way she would be eating there and that she would handle their dining arrangements for the remainder of the trip.

For the first time, Tony found himself struck and puzzled by the cognitive dissonance of how Peter was treated compared to Bruce. His wife was so intent that Peter’s super-strength was dangerous that she had wanted it stripped from the kid - no holds barred. But at the same time she didn’t blink once at letting the actual physical Hulk to care for their daughter and infant son.

It wasn’t that Tony didn’t trust Bruce. He did, just as much as Rhodey and Happy. Tony would put his life in the hands of Dr. Bruce Banner. The man snapped his fingers to bring back half of the universe. Salt of the earth kind of guy, really.

Tony just didn’t understand how his wife could look at Peter - short-stuff, happy-go-lucky, bambi-eyed Peter - and see a threat that needed to be neutralized, while not giving a single concern over Bruce-Hulk’s natural talent for “smash.”

Neither hero was a threat, Tony was certain enough to put at least a couple billion dollars on the line. Peter was young, sure. The full scope of his powers was still being uncovered, yes. And his decision-making occasionally left something to be desired. (Notably, these were all bullet points in which Pepper had pointed to when they’d discussed Peter’s powers after the incident with Morgan’s arm.)

But this was Peter Parker. A kid who rescued little old ladies and helped kittens cross the street (or something like that) in exchange for a churro here and there. The kid who, when bestowed with superpowers at such a formative and vulnerable age, wanted only to help out the little guy instead of seeking publicity and attention during a press conference immediately after establishing his hero persona. And the tree accident had been just that - an accident. Who’s to say what would have happened to Morgan had she not been caught?

At the time, while he’d been advocating for Peter, losing steam by the moment with each frightened tear that Pepper cried, Tony had tried to convince her that they were lucky that Peter had the superhuman reflexes to catch her.

“She wouldn’t have been up there if she wasn’t trying to be Spider-Man.”

Tony didn’t move from watching his wife in front of the mirror, blotting some sort of serum under her eyes, not a single hint of turbulent or heavy thoughts. He was left paralyzed by her quick and complete dismissal of Peter. One of their children.

“Your child, Tony. Remember the kid that you thought was more important than your wife, daughter, and unborn son?”

That ugly conversation still stuck in his conscience, like the slimy film inside of a long unwashed bucket. And as he worked through their entire discussion at hand, and every single discussion that revolved around the Peter Parker of it all, Tony could only come back to the impossibility of his situation.

“No powers or no Peter.”

Tony couldn’t risk losing his kid again. Though now that he had him back, he’d done a shit job of taking care of him. No, not just a shit job. A Howard job of taking care of him. Meaning to say that he really hadn’t. For god sake, he hadn’t bothered to take a damn medical history on the kid.

Tony realized while Rhodey had been tearing him a new ass that he’d taken for granted having a kid whose only health concerns consisted of how much food he needed to shovel down to keep from starving. It wasn’t like May had warned him about any health issues either. Allergies, surgeries, or dental work, even. Tony didn’t know if Peter still had his tonsils or appendix. Or whether he’d worn braces when he was younger. Clearly the kid’s asthma had come as a slap-in-the-face to him. Tony hadn’t bothered to look at any of it. Because the extent of Peter Parker’s relevant medical information started and stopped at how the radioactive spider genetics impacted the kid’s DNA and expressed themselves physically.

Fuck.

Tony was feeling so stretched thin, like a rope pulled so taut that it had begun to fray. He was trying (and spectacularly failing) to juggle the despaired, drastic concerns of his wife, who he had put through more than any woman should ever have to endure, with suddenly being responsible for a misplaced spider-kid who was so polite that Tony was sure if Peter was on fire, he would tell him to not worry about putting him out if he too was busy.

Tony would absolutely be lying if he claimed he hadn’t taken advantage of Peter’s inability to say no to him. Then, to support that manipulation, he’d orchestrated an elaborate lie to his Brucie-Bear to develop, in secret, the serum that would render Spider-Man back to Peter Parker. And now he was stuck trying to keep together such a complex, fragile, and intricate sand sculpture of lies and omissions of truths. Trying to keep peace with Pepper and make her feel like her children were safe and convince her that she and their children would always come first for him.

But while Pepper had two children, Tony had three.

And that sculpture that Tony frantically tried to keep in fitting shape? It had just come apart and fallen through his fingers with Rhodey’s accusations.

Tony had been trying to keep everything together, to make everyone satisfied with the situation, but really, he knew that his efforts could only be construed as manipulation, plain and simple.

_____

It wasn’t without a healthy dose of shame that Peter thanked Rhodey for helping him through the asthma attack, the subsequent trip to the hospital, and just - well, all of it, really. Being kind to Peter, paying him attention and speaking to him like he was more than an afterthought tacked on at the end of any given situation.

Like May did. Like Mr. Stark is currently doing.

Being called Spider-Man, while the name did sting like a needle in his back as a misnomer, had helped him find purchase in the cacophonous moment. It made him feel strong, capable, and able to conquer. Sure, who he used to be - the actual Spider-Man was lifting warehouses off himself and bringing down airplanes and the here-and-now Peter was simply trying not to suffocate for no good reason, but the perceived exertion of both feats felt similar. And overcoming both had saved his life.

Unable to help the ingrained manners, Peter thanked Rhodey again, though his shame made his ears and the nape of his neck go hot (and he was sure, bright red).

The man had dropped everything not just to help him, but to really be there for him. After Peter had treated him so poorly and ignored his every attempt at connecting.

His shame came from an entire herd of other sources too, but they all blended together into one amalgamation of a stampede within which he struggled to stay on his feet.

Rhodey seeing him so vulnerable and weak. Powerless. Powerless to breathe and powerless because whatever Mr. Stark and Dr. Banner concocted was efficacious.

Morgan running her mouth about her Daddy stealing his powers in front of Rhodey, like Peter didn’t have enough reasons to be humiliated already.

May changing her number because obviously his attempts at keeping in contact with her were bothersome and unwelcome. He was bothersome and unwelcome. And because apparently he couldn’t take a hint.

Mr. Stark and Pepper only letting him feel like part of the family during that painfully short period after his powers had drained from him and before he was sick and they didn’t want him spreading it to the kids.

The daze of the previous night’s asthma attack - one of the worst of his entire life - and the subsequent trip to the hospital, the breathing treatment - all of it proved to be an effective net to keep the worst of his shame and humiliation from descending upon him at terminal velocity. Peter was frightened of the time when he would be alone and that net would snap, leaving him to be crushed under the dust and debris of his life’s unpleasant realities.

But for now, he could sink into the fog, let himself be led and guided through the motions, mostly despondent and dissociated as the nurse demonstrated how to use his inhaler and which symptoms meant that he should use it. Peter didn’t need the song and dance again. He remembered enough from when he was eight and had nearly passed out during recess on a hot, pollen-swathed day.

That day, it had been his Uncle Ben nodding along with the nurse, concern and relief battling for dominance, a warm, grounding hand on his shoulder, as though he needed to feel his nephew’s physical presence to assure himself that he truly was going to be okay.

This time, it was Rhodey (faintly he recalled “Can you do it for me, just to make your Uncle Rhodey feel better?”), but he couldn’t be sure of the context of that particular memory, or even if it had actually happened and he didn’t want to overstep any bounds by calling him Uncle Rhodey. Rhodey stood next to the bed where he still sat, exhausted and wrung out, but able to breathe clearly. Rhodey asked the nurse questions and signed the presented forms. Rhodey’s arm slung over his shoulders as they walked out of the hospital.

Peter was embarrassed by Rhodey treating him like such an invalid, guiding him, opening the car door and then closing it behind him gently when he was situated, but he would be lying if he said that it didn’t comfort him. Each thing that Rhodey took care of was one less that he had to worry about.

And Peter had given up trusting adults to worry about his problems and discomforts, trusting that they would help him with his needs when he asked. He’d given that up around the time May pulled the rug out from under his already-tentative sense of family.

“Kid, why don’t you give your Dad a call?” Rhodey handed over his own phone, confusing Peter for a moment. When he remembered the fate of his own phone, his heart felt like raw meat being squeezed in a fist. He gulped, nodding. Peter guessed it made sense that he should call his (parent, parents, guardian, person who had legal custody of him?). It was a bit jarring that he had to be reminded to call Mr. Stark and let him know what was going on.

The phone hardly even had the chance to ring before Mr. Stark picked up.

“Rhodey, is everything okay with Pete?” Feeling like an intruder on his own call, Peter gulped down the warm feeling of hearing Mr. Stark’s concern for him.

“Uh, hey Mr. Stark.” He said uneasily, hating how his voice only sounded more hoarse after the asthma attack.

“Pete, hey bud,” The relief was palpable and Peter bathed in the feeling of having inspired such worry in Mr. Stark. If the man didn’t care, he wouldn’t be that worried, and in turn, that relieved. “How are you doing? Is Rhodey taking good care of you?”

“Yeah, Rhodey’s great,” he replied, suddenly feeling bashful from the concern. “I’m doing better now.” Peter wanted to elaborate, hating how lame he sounded, but it felt like he’d forgotten how to talk to Mr. Stark. Like the early days they spent together when Mr. Stark was still an untouchable idol that he’d been allowed to access through some sort of syntax error that would be resolved posthaste.

“Great. Good. I’m so glad to hear that kid.” And he really did sound sincere.

“Um, do you want me and Pep to come home early? I’m sure we can pull Happy away from the poolside bar any time and tell him to take us home. He might be a little grumpy and he might try to drink his coffee out of a coconut, but that’s why I pay him the big bucks,” He and Mr. Stark shared a light laugh, the first in a long time. Again, Peter was taken aback by Mr. Stark’s concern over him.

“No, uh, you guys don’t have to do that. I’m just fine. Promise.” Just the offer was more than enough for Peter. He didn’t need more, and he especially didn’t want Mr. Stark and Pepper to interrupt their time away because he’d let an asthma attack get the best of him.

“Okay then. We’ll see you in a couple days then, kid. Feel free to keep giving Rhodey more trouble. I need him to catch up with me with gray hair.”

“Will do, Mr. Stark.”

They said their goodbyes; Tony sounding more like the man who’d used to be his mentor and Peter’s voice and emotions stilted by the “Tower of Terror” of emotions from which he seemed unable to extract himself.

Handing the phone back to Rhodey, Peter curled his lips in toward his teeth, keenly aware that he was letting himself get excited about one good interaction with Mr. Stark.

It was something. And something was better than nothing, right?

Yes, something was better than nothing. Because nothing is what he had with May now. And with Mr. Stark, Peter at least had the chance for things to improve in their relationship.

Things weren’t good right now, but they could get better. Things weren’t good right now, but they could get better. Things weren’t good right now, but they could get better.

Peter repeated it to himself like a chant, as though the more times he repeated it, the more he improved its chances of coming true.

Chapter Text

“Ouch, watch where you’re pushing there, Platypus! I’m an invalid, remember?”

The farther Rhodey pushed his friend across the gravel driveway toward the fusion garage/laboratory, the more of a theatrical resistance Tony enacted. He was entirely accustomed to the dramatic performances, rambling and sarcastic monologues, and jerky conversation pivots meant to misdirect and subtract attention from whatever he was in trouble for that time.

Rhodey noticed a similar pattern in Morgan when it was time for her to wrap up her evening catching fireflies and go inside for a bath. She started out sweet, asking for ten more minutes, then five, then just one. Upon his refusal of her bargain, she grew irritated with him, telling him that her Mommy and Daddy always let her stay out and that he was mean for making her go inside. And when she still didn’t get a rise out of him, her voice grew shrill and rationale was thrown to the wolves.

The fireman’s hold in which he’d had to tote Morgan felt like a junior version of the petty complaints and prima-donna behavior of her father, who by the time they were in the garage, reacted like he was being violently kidnapped.

“How many times do I have to tell you to cut the shit, Tony?” He was already exasperated, which Rhodey would admit, wasn’t the best state to have this conversation. But it wasn’t a conversation that could be delayed. From what he’d witnessed this past weekend, things had gone on far too long already.

“I dunno Honeybear. Maybe provide a pair of scissors and I’ll think about it.”

Shaking his head, Rhodey wanted to react in kind. He was so tempted to play along with their age-old performance where Tony acted the part of the petulant, misbehaving child and Rhodey was the parent on his last nerve. To fall into that routine would be easy. And Rhodey could see directly through Tony’s tissue-thin attempts to divert his attention from what he must know was coming.

Peter deserved better than that. His nephew’s lack of an advocate was unforgivable and Tony needed to answer for it.

With the hysteria of a soccer player taking a fall, Tony fell back into his favorite lab chair as Rhodey pushed him toward it. His hands up in a fake surrender, the pithy deflections poured from him in a way that Rhodey knew he couldn’t control.

Only when Rhodey stood to his full height, feet shoulder-width apart, arms crossed over his chest and a stony, grave expression, did Tony break character and give in to the inevitability of the conversation. Like a fussy child finally agreeing to take a much-needed nap.

“So you really want to do this now, Rhodes?”

“Yeah, I do. Because something is not right around here and I’m not leaving until I get some answers.” Not even a glint of fear existed in Tony’s dark eyes. But how walled-off and shielded they looked was eerie.

“What answers, Rhodes? What do you think is going on?” Tony sounded annoyingly casual, only infuriating him further.

“Quit trying to gaslight me Tones. You’re too old for that. Grow up.”

The shortness of his reply left a canyon of silence between them. Telling Tony to grow had once been a constant, so frequently uttered that it became an inside joke between them. But there was nothing in the still, stony moment that pointed toward humor.

“If you want to accuse me of something Rhodes, just do it,” Tony pushed himself from his chair, aggressively, almost appearing to square up with him. “Quit screwing around and say it. You’re better than this beating around the bush shit.”

The gloves were off now, Rhodey observed. He’d known to expect it to come to this. How could it not? With the seriousness of the forthcoming accusation and Tony Stark’s volatility? Fighting with his brother was never the aim here, however, it was a fight Rhodey was willing to take on. For Peter. And, if Rhodey’s worst suspicion was confirmed, then he was fighting for Bruce as well.

“Fine,” he bit back. “What happened to Peter’s powers, and why did Bruce tell me that you took them?”

How Tony’s entire countenance underwent a metamorphosis with that question, it was dizzying and impressive to Rhodey. It was almost like he’d sucker punched Tony with the question and the man was absorbing the hit and strategizing a fight pattern before slipping on a mask of nonchalance.

“If you haven’t noticed Rhodes, there are a couple of kiddies running around the house. Okay, okay,” he conceded. “Miles still kind of just lays there like a lizard on a rock in the sun, but he’ll be up and running soon. And you know Peter, the kid has the savior complex that makes Cap look like a selfish asshole. He wanted to do his part in making sure everyone was safe. No chance for accidents, or boo boos, or anything like that. The kid asked for my help and I recruited Jolly Green for the job. That’s what you’re so concerned about? Jeez, you should have said something earlier instead of doing this whole CIA interrogation thing. I mean, it is a good look on you and everything, the suave-yet-intimidating thing, but if you wanted to roleplay like this, you really should have given me a heads up so I could get into character.”

Thoroughly unimpressed by the impromptu speech, Rhodey just stared him down. It was such a cheap and predictable tactic. Address the matter briefly, bury it under irrelevant details, brush off any shocking implications, and then guide the subject toward anything but what they were supposed to be discussing. It was like reading “Narcissists for Dummies.”

Maybe other people who interacted with Tony Stark would allow themselves to be diverted by the landslide of words. Tony Stark was a talented man, after all. And one of those talents was talking his way out of just about any situation (most likely one in which he’d dug himself into a hole). Rhodey knew to step aside from the path of that landslide, however, and he saw straight through the ruse. He could undress the prettily disguised explanation with proficiency and clinically address only the relevant details.

“So you expect me to believe that Peter Parker, the kid who lives for being Spider-Man - a kid who followed you on some donut ship to outer space just to have the chance to fight alongside you - came to you and asked you to take his powers away?” His skepticism bled out over their confrontation like a deep, oily expanse.

“Peter’s a selfless kid, Rhodes,” he replied with a shrug that implied he couldn’t do anything about Peter’s nature. “Remember, savior complex and all that.”

“It’s insulting when you lie to me, Tones. We’ve known each other too long for this bullshit.”

This call-out seemed to strike a nerve with Tony, who bristled like he’d been doused with sand. Now Tony was the one crossing his arms over his chest, tilting his head in that oppositional way that he did when he was ready to absorb what was being hit he was taking and launch it back with a vengeance.

“You seem like you already know the whole story then. Why don’t you tell me everything? Educate me on what’s going on in my house. With my kids. After being here for two days. What’s the scoop there Nancy Grace?”

“Two things Tones. One, I don’t think Peter would ever ask someone to take his powers. Two, I also know that that kid would do anything to make his idol happy.”

If the gloves were off before, now they were hitting below the belt. Rhodey and Tony stared at each other, unblinking, gridlocked in their fight for dominance. This would typically be when Rhodey would back down and arbitrate. He was a peacekeeper, not a war monger. And Tony would typically claim his victory while Rhodey rolled his eyes, just content to move on from the day’s conflict.

Rhodey wasn’t fighting for himself though, Not this time.

Peter’s distressed face when Morgan said her Daddy stole his powers. His entire expression slumped in misery.

How Peter’s posture visibly crumpled when Tony didn’t object once to Peter telling him not to come home early.

The way Tony so callously overlooked Peter when Rhodey called him about the kid being in the hospital. If that was even a small indication of how the kid was treated every day by his Dad…

It was with these thoughts that Rhodey steeled his resolve against Tony, who he could tell was expecting the usual proceedings and would strong arm the situation necessary.

“Do it, Rhodes. Accuse me.”

Rhodey didn’t hesitate to pounce. “I think something happened with Peter and you got spooked and decided to strip the kid’s powers.”

The way Tony looked away, chuckling mirthlessly with his prosthetic hand stroking his goatee with a smidge less eloquence than his actual hand used to, Rhodey sensed he caught the man off-guard. True to form, though, Tony recovered blisteringly quickly and he returned to their staring contest.

“It had nothing to do with being spooked. And I never would have done anything if Peter hadn’t agreed to it.” Rhodey shook his head at how Tony sounded as though he was trying to convince himself just as much as he was trying to convince his friend.

“So Peter didn’t ask for it then?” Rhodey asked to a silence that answered him thunderously. Really, he’d known the answer to the question before it fully rolled off his tongue.

“And what if Peter had said no?”

“That’s not what happened. Moot point.”

“No,” Rhodey whipped back without pause. “Tell me what would have happened if Peter had refused to be your science experiment.”

In another situation, Rhodey would have felt satisfied when Tony recoiled and couldn’t look at him any longer. Victories against Tony Stark were fantastically rare. There was no satisfaction here, because his victory came at the expense of what Peter Parker had endured at the hands of his idol/mentor/father/guardian.

“It doesn’t matter, Rhodes,” Tony’s low voice cracked uncharacteristically. But Rhodey didn’t withdraw from his stance.

“Fine. Then tell me why. Why was it necessary for Peter Parker to be stripped of his powers like some sort of, I think Bruce used the word, monster?”

Tony whipped back around, pointing a finger directly into Rhodey’s chest, looking nearly feral in his outrage.

“I never called the kid a monster!”

“You didn’t answer my question, Tones,” his calm tone counteracted Tony’s indignation. “Tell me why you did that to Peter.”

This time, Tony’s silence appeared to be more about collecting himself. The man put his hands on the edge of a stainless steel work table near the back of the garage, and pushed against it, dropping his head and looking nearly haunted.

“It was about keeping my family safe. That’s all.” he finally uttered, verging on defeat. “I don’t think the kid is some sort of rabid, uncontrollable beast. But when you’re a father and you have small children around, you do your best to make sure they can’t get hurt.”

If Tony expected even a speck of pity or compassion, those expectations were about to be sorely flipped on their heads.

“Are you serious right now, Tony? Keeping your family safe?” He exclaimed to Tony’s back, as he was still staring at that table, entranced. “Peter is your family! Or did you forget that you and Pepper are his parents? Because honestly, that’s looking pretty likely from what I’ve seen.”

Tony pushed himself back from the table and twisted around violently to face him defensively.

“Of course he’s my family, Rhodes! I risked my entire family, figured out goddamn time travel and lost my fucking arm just for the chance to bring that kid bak. Peter is just as much my son as Miles,” Tony roared.

“Then how could you ask him to make a sacrifice like that? He’s just a kid, Tony!”

“You think I don’t know that!”

By this time they were both screaming at each other, outraged voices reverberating off the walls of the lab, making every accusation, every defense, and every poor justification more resonant, as if their words bounced around on the ceiling above them, growing faster and more volatile as the longer they fought.

“I don’t know you right now, Tony.” Rhodey’s chest ached by this point, hurting for Peter and for what had been going on behind his back all this time. How he hadn’t bothered to look closer when Peter hadn’t responded to his calls and texts. Rhodey felt he wasn’t blameless, but the incredible vast majority of the blame should fall directly onto Tony’s shoulders. “The Tony Stark I know would never treat his kid like this.”

Tony didn’t back down this time, instead rising up further, as though his vivid anger made him six inches taller.

“How exactly am I treating him, Rhodes? Tell me your opinion about how I’m a shitty father.”

Rhodey opted to keep his calm. Heating back up to match Tony’s fury would only make their confrontation dissolve further into an emotionally-fraught screaming match.

“You didn’t come home when he was in the hospital,” he replied plainly, as though an unbiased expert presenting evidence in court. Tony looked rattled by his reserve.

“He told me not to. You were there. The kid said he was okay and told us not to come home.” The way Tony explained it sounded like he was trying to afford himself the moral license. Like he knew he’d done the wrong thing, but the objective evidence pointed to the contrary.

“You should have come home the moment you knew he was in the hospital. You would have come home for Morgan or Miles.”

Rhodey didn’t have any hot rage left to argue vehemently with Tony. All he could muster at this point was sorrow for Peter. Even briefly imagining how Peter felt when Tony asked him to get rid of his powers - it sent a powerful, excruciating wave that eroded his emotional resolve.

“You know what, James?” Well, the first name certainly got his attention. “I’m getting awfully sick and tired of you judging me for something you don’t know jack shit about. If you’re going to just stand there and accuse me of being a shit Dad, then it would be best for everything if you just left.”

Rhodey stood paralyzed, for the first time showing his hand at how taken aback he was by the situation. Their fights had never gotten ugly and then devolved further. They always left things at an impasse, or some sort of compromise, or even having made up like the fight never happened. What was happening between them now was unprecedented.

“So you’re going to kick me out because I called you out on what you did to Peter,” he asked, wanting to make Tony confirm that yes, that was exactly what was happening right now and would feel even a simulacrum of guilt. But Tony wasn’t taking that bait.

“You said it yourself. Peter is MY KID. So mind your own business or get the hell out.”

“All this, just to keep what you did to Peter under wraps,” The disappointment radiating from him wasn’t an act to make Tony feel guilty. He couldn’t believe that things had come to this. “You know Tones, the other day I said you were a great father, and I can see now how wrong I was. Because it doesn’t matter how great a father you are to Morgan and Miles. As long as you treat Peter like this, you’ll never be any better than Howard.”

There wasn’t even a full beat of silence before Tony slammed his vibranium hand down on the workspace, denting the surface and obliterating the circuit board that had rested atop it.

“Get out of my house. Get out of my life. And stay away from my kids!”

And with that, the closest thing that Rhodey had to a brother stormed out of the laboratory, rage and fury pouring from him in thick droves. He was bothered by Tony’s harsh directives, but that wasn’t what had him near tears.

This wasn’t justice for Peter. Not even close. All he’d accomplished was letting Tony know that he knew and disapproved of what was happening. In no way did that benefit Peter. Not to mention this glimpse into Peter’s everyday life with the Starks made him sadder than he had previously thought possible. Andnow Tony was going to force distance between him and his nephew? The kid who seemed to have absolutely no one in his corner?

The kid deserved better. Rhodey thought he’d be a presence in Peter’s life that could make it better, but how could he do that if Tony banished him from Peter’s life?

_____

Tony followed him closely as they walked back to the house, each footstep crackling against the gravel but somehow still quieter than the roar of resentment between them. Rhodey resented how closely he was being followed, as though he was the one who had committed wrongs and couldn’t be trusted. As though his actions were the ones that required close observation and his every move needed to be overseen to prevent further criminal activity.

That Tony was acting like he was in the wrong was simply mind blowing to him. The level of gaslighting and narcissism was astounding and something he really thought Tony had left behind when he’d married Pepper and they’d started a family.

But here it was, on display with bold, blocky letters in bright red paint. Tony was a puppeteer and the reach of his strings was boundless. To preserve the farcical show he was putting on, he’d cut Rhodey’s strings and banished him from not only his life, but the lives of his children - Rhodey’s niece and nephews.

“I’m saying goodbye to your kids,” Rhodey had said back in the lab after the electric tension and anger directly following Tony’s declaration had fizzled. He was adamant about his request, pushing past Tony when the man told him that he should just leave now.

Back in the house, where Rhodey saw Peter laying on the couch drowsily, a throw draped over him up to his chest - and Morgan playing with her Legos on the floor while Miles laid a few feet away on a colorful cloud and rainbow mat for tummy time - he saw the scene with all the context he’d been missing.

Peter was sick because of Tony. Maybe he didn’t have direct evidence of that conclusion, but extrapolating what had happened with Peter’s powers and the asthma attack was a no-brainer. Peter was constantly digesting the fact that Tony wanted him to give up his powers for the purpose of protecting Morgan and Miles. What toll must it take on Peter, mentally and emotionally, to live with the knowledge that he was seen as something that needed to be protected against?

“Uncle Rhodey’s hitting the road guys,” Rhodey managed to hide the distressed break in his voice, so as not to alarm the kids. Peter and Morgan were brought to attention and Miles continued to wiggle around on the floor, not yet distressed, but well on the way.

Morgan raced over and squeezed him by the knees hurriedly before taking her place back by her precarious Lego tower, yelling at Peter to be more careful and that she would never forgive him if he knocked it over as passed by.

Still looking wary and exhausted, Peter approached him nervously, his hands knotting into the hem of his t-shirt. Rhodey spread his arms for an embrace and was instantly enveloped by the spider-kid, who hugged him in earnest.

“I’m going to miss you, kiddo.” Rhodey said, not having the heart to break the news about Tony’s decision. Whatever Peter muttered in response only came through as vibrations on his chest, but he was almost certain of the sentiment. He wrapped his arms tighter around Peter, his previous alarm about the nearly-skeletal lankiness amended to unpleasant understanding.

To Rhodey’s surprise, Peter kept his tight hold on him. And Rhodey knew that as long as Peter held on, he wouldn’t let the kid go. Neither of them spoke, but the warmth and firmness of their contact must have been grounding for Peter, whose breathing wasn’t labored. An ember of pride smoldered within him, unbelievably grateful to be this presence for Peter. Tony’s immature, narcissistic threats threatened to blast that ember with a power washer, but Rhodey wouldn’t hesitate to do whatever he could to protect that relationship with his nephew.

Reaching a hand up, he stroked the back of Peter’s head once, twice, three times before letting his hand rest there.

“Your Uncle Rhodey is always going to be there for you, Pete,” he whispered lowly, not wanting to incur the wrath of a war-path Tony Stark. “I don’t care if you call me back or text me, or any of that. I’m always going to be there for you Peter. No matter what.” Peter’s arms wrapped tighter around him, and Rhodey suspected that if the kid still possessed his super-strength that it would be enough to bruise him.

After another minute, Tony cleared his voice with all the subtlety of Gerald bleating for more goji berries and Rhodey knew their time was limited.

“Pete, if you ever need anything, at all, I will always be there to help you, okay?” Peter finally nodded into his chest slowly when Rhodey prompted him again, making sure he understood just how real that offer was.

“I love you, Pete.”

And to his surprise, the kid who hadn’t uttered a single word during their embrace, replied in kind.

___

Tony’s eyes narrowed. His lip snarled. The vice grip in his chest tightened every agonizing moment that he watched Rhodey hugging Peter. A strange sense of territorial behavior sent an unpleasant prickle down his spine, but he tried to keep his hostility a potent entity in the room, almost like a guard-dog ready to attack on command.

While seeing his Rhodey (no, James Rhodes), hugging his son with such earnestness, he wanted to separate them, to say something horrible to split them up and then to get between them physically to finish the job. Each second that passed that they remained in an embrace only fanned the flames of his anger at Rhodes.

Truculent words sat on the forefront of his tongue, pressing against his teeth as he ached to be antagonistic, but just as he afforded himself the license to give into the confrontational temptation, Tony paused. He stopped and shifted his view from Rhodes to Peter. The heated red lenses he’d viewed them through fell away, and he saw how raw and sincerely that his son held onto Rhodes. He got the sense that Peter’s bones would come apart and he would collapse to the ground if he let go.

So instead, he opted to watch. No matter the insistent aches and envious pangs that sliced him.

And when Rhodey stroked the back of Peter’s head with the gentleness of comforting a feral animal, whispering something down into the kid’s ear, something in Peter changed. There existed a peacefulness in Peter’s face in that moment that struck Tony dumb.

He recognized the expression as something that he remembered so clearly and fondly, but that he hadn’t thought about in who knew how much time. A long-lost friend that he hadn’t realized was even lost.

The foundation in which he based all his major decisions on as of late - binding Peter’s powers, banishing Rhodey - felt even shakier and less stable than it ever had. None of these were decisions he was confident in, but as he made them, he felt committed to following their winding paths, no matter how unwieldy or treacherous.

These choices protected Peter from Pepper. They prolonged the life of the rickety, collapsing skyscraper of lies and manipulations that Tony had constructed, which, even he could admit was always engineered to fail. They protected Pepper from the worst of her depression and they shielded his daughter and son from a mother who was racing to the bottom of a breakdown that Tony didn’t know how to prevent, only to slow.

Tony was frightened. But he didn’t know how to stop telling more lies to prop up the ones he’d already fashioned and embellished. He didn’t know what to do, but he was doing his best. And for the first time since the days of Howard Stark, doing his best felt damningly inadequate.

Chapter Text

Peter approached the following weeks nursing an all-encompassing emptiness that made it feel like he was constantly tumbling into a void with every step. The kind of dark, swirling, roaring abyss that you could fall into and reach terminal velocity without ever knowing when you would splatter against rock bottom.

It was disorienting at first, realizing that the vacant spaces in his life that had all, at one point in time or another, been filled with the people and things he loved. Most had been empty at one point in time, but never all at once. Peter felt as if he was walking through a house, expecting each room to be filled with the homely furniture and decorations that he knew and loved, but every room was bleak and empty. He kept checking the next one, hoping things would be different, but every time, he was faced with desolation.

Among the things Peter felt he most sorely lacked:

No Spider-Man. No powers. In an angry fit after Rhodey had gone, Peter had unplugged the housing device for the Iron Spider suit. He suspected the nanoparticles within were ruined and unusable now, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. What use was a suit like that for someone like him? His other suit was balled up and shoved in the back of his closet under a box of his old things from the apartment he’d once shared with May. So many upsetting and offending memories piled together into one ugly snarl.

Not being Spider-Man around Mr. Stark came with its own unhappy, thorny blanket of insecurity. All of the bygone self-doubts from pre-Titan, and Thanos, and the Snap reemerged, bringing with them the remembrances of “What in the world would Tony Stark want with Peter Parker? The answer is: He wouldn’t. He is interested in Spider-Man.” Only now, those insecurities were sharpened into a sleek, deadly double-edged sword in which Mr. Stark both didn’t want Spider-Man, and had no use for Peter Parker either.

When he tried to compile reasons why Mr. Stark would want to keep a feeble, sickly Peter Parker around, he wasn’t surprised when he came up entirely empty-handed. It wasn’t like he’d continued pulling his weight with the housework; the cooking, cleaning, babysitting that had previously helped him feel secure in his presence in their house. He was too sick now, constantly battling against asthma, allergies, poor vision, and an immune system that hadn’t fought an illness in a handful of years.

Peter nearly smirked in chagrin while thinking back to the last round of physical tests that Mr. Stark had asked him to complete. His performance had been beyond laughable. Humiliating and draining would be fitting ways to describe the experience. This time, Peter couldn’t even complete half of the tests that had been pedestrian the first time they’d been tasked to him. After the second exercise he had needed to stop and use his inhaler, the cool albuterol swirling through his throat and loosening the walls that threatened to close in imminently.

Mr. Stark had only asked him to try one more test before they called it quits. Peter, huffing like he’d never take a full breath ever again, sweaty and dizzy with the lack of oxygen, only hoped to avoid passing out before being able to escape and lick his wounds in private.

“Well, I think we can try to skip the third dose of the serum. We’ll check in later this week to see if there’s any resurgence in your abilities, but for now, I think we’re safe.”

While Peter had been grateful to avoid another nauseating round with the needle, it was probably the hollowest victory he’d ever celebrated. Hooray, he was too incapacitated and weak to be able to handle another injection? Hooray, he was finally frail enough that he didn’t pose a threat to the family? Peter could hardly get through twenty minutes of feeding Gerald with Morgan due to his allergies making his eyes water and his nostrils tingle unpleasantly. The fact that at one point in his life, he’d climbed the Washington Monument was unfathomable. It didn’t seem real.

What stood out most to Peter about Mr. Stark offering to forgo round three was that he had never seriously questioned Peter about what his life and health pre-spider bite had been like. At first he’d suspected that perhaps Mr. Stark had done his own research into his previous health, so as to not do superfluous damage to Peter’s already-eroded dignity.

But then, when the side-effects began to take and take from him, and Mr. Stark didn’t mention getting him glasses, or having an inhaler on hand, just in case, and especially when dinner had been lobster macaroni and cheese (an effort to expand Morgan’s palate by tricking her into eating other foods), and there had been no mention about Peter’s shellfish allergy, it became painfully apparent that Mr. Stark hadn’t cared to monitor his health. At least beyond those measures that branded him a danger.

It was around then that Peter had consciously switched off any circuits within himself that considered Mr. Stark as his father-figure. And Pepper? That was a deflated hope that had never really gotten off the ground in the first place.

Which was another gaping maw that he could never quite banish.

Nothing to be really called “parents.” The parents he did have, which were better described as legal custodians, were part-time at best (maybe even better described as “remote,”) Peter had finally conceded after trying to ignore the unpredictable crests and valleys of how he was regarded. There were good days and bad ones, and various ups and downs within them, and Peter had also been forced to concede that he could never predict what the next day would hold. Whether he’d wake to a frosty reception that practically screamed at him that he was an unwelcome intruder, or to a plate of pancakes and Morgan wanting him to run around the dewy morning grass in their pajamas together. And the longer things went on, Peter grasped that the good days were just as infuriating and discouraging, maybe even moreso, than the bad ones.

One evening he spent up in his room (at Pepper’s discretion) when he’d started coughing and sneezing after supervising Morgan with Gerald, he’d only realized something was amiss when he heard Morgan complaining about asparagus being soggy twigs that she wouldn’t ever eat. Surely they wouldn’t have..., he thought, trying not to entertain his rising panic. But when he came downstairs and saw the family at the dinner table, his place not even set, Peter had felt winded with the effort it took to hide how much he wanted to cry.

“Oh, we didn’t forget about you Pete,” Mr. Stark had claimed, though his face was a neon billboard of guilt. “Pep said you weren’t feeling well, so we wanted to let you rest.”

That was when the dormant seed of Peter’s fear that his sacrifice had been for naught began to germinate. That when he’d reassured himself that taking an enormous needle to the lower back to be injected with some experimental liquid that could stop his heart for all he knew, would be worth the inclusion and acceptance among the family, he’d been a naive fool.

Of course, living with someone as unpredictable and charismatic as Tony Stark, when the good days showed up, they were great. Like the evening that - in a wild turnabout from forgetting (was that actually what had happened?) to call him down for dinner - Mr. Stark had tossed him an apron, turned on some classical Italian vocalizations, and told him that he was teaching him to make lasagna the right way. Not any of that Americanized tomato and cheese cake, or that abomination that Stouffers called lasagna.

For that evening, his fears returned to quiet dormancy. The experience had been so reminiscent of time together pre-Snap that Peter had stowed his hurt and resentment in a little hidey-hole at the edge of his subconscious and just enjoyed making the noodles, the sauce, mixing the cheese, and assembling the dish with Mr. Stark. He may have even called him “Tony” once or twice while they cooked. And the smile on his face, the warmth in his heart - those had been genuine.

But that same night, as he’d lain in bed, his body aching from every joint, his chest knit tightly and his inhaler palmed and at the ready, the hurt and resentments he’d previously stored bashed themselves against the cell holding them captive, splintering the hinges and bursting out like a breached dam.

How could he be so weak and pathetic to just give into Mr. Stark’s infuriatingly endearing demeanor when he’d been forgotten and swept under a rug the previous damn day? There’d been no apology, no acknowledgement of how Peter was previously treated. It made him feel like he had an overactive imagination, or that he was interpreting situations incorrectly. Was he making these things up? Was his suffering invisible and easy to disregard?

But there was no mistaking the gnawing discomfort of Pepper regarding him like a houseguest that had wildly overstayed his welcome. He wasn’t just crafting his own misery when he felt the overwhelming, painful swell of his third chance at having a mother and father turning sour and rancid.

It made him angry at Mr. Stark. And if he hadn’t already given up on ever gaining Pepper’s favor, he would have been angry at her too. But really, Peter would admit that, for the most part, he was just angry and disappointed with himself.

And it wasn’t like he had anyone to talk to about all of these problems. Which ushered him into another empty domain within him.

No Ned. No MJ. Peter missed his friends. There were a lot of things he missed. Ned had been a fixture in his life from age seven, and to have him suddenly absent felt like walking down a flight of stairs and missing the last step. Peter would admit at this point, however, that their thin, brittle string of friendship was as much his doing as Ned’s. He no longer reached out to his best friend every day.

Just checking in. Howz class?

Is it just me or is history an extremely potent sleep aid?

Dude, haven’t had Delmars in 4ever.

Each message, and every one of the like, had been sent in hopes that things would just suddenly go back to normal with his best friend. After all, if Mr. Stark possessed the license to just pretend the bad, unpleasant things had never happened, couldn’t Ned do the same?

Ned’s responses, (the one’s he’d actually responded to), were lukewarm at best. Unfamiliar. The kind of messages you sent someone you didn’t know very well, so you kept the conversation bland and vague because you didn’t know what to talk about.

So Peter had let more and more time pass between attempts to reach out to Ned. Having his messages ignored was disheartening, and the impersonal responses somehow stung worse. He would still send off a gif or meme he found relatable and knew Ned would enjoy. Sometimes his thumb moved to the share button of its own accord, and Peter didn’t even remember the sorry state of his best friendship until it was already sent.

In those instances, he resolved to himself that he didn’t need or expect a response. All he hoped for was to make his friend smile. Peter admitted to himself that lying to himself might be more convincing if he didn’t have to swallow down a giant lump in his throat each time.

If there was a silver lining to be found, it would be in the conversations he had with MJ that bordered on meaningful. There may have only been two, but those text conversations didn’t feel strung together. Along with the gifs, memes, and Tik Toks they shared during those text exchanges, they touched upon real things in their lives.

Like how MJ’s Mom kept promising that they would find a nicer, safer apartment. Or how MJ’s Mom was still looking for a job, but didn’t want MJ to contribute because she was just a kid and she shouldn’t have to worry about money. The sentiment was laughable in more ways than one for Peter. For one, this was MJ - socially progressive, protesting, feminist, MJ - who was more mature than Peter and Ned combined and cubed. The magical blinders of childhood had been shed long ago and there was nothing else really to preserve. For another, MJ was among the half of the universe’s population that had died and then come back from being dead. Peter didn’t really think it mattered who you were - the damage caused by that was inescapable.

Peter didn’t reciprocate too much in the meaningful conversation side of things, he would admit. There wasn’t much worth sharing, he lamented. And besides, not contributing meant that he could be a good listener - a good friend. It felt like all Peter could do to try to earn back his friends again was to try to be a good friend. So he tried not to come across as needy or clingy, or stuck up.

Like if he complained about his life with the Stark family to MJ, it would be monstrously insensitive. She and her Mom struggled to keep a roof over their heads and he was down in the dumps because he didn’t get enough attention?

Yeah, Peter wouldn’t want to be friends with himself if he complained about his life with a billionaire.

Still, Peter wished their conversations happened more often, but, you know, beggars can’t be choosers and all that jazz. It was just - Peter didn’t really have anyone he felt he could turn to anymore. Rhodey had in fact told him, in earnest, that he was available anytime that Peter wanted to talk to him, yet Peter still found himself hesitant to do so. He was too petrified to accidentally push Rhodey’s tolerance of him, and somehow drive the man away from him.

The situation wasn’t unprecedented, after all.

Of all the things that Peter lacked in his life at that moment, the rawest, most agonizing absence was his Aunt May. Or rather, just May. Not his family member any longer. She’d made that fact painfully clear when she changed her phone number.

“Peter, I can’t live with these memories again. I’ve moved on.”

“I can’t ask you to stop being Spider-Man, but I also can’t live with all of that worry.”

“We aren’t going to be a family anymore, Peter.”

At times, it felt like there weren’t any good memories left to be recalled of his time with Aunt May. As if the painful memories snuffed out the joyful ones. Or, perhaps, knowing what he did now, maybe he was just looking at those loving memories without rose-colored glasses and he could see them for what they really were.

In that gargantuan crater left behind within Peter, he found an obsession forming.

With May’s abandonment, Peter senses as if his entire foundation was crumbling. Like the platforms on which he’d been built as a person were suddenly revealed as illusions and everything he thought to be true had no facts to back them up.

Had May ever loved him and wanted him? Surely she had. They had been side-by-side for an entire decade and known each other for longer. A picture had used to sit on one of their bookcases of a young, carefree May Parker holding a small bundle of newborn Peter Parker. And in that portrait, May positively glowed as she stared wide-eyed at her nephew.

Despite their rough start, in which, newly-orphaned, he’d overheard her debating with Ben about whether or not they were obligated to keep and raise him, Peter thought they had a great relationship. Ben, May, and Peter Parker. Then, just May and Peter Parker. But they were still close, he’d thought. Peter had never sensed any indication apart from that sole argument that May would have preferred to not have him in her life.

Of course, looking back now, Peter was rewatching his childhood with her through a more critical lens. Maybe there were signs that he had overlooked, or chosen not to see because he was too focused on himself, his schoolwork, and then, on Spider-Man activities. Had he taken his place in May’s life (minus his Uncle Ben) for granted?

The budding obsession grew more like an invasive weed that snaked through Peter’s subconscious. Poring over every scene, looking for evidence of his own naivete and blindness, was time-consuming. And if Peter wasn’t already failing his junior year (he’d received an email from Principal Morita that he was in danger of needing to re-take the entire year), he’d probably care more about the time-sink.

But that was one benefit to not having anything else in his life, Peter mused morbidly. He had the ability to dedicate enormous amounts of time to seeking out what had gone wrong with him and May. What could he have done differently?

And most importantly: What could he do differently now to win back her love and acceptance?

Peter tackled this quest with the same gusto that he typically would have applied to his schoolwork to earn him a fighting chance at Valedictorian come senior year. That chance was long-gone now, but it didn’t matter. There were a lot of things Peter used to care about, and most of those things had blown up in his face lately. The thing with May, however, that seemed like a problem he could solve. There was something to fix, and Peter was a fixer. And maybe, even if that maybe was infinitesimal, if Peter figured out a way to fix his relationship with Aunt May, then he could be part of her family again. And he could leave behind the corrosive sadness of the conditional love placed upon him by Mr. Stark.

In the time he spent alone, mostly during the days where he was regarded as a less-than-welcome guest, Peter compiled the facts he could use to his advantage.

Even though May had changed her phone number, and her email address since those messages were bouncing back as undeliverable, Peter did know where she lived (with her new family - where you didn’t fit). Still in New York. Still in Queens even. Just a nicer, larger apartment situated in a nicer, larger building. The type of building with a doorman. Certainly not Stark Tower-fancy, but that was a ridiculous bar to hold any building to.

Another significant chunk of information that Peter felt worked to his advantage was that Aunt May did not know that he wasn’t Spider-Man any longer.

It felt strange for Peter to think of the situation in that light. But didn’t the powers make the hero? Powers that Peter no longer possessed, which would mean that Spider-Man was knocked into extinction. The wadded up ball of his red and blue suit, made of some synthetic, high-tech material, with thread-like, lithe wiring running the length like veins, was the only thing that spoke of an existence of Spider-Man.

Last week, he’d thrown his web shooters blindly in the back of his closet to rot in the unseen graveyard of super-heroism.

But the fact remained that May had cited his vigilante identity as one of the deciding factors in why he had to leave. And since that was no longer the case, could May be open to reconsidering?

There were other reasons she’d presented that were out of his control. Peter couldn’t fix Ben being gone (though he’d give his life to bring Ben back if he could), or how he so viscerally reminded her of the loss, poverty, and struggle she’d undergone. He couldn’t fix that he looked enough like Ben to break her heart every time she looked at him. Peter couldn’t fix the fact that he’d been gone for five years and that May had built a new life from the shambles in which he’d left her when he left that school bus and got on that spaceship.

(Peter didn’t think it would be fair to argue that him choosing to follow Mr. Stark had no bearing on whether or not he’d been included in the 50% of the universe that had been eradicated.)

What it boiled down to was that Mr. Stark had inadvertently fixed one of May’s greatest objections to him with those injections. The logic was so warped, so unforgivably twisted, that Peter didn’t like to think he was grateful for the experimentation. But, since the promise of his place in the Stark family had been proven conditional, part-time, and excruciatingly hot and cold, there had to be something Peter could tell himself that made the suffering worth it.

Being like this - sick, frail, useless - had to come with some sort of reward or compensation. Or else what? Peter was just a feral animal with a muzzle? A predatory bird with its wings clipped? Weak, because if he was strong, he was dangerous?

He fixated on the possibility. Spider-Man may not have been welcome as part of May Parker’s new family. But maybe Peter Parker stood a shot?

Within the chasms that Peter’s penetrating vine-like obsession whipsawed into him, the basic elements of a plan glommed onto each other. Filling those holes in whatever makeshift way they could.

Since May wouldn’t let him contact her through phone or email, he had two options.

The first was easy. He would write a letter pleading his case and send it. Snail mail. Mr. Stark would find it a ridiculous waste of resources and suggest having a suit fly his letter wherever it needed to go. Pepper (or the Pepper of the past) would have been charmed and told him that the gesture showed thoughtfulness, and that everyone enjoyed receiving a physical piece of mail from a friend or loved one. It would have to be kept under wraps, but Peter had managed to accomplish a great deal in secret, so he wasn’t intimidated.

The second option? Not so easy, but perhaps infinitely more productive toward his end-goal. Peter needed to see May in person. He needed her to see that he wasn’t the same kid who would sneak out of his window to fight crime. Hell, Peter wasn’t even sure he’d be able to open the window in his old room in his current condition, as rickety and stuck as it usually was.

If she saw him as he was, no costume of wiry muscles, black glasses frames that were a smidge too big for his face, looking both older and younger at the same time, then there was no conceivable way she could view him as a threat or someone too stressful to worry about.

Peter could tell her everything and ask for her to take him back. He could beg if he had to.

This plan required a menagerie of logistics to come together and work in his favor, an occurrence Peter wasn’t counting on with the existence of Parker Luck.

Both of Peter’s plans to re-insert himself into May’s life and family relied on that one detail that he was no longer Spider-Man, and completely disregarded every single other instance in which Peter did not fit into her new life.

Being the fifth person at a table set for four. Sleeping on the couch even three months later because she kept saying she would get you a bed, but never following through.

“Peter, get out of here. I can’t look at you right now.”

Believing that she would change her mind about him solely because of the retirement of Spider-Man was all Peter had right now. That bleak, barren expanse of all the things he lacked - which stretched far beyond his eye could see - farther than the sky’s horizon and seemingly growing at a steadily exponential rate: his mother and father, his uncle, a home, affection, security, his very intelligence if his failing grades were any sort of marker, and the confidence and strength to fix any of it - it threatened to strand him with no escape. Every direction he looked presented an even longer, more treacherous road.

The sole vehicle to make a break for it appeared to be appealing to his Aunt May. Peter nailed every hope for solace and alleviation to her acceptance. Much the same way he had unfairly pinned every hope for a family onto the Starks.

Peter’s second plan would have to wait for the ideal moment, the moment he could reach out and grasp his chance, or until he could orchestrate the opportunity to flee to Queens without arousing suspicion.

For now, he would start drafting his letter to Aunt May. That would prove difficult enough anyhow, to Peter’s consternation. If he couldn’t even conceive the words he wanted to say to Aunt May given ample time and opportunity, how could he even fathom confronting her in person?

As much as Peter wanted to expedite the process, he conceded that right now, it was probably better that he was forced to sit on his haunches, to hone his case and his plan. Because if he rushed the ploy and blew the entire objective, then he’d be left with even less than he had now, which was an outcome that was as frightening as it was sorrowful.

Peter’s contentment wasn’t long for this world, however, as Parker Luck worked in mysterious, ever-evolving ways.

It started with a knock on his bedroom door, soon followed by Mr. Stark peeking his head in mischievously.

“Hey Underoos, want to hitch a ride to the Big Apple for some Avengers time?”

New York. Aunt May.

His chance.

Chapter Text

It wasn’t common for Rhodey to get a knock on the front door of his home, or, as Tony called it, his waste-of-money-because-why-don’t-you-just-live-at-the-tower-full-time? In fact, aside from Girl Scouts selling cookies and the infrequent solicitor, Rhodey could count on one hand how many times someone he knew was on the other side of the door.

Very few people even knew about the brownstone he owned near Flushing, and even fewer people knew when he was living there. Between the demanding travel of his rank and the unpredictable nature of War Machine duties, most times, Rhodey did actually take Tony up on his less-than-subtle hints that he should just live at the tower. He even had an entire floor-suite to himself, outfitted with all the over-the-top flare that his oldest friend was known for.

But that evening, Rhodey hadn’t told anyone, not even Tony (considering that they were on the outs), that he was staying at his personal residence. He thought it was strange to get a solicitor this late, and with the on-again, off-again rainfall.

When Rhodey’s leg braces whirred with the motion to stand up from his leather office chair, he wasn’t agitated by the disruption as he was sure Tony would have been. In fact, he knew that Tony would have just insisted that he ignore anyone disrespectful enough to knock on his door unexpectedly.

“People should really just text that they’re outside. We aren’t cavemen. Knocking is just primitive.”

It took several seconds for Rhodey to recognize the slumped, saturated silhouette standing on the front step as Peter Parker. Between the confusion and shock at seeing Peter and his alarm at the kid’s distressed and disheveled appearance, it took Rhodey a few staggered moments to remember that he’d given Peter his address in an email shortly after the fallout with Tony.

Tony had so strictly forbidden any communication with Peter, specifically, that Rhodey had initially feared that his message offering the only help and support he could would bounce back immediately as undeliverable or be lost in some formidable Stark Industries filter. But, to his immense relief, Peter had responded to the list of each and every way that the kid could find and reach him. The response had consisted of a cursory “Thanks,” but just receiving the conformation that Peter knew he was there for him was enough to soothe the worst of his anxieties about what the kid was going through alone, or rather, enduring what had been inflicted upon him by the man who was supposed to be - had claimed to be - his father.

“God Pete, get in here,” he said, extending his arm toward Peter. “Come on, I’ve got you,” Rhodey tried to quash his panic when Peter failed to acknowledge that he’d even opened the door. Lightly, he grasped Peter’s wet shoulder with a note of concern at the lack of any sort of jacket. “Let’s get you dried off and warmed up.” He was afraid that Peter would topple over the moment he removed his supportive hand, especially with how lost and unfocused his eyes appeared.

When Peter stood on his own accord for a few seconds, though he swayed like a loosely tethered balloon, Rhodey strode away quickly to boost the thermostat’s temperature and retrieve a towel from the nearby guest bathroom. Handing the cobalt bath sheet to Peter, Rhodey noticed how the kid struggled to grasp it with one trembling hand, the other curled into a protective claw, before removing his rain splattered glasses and wiping it over his reddened face. The moisture on his face likely consisted of more than raindrops, Rhodey thought with a high degree of certainty.

As quickly as his medic training reminded him, Rhodey assessed Peter’s condition. Soaking wet, obviously. Trembling, shivering, and even though Peter’s jaw was clenched too tightly for his teeth to chatter, a slight tremor in his chin betrayed his freezing temperature. Rhodey could also make out the outline of Peter’s shoulders and collarbone through his drenched, dripping clothing. And something appeared to be off with his right hand as he clearly favored it and kept it close to his body.

But as upset as Peter appeared, under tendrils of hair that intermittently dripped rainwater back onto the lenses of his glasses,, his eyes were fat and despondent, much as they had been during the drive to the hospital following Peter’s asthma attack. Then, however, a silver lining of warmth had comforted Rhodey. A recognition and fondness that kept his brown eyes from being completely snuffed out.

Rhodey’s urgency flared against his curiosity, knowing that he needed to get the kid dry and no longer shivering before addressing anything about what went wrong for him today. So many unknowns hovered menacingly, but Peter’s health and wellness would always come first for Rhodey.

“Hey, come over here for me, will you Pete?” Speaking softly, he led Peter to the nearby couch, and the kid followed like he’d forgotten his own bodily autonomy. “Sit down - no, I don’t care about a wet couch. I care about a wet kid,” he shot down Peter’s non-verbal objection, which had consisted of a tensed frame and bulging eyes.

Once Peter was seated rigidly, the large towel and a knit throw blanket layered over his shoulders, Rhodey turned on the fireplace and hurried away to fetch some dry clothing. Back in his room, selecting the smallest and warmest garments from his wardrobe, Rhodey took a breather from his panic to check his phone for anything from Tony. He was disappointed, but unsurprised when there were no missed calls, voicemails, or text messages. Sighing impatiently, he typed out a quick text to Tony, just to let him know that Peter was here and safe.

Back in the living room, Rhodey handed the outfit to Peter and softly pointed out the bathroom where he could change and warm up in the shower. As much as Rhodey desperately wanted to launch into the “What are you doing here?” speech with Peter, the last thing he wanted to do was scare him off or make him think he was unwelcome. The time would come for that conversation, but for now it needed to wait, he thought decidedly as Peter took small steps toward the bathroom, steps so light that he looked as though he was trying to avoid misplacing even a speck of dust with his presence.

When he heard the hollow echo of the running water, Rhodey was relieved that Peter was functional enough to at least take a shower, but he found himself nearly manic and unable to contain his worry. His hands needed something to do. Partially to quell the enormous disappointment in himself and guilt that threatened to bowl him over and send him huddling into a corner.

Resolutely, he started on making a batch of hot chocolate and a box of the macaroni and cheese he kept on hand for quick meals when he stopped by this house. Despite the familiar motions of his hands, his mind clung fast to how terribly he’d failed his nephew. How his efforts to see Peter the past several weeks had proven woefully, devastatingly inadequate.

So many times he’d tried to see Peter. Calling Tony until the man stopped answering his calls. Leaving voicemails that, unless FRIDAY played them without Tony’s consent, had remained unheard. Texting him until he was certain his number had been blocked. Even driving out to the lake house on two separate occasions had been met with such vehement anger and reukes that he’d thought for a moment that Tony would inflict some of the property’s security measures on him.

Tony Stark excelled at a nearly infinite list of skills, and keeping out those who were not welcome was certainly near the top of that list. Even if the person he was trying to keep out meant his oldest and closest friend. It was highly unsettling to him that not a single one of their previous arguments or disagreements had been this vitriolic and venomous. Or had lasted such a long span of time.

In a fit of desperation-fuelled anger after the second time he’d been effectively booted off Stark property in an attempt to see his oldest nephew, to check on him and make sure he was okay, Rhodey had contacted Child Protective Services to report that a minor was being mistreated. He sincerely doubted his claim was taken with any weight, considering the apprehensive scoff from the man who was writing down the details of his complaint after hearing that the accusation was being leveled against Tony Stark.

Rhodey did maintain a small measure of comfort that, by law, the agency was required to follow up on his complaint, though he suspected that it was most likely banished to the bottom of an ever-growing skyscraper of files concerning mistreated children in New York. Even with his residence outside the sprawling jungle of New York City, the county where the Starks resided in their lake house was still inundated with far too many cases and far too few employees who were paid so low that it couldn’t even be considered a pittance.

Once Rhodey heard the din of the running water stop, he took the initiative to try calling Tony this time. The line didn’t even ring a single time before bouncing him to voicemail. Frankly, he was surprised to have even gotten that far. The voice message he left was essentially the same as the text message, letting Tony know that Peter was at his house and that he was safe, but with the added inflection of his judgmental vexation. Just as he fought the temptation to demand Peter tell him what had happened, he bit his tongue against the venom of his fury against Tony. He bit it back for Peter. Because Peter was safe right now. His feud with the man who was his brother in every way except blood came in a far-distant second place to his nephew.

Around the time Rhodey poured a steaming mug of hot chocolate and was stirring in the cheese sauce to the pot of macaroni, Peter emerged from the bathroom, wet hair tousled, nearly swamped in the borrowed outfit. (It hit Rhodey in that moment how thin and frail the superhero appeared, compared even to the previous time he’d seen him). Under his glasses, which had been wiped clear of raindrops, Peter’s eyes were still ringed with red, further framed with inky indigo circles underneath. Overall, his nephew looked defeated and diminutive. Done.

Rhodey’s arms ached to wrap Peter into a secure embrace and to tell him as many times as he needed to hear it that it was okay, that he was safe now. But with a stinging pang, he conceded that there was no way he could possibly know if everything - or anything really - was okay.

Instead, with soft and gentle gestures, he tried to comfort his nephew. Setting a heaping bowl of macaroni and cheese in front of the kid, along with a large glass of water next to the hot chocolate, he observed carefully that Peter’s face remained stony. His eyes trapped in a traumatized fugue. It was only when Rhodey offered Peter the option of too much whipped cream or too many marshmallows in his hot chocolate that the kid’s lips twitched upward into a distant relative of a smile.

“Both.”

The tight knot in Rhodey’s chest that had tied itself up when he opened the door to see Peter loosened somewhat at the first word the kid uttered. His voice was faint and sounded like his throat was scraped against concrete, but progress was progress.

For the next several minutes, Rhodey let Peter eat uninterrupted with some space between them. From across the kitchen, he could see that Peter’s bites were small and slow. He also ate clumsily with his left hand while his right sat limply in his lap. At least his affinity for hot chocolate appeared to remain strong.

After roughly a quarter of a bowl of mac and cheese, Peter sat leaned back against the chair, his back still stiff and wound tight, but nursing the mug of hot chocolate close to his chest with his hands sheathed by too-long sweatshirt sleeves.

Finally, when Peter’s face looked less ashen gray and his shoulders untucked from his ears, Rhodey led him back to the couch in front of the fire that had warmed the living room space into a toasty cocoon. Once they were settled, Rhodey felt the time had come to get some answers. And since none had come from Tony, he would see if Peter was up to saying anything about the situation.

“Can you tell me what’s going on Pete? I’m always happy to see my favorite nephew, it was just a surprise seeing you on my front step looking like you’d taken a dip in the Hudson.”

Peter only shook his head, his face visibly going hard again like watching water firm into ice, and not taking the bait on his small push to lighten the dim mood. This time, however, Rhodey spotted rivulets and fractures that betrayed Peter’s fragility.

Rhodey asked again, softer this time, adding in the reassurance that he was always there for him, no matter what. The rivulets widened, and he could practically hear the booming creak as the ice shelf shifted. Peter wanted to speak, that much was clear. He slowly opened and closed his mouth, but the words wouldn’t come. Rhodey layered on more gentle consolations, along with wrapping another throw blanket around his slight frame.

Under his gesture, Peter trembled again, but Rhodey had no way to discern whether the shivers were from being cold or the tumultuous upset. Perhaps it was a damaging combination, he considered grimly.

It became apparent that asking Peter for information was too draining and demanding on his current delicate countenance, and that getting answers from Tony was a dead-end straight into a formidable brick wall. Rhodey detoured with a different approach that would possibly be easier for his nephew.

“Does your dad know that you’re here?”

“I don’t have a dad.”

Rhodey recoiled at Peter’s response, which was so immediate and spoken with such conviction that he’d never witnessed from the kid. Deepening the mystery further, Peter didn’t even look shaken or upset in that moment, instead staring stoically into the fire, the flickering flames reflecting off his irises, giving off a simulacrum of warmth.

Though Peter’s declaration gave Rhodey more insight than he’d been expecting, it also pried open a Pandora’s box of complex, layered questions. He hitched onto the sudden assuredness that crutched Peter up.

“Can you tell me what happened Pete? I just want to know that you’re safe.”

Again, Peter was quiet for a while and Rhodey resigned himself to not getting any information of substance. He wouldn’t push his nephew further. But then, in that hoarse, granular voice, Peter spoke.

“I thought it would fix things. I thought that it would matter.”

With a hitch in his voice, Rhodey jumped to reply. “What do you mean, kiddo? What would fix things?” He tried not to speak too quickly to avoid spooking the kid, but he didn’t know when the spell of candor would expire.

Peter inhaled sharply, one side of his lips pulling up like he was in a sudden, searing pain. “Giving up my powers. Letting him take away Spider-Man,” Peter paused as his voice wavered, but as he stared into the blue and orange flames that licked the composite logs, they bolstered his mettle.

“Mr. Stark said my powers were the problem. And that if I let him give me those shots - to keep giving me those shots - that I could be part of his family.” Rhodey remained silent, attention rapt, afraid even blinking would render Peter back to his devastated silence. “I was tired of being left out. I didn’t even care about Spider-Man, which was hard enough because I know that I was disappointing Uncle Ben. But, I just… I…” Peter struggled immensely, blinking back a somber shininess. “But I just wanted to be part of his family. I didn’t want them to be afraid of me.”

“Nothing really changed though,” Peter’s mirthless laugh was chilling, even through the warmth enveloping the space. “The only difference is that Pepper doesn’t look at me like I’m a feral monster, foaming at the mouth and ready to attack her kids at a moment’s notice. I mean,” Peter gave a sigh of concession, “I know I’m not their real kid, but I thought when they took me…” Rhodey stopped breathing, watching as Peter appeared to swallow something distasteful.

“I thought when they took me that I would be their son, and they would be my mom and dad.” It was obvious how much the admission had cost Peter as his posture crumpled, slumping him back against the couch. “I thought that if I gave up my powers, that they would be my family. And that they would want me.”

Suddenly, Peter shot up from the couch, the blanket falling from his shoulders as he took stilted steps in front of the fireplace, his face looking as though he was trying to make sense of a riddle or a complex math equation.

“I thought May was my family, too,” Peter said earnestly. “When she told me that we weren’t going to be a family anymore, I was so confused. I didn’t think that was how families worked.” Peter was working himself into a dazed frenzy. Rhodey didn’t even know if Peter realized that he was still in the room, that Rhodey was still there listening to him as he worked out the intricacies of his pain verbally.

“But what do I know about how families work, right?” This time, Peter addressed him directly, his voice rising to a cracked crescendo. But Rhodey didn’t respond. How could he? What was there to say to the upset, overwrought teenager pacing brokenly in front of him?

“The only people who really wanted to take care of me died when I was six. That was my family. Everything since then has been me expecting other people to care as much as my mom and dad did.”

“But I get it now. I get it. Ben cared. He loved me. But I got him killed and that was my last chance.” Peter appeared to have arrived at a conclusion when he stilled. “It was unfair of me to expect more from May, and from Mr. Stark. I was selfish. They didn’t want to be my family and I was trying to force them to do something that they didn’t want to do.”

Peter finally turned his attention to Rhodey, who had since stood from the couch, prepared and determined to sort through the rubble as the kid’s world collapsed around him. The force and destruction of what Peter was working through in front of him reminded him of the wreckage of the Avengers Compound with its sharp angles, precarious depths, and how every surface threatened to crumble on top of him once and for all.

“Can I stay with you?” Peter rasped, his conviction receding like an ocean tide before Rhodey’s eyes. “Please.”

It was so simply whispered, after a nearly hysteric frenzy of words. Rhodey ached for the kid wanting something so basic. So basic, but something he appeared to struggle to ask for.

Rhodey closed the space between himself and his nephew, wrapping his arms tightly around him. Peter, whose stature fell as though whatever kept him upright had been pulled away, accepted the embrace, bringing his face down to burrow into his chest.

“Always, Pete.” Rhodey said into the top of the kid’s head, his hair drying into unruly, frizzy curls. And though Peter’s face was buried in his sweatshirt, his cries muffled and heaving back shuttered, letting Rhodey know that the ice had finally split, leaving a deeply fractured Peter in its wake.

_____

Hours later, Peter had finally cried himself out as he laid against Rhodey’s chest. Situated next to him on the couch, Rhodey felt the moment that Peter’s frame, wound so tight it may snap, went limp in his arms, like a puppet suddenly abandoned by its puppeteer.

While Rhodey was secure in the ease and calm that came in knowing for a concrete fact that his nephew was safe, that was the only thing he could take comfort in. His inner tumult at the things Peter had uttered swirled thickly and slowly, like a massive, destructive hurricane.

How Peter had given up his powers in hope that he would be accepted as a member of the family that had taken him in. How the abandonment from Peter’s aunt was obviously a colossal, gaping wound that nobody had even attempted to address since it had happened.

And most poignantly, Rhodey was bewildered at what could have possibly transpired for Peter Parker to renounce Tony Stark as his father?

But Peter wasn’t the one who needed to answer for that. He was the kid in this situation, the child who should be taken care of by the adults in his life. Six or sixteen, Peter was still a child who needed a parent. Which was something that Rhodey noted suspiciously that Tony conveniently ignored unless his sub-par (putting it lightly) parenting was challenged.

More than anything, he wanted to be face-to-face with Tony at that moment. To throw in his face every single horrendous thing Peter had revealed, to make the man feel even a dusty splinter of the desperation and extreme otherness that his son endured every single day.

Rhodey didn’t yell much. Typically, his solemn and disappointed glares were enough to get his message across to Tony. Today, however, Rhodey wanted to be heard.

But he couldn’t do that right now, not with Peter laying against him, finally having shed the thick clock of despair and looking, if not at peace, but at rest.

What Rhodey could do was send a vicious string of text messages demanding answers. He didn’t even fully care whether or not Tony was seeing or even receiving the messages. Typing out his fury on behalf of Peter was mollifying and it made him feel as though he was doing something, anything really, to improve his nephew’s life.

First and foremost, with each finger typing with tight intention: “What the hell did you do?”

_____

It wasn’t as though Tony wasn’t receiving the text messages from his platypus. It was more that he conveniently ignored them as they piled up in his inbox, unread and muted. And before today, he’d been more than happy with that arrangement, even telling FRIDAY to stop telling him when Rhodey’s blocked number was trying to reach him.

But then Peter had run away. Well, scratch that - revisionist history and all that - Peter left, Tony found him, they fought, and then Peter had run away.

FRIDAY’s disobedience of her own protocol was the only reason he knew that his kid was safe at the moment. Her continual evolution and ability to spite him both fascinated Tony as it did irritated him.

As soon as a message came through from Rhodey that Peter was safe and at Rhodey’s house, FRIDAY pushed through sternly to alert him. Of course, it wasn’t as though Tony had been actively searching for Peter at that point. The shame from the things that had been said had - that he had said - had pulled him under like viscous quicksand.

Tony’s phone chirped again, but the second he dismissed the notification, it was followed by another, then another, and another. The number badge on his inbox kept climbing to the point he no longer saw message previews, just “You have new messages in your inbox.”

“FRI, who’s trying to bombard me? Did Morgan steal Pep’s phone and figure out gifs again?” He asked, but the spark of fondness in his voice when talking about his daughter was absent. Tony was too hollow by what happened with Peter to feel anything close to a father, nevertheless a good father.

“Colonel Rhodes, Boss,” she replied, as sternly as an AI could stretch her tone to sound. “He has some... choice words for you.” And before Tony could wave his hand and tell her to mute, she interrupted. “Pushing all messages through now.”

And she didn’t even say Boss.

“What the hell did you do?”

Tony stared down at the message until a prickly dryness stung at his eyes, the letters blurring and swimming around each other until he blinked and they reassembled themselves back to their intended message. The ache from his orbital bones kept him grounded as his mind tried to separate itself. It kept him present and reminded him that the argument (which, god, just sounded so inadequate to describe what had occurred), had actually happened, and that he hadn’t even begun an attempt to sweep up the rubble and debris.

At least, it seemed, his Honeybear had begun the process and made sure Peter was safe. It was pouring rain, after all, and after the dispute (was that any better? No.) Peter had run and Tony had gone numb - hadn’t even started to search. He’d been Little Miss Muffett, sitting on a Tuffet when his son had run off in the rain, horrifically upset.

His fathering credentials were in an open free-fall at the moment, Tony lamented wryly. He remembered being so concerned when poor Miles had gotten a glob of mayo on his head while Tony had been holding him while eating a sandwich. And how tightly he hugged Morgan when she complained of being cold after swimming in the lake, helping her get dry and warm until she complained that he was hugging her too tightly and that she would pop if he didn’t let go.

But Peter? What did he do when he messed up with Peter? What did he do when Peter so transparently needed him? What did Peter get? Anger with overwrought sarcasm and an attempt at listening that was DOA. And Peter had deflected that anger and overwrought sarcasm right back at him, along with a sloppily thrown punch that Tony suspected hurt Peter more than it hurt him.

Back in the tower, in one of his old penthouse living areas, Tony collapsed onto a couch and let out a sigh that contained every ugly fragment of his state of mind. He was too much at a loss to even begin typing a response back to Rhodey, or to read through the rest of the messages, which had since slowed considerably. Tony was certain an inferno of accusations and harsh words resided in them. For now, he would just imagine what they said. Assuming they were bad was just as good as reading the severe messages inside, right?

Tony’s knee-jerk reaction was to defend himself against the vague, open-ended accusation. Knee-jerk reactions were how he’d gotten into this situation, he considered regretfully. So he deleted the hastily typed “What do you mean what did I do? The kid punched me and ran.”

Instead he sent “Is Peter safe?”

Asking if Peter was safe, not whether he was okay, was intentional. Peter wasn’t okay and Tony wasn’t okay. There was nothing okay about the situation.

Tony pressed the palms of his hands against his eyes until squiggles and starbursts exploded behind his eyelids and the solid material of his prosthesis hurt his bruised eye socket.

God, Peter had punched him. Peter Parker, over-eager puppy, always wanting to make him proud, Peter Parker had punched him. His son, his Underoos, his little spiderling had punched him and Tony didn’t blame the kid in the slightest.

Tony had seen plainly that Peter was upset when he’d found him outside of May’s apartment building - actually, upset didn’t even begin to cover it. Peter had looked emotionally demolished and Tony had picked a fight. Tony had failed to handle Peter like a kid when he’d chosen petty anger over compassionate listening.

What kind of parenting move was that? What if he did the same thing to Morgan when she yelled at him because she couldn’t have juice pops for breakfast? One of the first rules with dealing with upset kids was to not stoop to their level. Mediate, calm them down. Figure out the source of the “big emotions” and have them use their words to work through the issue.

And Tony had done the opposite. He’d let his distress and irritation at being lied to, and his fear for Peter’s safety take the wheel and he had argued with Peter like he would have with Cap or Banner, or even Rhodey. Speak of the devil…

“Yes, Peter is safe. At my house.” Tony nodded at the response and didn’t bother to dig any further at the moment.

The monumental weight of their blowout, disastrous fight (there, those were the words) pushed down on his shoulders until it was all Tony could do to remain upright. How many times he’d chosen the wrong reaction or cherry-picked words that would sting rather than help. He’d said so many things, but he’d never once asked Peter why he was so upset.

Why he looked so utterly devastated, as though the pain was still working its way through him on a cellular level.

Tony could have done anything - everything - better, as he thought of their fight vividly and vibrantly. The colors of the scene were somehow brighter in his memory, and the words were almost unbearably loud.

As a spectator, Tony could see their fight for what it really was, unencumbered by his own immature anger and self-righteous “parenting.”

_____

“You lied to me Peter!” Tony yelled.

“It doesn’t matter…” And if Tony had been paying close attention, he would have realized how dejected Peter sounded in that moment.

“Bullshit it doesn’t matter! I didn’t know where you were! Because you lied to me. Going to hang out with Ned and MJ my ass!” So he yelled, because that’s how Tony reacted to people lying to him. Like Cap had. “You’re my kid, Peter. I need to know where you are.”

Peter scoffed before a mirthless laugh escaped, which only pushed Tony’s anger further toward a fracture point.

“Hey, get back here!” Tony barked when Peter turned to walk away. He reached out and grabbed Peter’s arm. Really, he should have known that something had gone terribly wrong when Peter whipped back around at him angrily. But Tony was blind with his self-righteous anger.

“You can’t just lie to me and wander around New York, like a stray puppy, Parker! It’s not like you have superpowers to save your ass anymore when you land in some shit—”

“And whose fault is it that I don’t have powers anymore?!”

Tony didn’t let Peter’s infuriated question permeate his skin. He might as well have been wearing his armor for his unyielding defensiveness and how he redirected Peter’s rightful fury right back at him.

“I didn’t force you to do anything, Pete.”

“You really think I had a choice?” Peter’s voice rose to a hysteric crescendo. “My last chance at a family treated me like a wild mutant, like my freakishness was contagious. And then you gave me an ultimatum that would leave me either powerless or homeless. Tell me Tony. Where’s the choice?”

Tony didn’t even take a moment before firing back. “There was never an ultimatum, Peter. Don’t twist the situation because you regret your choice.”

“There was no choice!” Peter shouted back, his shoulders hunched defensively. “If there was a choice, then why didn’t you answer me when I asked you what would happen if I said no.”

Uncharacteristically, Tony was at a loss for words. But Peter wasn’t done pushing. Something had snapped within the kid, and the quiet, docile Peter that had lived with his family the last several months was nowhere to be seen.

“Tell me now.” Peter demanded. “What would you have done if I wanted to keep my powers?” It was only silent for a beat before Peter interjected again. “Stumped? How about I tell you my suspicions and you can tell me how close I am?”

Tony resented having his own brand of sharp-tongued wit thrown back in his face. The number of people who could verbally spar with him was a small sampling, with Pepper and Rhodey leading.

“For making me out to be the bad guy here, Pete, you’re sure acting an awful lot like me.” He shot back, adding an edge of aggression to his tone. If Peter faltered, Tony didn’t see it as the kid’s expression warped into a hard agitation.

“Fine, tell me you wouldn’t have told me to leave if I wanted to keep my powers. Bind your powers or leave, right? Because I was a threat to your precious kids. Bind your powers and have a family, or refuse and find somewhere else to live.”

Every word grated on Tony’s nerves with a sharper edge. Currently, Peter controlled the confrontation, and Tony was immensely uncomfortable without his armor of dominance.

“Don’t get upset with me when you’re the one in trouble here, Parker. You disobeyed me, remember? You ran off after spouting some lie about hanging with friends.” Tony could have stopped there. He really should have stopped there. It was far enough. But restraint wasn’t one of the qualities for which Tony Stark was famed.

“Here’s a little tip about lying, kid. You have to get everyone involved in on it, or it blows up in your face.” Peter’s face blanched. “I called your little friends when you failed to show up on time and they both told me that not only have they not seen you, but that you haven’t talked to them in weeks.”

Watching Peter’s frozen form, Tony could acknowledge internally that he’d gone too far. That every word he said was shoving a rusty blade into Peter’s back and twisting it cruelly. It was too bad that Tony’s ego only cared about being right, “winning” the fight, and so it took the wheel and drove.

It looked like Peter had to physically absorb the verbal blow before recovering, stiffening his posture and squaring his shoulders.

“The great Tony Stark everyone,” he spread his arms out in a sweeping gesture. “Changing the subject whenever he has to face just how badly he’s fucked up.”

“Hey, easy on the insults there, smartass. Even if you’re pissed at me, I’m still your dad—”

“Oh my gosh, really?” The feigned shock and amazement pinned Tony down with their combined weight. “You’re my dad? How come I never got that memo?” Then Peter’s face took a harsher, darker dive, and the coolness of his next words made Tony involuntarily shiver. “Since when are you my father? Because I sure don’t feel like one of your kids.”

Looking back, this was another pivotal moment. He could have addressed why Peter felt that way. Or he could have just put a full stop to the argument, shutting it down before any additional damage could be dealt. Either option would have been better than the thick, viscous venom that he shot at Peter.

“What the hell do you want from me, kid?” Tony exclaimed, feeling as though he was growing in height as Peter staggered back slightly. “You act like you’re ready for that full-time superhero life - hacking the suit I made for you, following me on that damn donut like you wanted to save the universe - and now you’re upset because I’m not a good enough daddy?”

Tony’s subconscious begged him to stop, pleading for him to listen to what he was saying and to really look at the dumbstruck teenager that he was busy demolishing. His anger and betrayal had already decided what to say to Peter, however, and Tony almost felt like the person speaking next wasn’t himself.

“Do you not get enough hugs? Do you get less syrup on your pancakes?” Stop. Stop. STOP. “Tell me exactly how I’m not your daddy dearest when you don’t have any other options, Peter.”

Tony acknowledged that he deserved the punch the moment Peter’s fist collided with his face.

Chapter Text

“...when you don’t have any other options, Peter.”

The words landed violent blows against his skull like solid spheres of hail, but coming from the inside out. He couldn’t get them out, to set them free to hurt someone else other than him. Peter ran his fingers through his disheveled hair, curling them tightly like a dead spider’s legs, his nails scraping against his scalp to feel something else to ground him.

“...you don’t have any other options…”

Peter envisioned sticking a hand down his throat to vomit the words out. Or bashing his head against something until they tumbled out of his ears. Something to rid himself of their acidic venom before they did any additional damage.

“...any other options…”

“I know, okay! I KNOW!” A scream ripped from his throat. He didn’t even know who he was yelling at. Mr. Stark, obviously, since he was the source of the corrosive statement that continued to thrash him relentlessly. But himself too, for daring to believe that the situation was any different than it actually was. Mr. Stark had been able to see the truth like it was written across his forehead before Peter had even gotten the chance to tell him what happened with Aunt May. - Just. May. No aunt. Not anymore.

Miserable and unable to sleep for the antagonistic reruns of Mr. Stark’s viciously spat truth, punctuated by his own punch, Peter laid awake and considered how his parental options had been ripped from his greedy vice grip with all the gentleness of a full-body tackle.

_____

Earlier that day.

The adrenaline caused by reckless, unearned confidence and abandon only got Peter as far as the door to Aunt May’s apartment. He’d managed to maintain his poker face with Mr. Stark on the drive into the city. He’d managed to lie to the man about leaving the tower with no questions asked. Even the long subway ride had been a relatively easy feat, despite still not having a phone to confirm that he was on the correct line - relying on his New York-born and -bred knowledge helped. The graying, middle-aged doorman had even recognized him and buzzed him into the building without any hesitation.

It was far easier than Peter had anticipated, which, he supposed, should bring a modicum of relief. The forces of the universe weren’t working against him. Something, someone, somewhere - wanted him to have this. And now, he had his chance to get Aunt May back, or, more accurately, to get her to take him back.

This is what he’d been waiting for. Planning for. So even though Peter felt every bit of confidence and energy desert him as the elevator opened to the tenth floor, he swallowed the dry rock that had situated itself in his throat and stepped out. And as he raised his hand to knock on the door, Peter felt a sense of deja vu, reminded of how, as Spider-Man, once he shot a web and took the leap off a building, there was no turning back, no chickening out or making a different decision.

Leap and deal with the fallout. Either you swing or you fall. But you can’t swing if you don’t leap.

Peter inwardly cringed at the cheesy pep talk he was giving himself, physically shaking off the feeling which allowed enough of a lapse in focus for his knuckles to rap three times in succession against the door of apartment 1004.

The permeating fear that no one would be home and that his mission would be entirely pointless dissipated when he heard the muffle of two distantly familiar voices bickering about who should get the door.

“You do it.” “No, you!”

Peter keenly hoped that the two boys - his former-step-cousins, he guessed they were now - would decide and answer it soon, because he wasn’t sure he could muster the courage to knock again when he’d had to trick himself into doing it in the first place.

“Aaron, get the door.” His chest seized upon hearing Aunt May’s voice, which sounded even farther away and distorted, but that he would never mistake for anything else but the woman who’d raised him for the majority of his life.

Through an exaggerated, dramatic sigh and a drawn out “Fine,” Peter only had mere seconds left to prepare himself before the door opened. Standing in the doorway was one of the children of the man May had built a life with during the Snap. Aaron looked at him, bored and underwhelmed, and Peter realized that the 13-year-old probably didn’t recognize him with glasses and without the protective layer of muscle that made Peter look like someone on the verge of adulthood.

“Uh, hey Aaron,” Peter said awkwardly, intensely uncomfortable under the scrutiny. “Can I talk to Aunt May?” He spat the words out in a jumbled heap, keenly aware that every moment he stood here and every word he said was a significant drain on whatever remained of his confidence and fortitude.

Recognition finally sparked in Aaron’s eyes, but it didn’t stop him from looking disinterested as he called back into the apartment behind him “Mom! Door for you!” before lazily stalking back to the couch where he lounged with Jake, picking up his controller and going back to his game like Peter had never interrupted him.

The gesture of Aaron calling Aunt May “Mom” sent a revolting jerk down his spine, like someone had grabbed ahold and yanked, but there was too much else happening for him to dwell on it. Later. He would consider it, and all of its implications later.

For now, he stared into the apartment, unmoving and breath suspended. Aaron had left the door open, but Peter did not want to be presumptuous to see it as an invitation to come inside. Most likely it was laziness to the nth degree. So he stood out in the hall to wait, all too aware that this was no longer his home (to be fair, he hadn’t considered it his home when he lived here either) and that he was, at this point, uninvited.

The discomfort of standing like a literal outsider grew with every second that he waited for Aunt May.

You can still turn around and run. Aaron hardly recognized you and it’s not like he’d care or say anything if you just disappeared. Did you really think this was a good idea? Did you need a reminder about why you never fit in here? If that was all you needed you could have just asked. The list is a mile long.

Peter shrugged his shoulders brusquely as if shaking off an intrusive insect. Keeping his feet planted, he told himself that he was here and that he would stay, no matter what. Inwardly, Peter recognized that his resolve was in fact fading.

In a tactic he used to resort to as a child, Peter started to count back from 60, giving himself permission to leave if he got to zero and Aunt May still wasn’t there.

He only got to 46 before Aunt May showed up, her hurried face achingly familiar, but her office casual outfit unfamiliar to him. She tossed a set of keys into a nearby leather purse, before turning to the doorway. The moment Aunt May spotted him, her hasty motions stopped like a pause button had been pressed in her direction.

Of course Aunt May would instantly recognize him, Peter thought with a swell of comfort. She’d known him before Spider-Man. She’d known the Peter Parker who palmed an inhaler in one hand and a toy Iron Man wrist repulsor in the other. Aunt May was intimately aware of nearly every facet of Peter’s life, like his fear of the dark he’d never entirely outgrown so she’d kept a nightlight on outside his bedroom door (not inside, because he wasn’t a little kid), or how she was the only one who had taken on the painstaking task of figuring out how to get him to eat in the days after his parents had died. Frozen waffles with butter and cinnamon sugar on top, cut up exactly how his mom did it. She’d figured it out, even when he’d been silent and unhelpful with emotions he didn’t know yet to be shock and grief.

For that suspended second, as Aunt May recognized him, Peter felt warmth and relief lapping at his ankles. No one knew him like May, and to have her familiar face looking at him, aware of all of his flaws and triumphs, his fears and braveries, the things that made him hurt and gave him comfort - it was something that Peter didn’t realize he’d been sorely missing. A piece he hadn’t yet known was missing from the scattered puzzle pieces of his current state.

Even on Mr. Stark’s best day, he still couldn’t look at Peter like Aunt May did.

“Peter,” May said, sounding haunted and shaking herself out of her frozen trance. She righted her posture and turned to face him before speaking again. “I didn’t expect to see you.”

Peter curled his toes in his shoes, trying not to let the words “unwelcome” and “uninvited” push him around. He fought to not avert his eyes anxiously.

“Uh, um, h-hi Aunt May,” Peter croaked, hating the worn quality his voice had taken on just as much as the childish stuttering. “I was in Queens, and…” His voice died before he could muster even a lame excuse.

May did not invite him into the apartment, instead striding to the door and observing the boys for a few moments before closing it behind her, leaving them alone in the hallway.

Standing in front of his Aunt May was far more trying than Peter had expected, with her stern posture and her arms wrapped over her chest and looking almost impatient with him.

“Long time, no see,” Peter muttered lamely in an attempt to ease the inordinately heavy silence, then instantaneously squeezing his eyes shut against the uncomfortable embarrassment.

May answered with a tight “Yes, it’s been awhile,” and Peter tried to keep himself from wilting at her formality. “You look different.”

Peter’s eyes darted up from his feet to catch her hazel eyes observing him. She was the first person to mention that Peter looked physically different without his powers (though she didn’t yet know that to be the cause). With everyone else, Peter just felt like they avoided bringing it up, maybe not knowing what to say and avoiding it, or maybe realizing that it was a raw and painful wound for Peter and not wanting to make him feel any worse. He liked to think it was the latter, but he wouldn’t ever ask.

“Yeah,” Peter nodded, a bit too vigorously. Seeing his opening, he gulped down his pride and said “I’m not Spider-Man anymore.”

May hid whatever shock she experienced well, appearing to absorb the news and take it in stride. “Okay,” she said evenly. “I’m sorry you lost your powers.”

It wasn’t what he was expecting, and Peter did acknowledge with a small part of himself that she really didn’t sound at all regretful, but he couldn’t help but feel encouraged.

“No! It’s not like that.” Peter replied quickly as his vigorous head nod turned into head shakes. “I-um… I chose to give them up,” he clarified, words tinged with what sounded like he was making a peace offering.

“Why would you do that, Peter?” May inquired after considering him for a few moments, looking him up and down. Peter was reminded dizzyingly of the nauseating sensation of being treated like a science experiment rather than a person. As though he was nothing more than having powers or not having powers. He coughed, pushing down the unpleasant notion before righting himself to say at least some of what he’d rehearsed.

“Um, because Uncle Ben,” both of their breaths hitched at the name. “Uncle Ben told me that with great power comes great responsibility. And, uh, well, I had to learn that responsibility isn’t just about catching the bad guys. It’s more about keeping the people around you safe, which is what I’ve always tried to do, but…” Peter desperately tries to push through the cinderblock wall that’s erected itself, brick by brick, in his throat with every word. “It also means doing the hard thing and giving up my powers to make sure they can’t hurt anyone.”

When Peter finished, he felt lighter than he had since before - well, since before what happened with Morgan. Countless hours had been spent attempting to reconcile giving up his powers with what Uncle Ben had asked of him, but he’d finally unearthed the answer when Morgan’s cast had come off. What use was it having powers that he could use to fight crime and help people if those same powers put the people he loved in danger?

May was tight-lipped and quiet for longer than Peter would have hoped.

“That’s a very nice sentiment, Peter,” she said, each word carefully measured. “Why wouldn’t you do that for me?”

A slap across the face would have startled him less. A hand around his throat would have been less effective in suffocating him. Peter sputtered, his tongue heavy and useless in his mouth.

“No, it’s not—” He desperately fumbled for the words, but even if his mouth was working, Peter’s mind had blanked from everything he wanted to say to her.

“Another thing you’ll do for Stark, but not for the people you call your family, Peter.” May’s words sliced into him with the strength and destruction of an axe swing. Though he felt like the air was socked from his chest and that he was bleeding out through some invisible gash, Peter fumbled to find any words to stop the conversation’s rapid deterioration. But they wouldn’t rise any further than his chest, blocked and heavy.

“Why are you here, Peter?” He withered at the point-blank question. In another life, another set of circumstances, Peter considered that he would have just been a nephew surprising his aunt, and she would be happily surprised to see him, and she would wrap her arms around him and ask him what he was doing there with bewilderment and joy. This was so far from those circumstances that he couldn’t even comprehend every disparity.

Steeling himself, Peter recognized that this was his opportunity to ask the question that had been burning a hole internally since he decided that the Starks would never actually want him.

“I. Um. I wanted to see if I could come back.” He said softly, barely above a mumble. “I want to live with you again. I miss you.” A swell of self-loathing flooded him with his weak and uncompelling words. So much for those prepared, persuasive statements scribbled on paper.

Peter’s scrapped, muddied confidence deserted him and he was unable to look at May, too terrified to witness her reaction.

“I miss you too, Peter.” His entire body perked up, even the fine hair on the back of his neck standing up in anticipation. “But you have shown me time and time again that Tony Stark means more to you.” He deflated, posture sinking like his bones had turned to jelly.

“You hid what you were doing from me for months. Germany, the ferry, going to space - you went to space and didn’t once think about the fact that you were leaving me behind, Peter. It was just you and me. Your Uncle Ben was gone,”

He was overcome by the urge to clamp his hands over his ears to block out the verbal smackdown. This was even worse than the worst-case scenarios his mind had produced when he’d been imagining the possible outcomes.

Peter stood frozen, rooted, unbreathing and unblinking, prepared to be further hurt by whatever May said next.

“You knew you were all I had left and you chose to follow Stark. And I just can’t do that anymore. I can’t be the person you just up and abandon the moment Tony Stark says jump.”

“May, I’m not Spider-Man anymore!” Peter exclaimed hysterically, voice thick with sticky, viscous anguish. The situation was far beyond repair by this point, but he couldn’t help but keep trying. To keep clawing and clinging to the possibilities he’d dreamt up where she welcomed him back.

“I’m sorry Peter, but that doesn’t fix anything.” Peter wanted to cry. “You made your choices and I respected them by giving you to Stark.”

No, no, no, you don’t understand. Stark doesn’t want Spider-Man or Peter. You wanted me when I was just Peter. Just give me a chance. I learned my lesson. Please let me come back. Please. I need someone to want me. I’ll do anything. Anything. Please.

The pathetic pleas lodged themselves in his larynx. The entirety of his body felt clogged and defunct. But it wasn’t like she was wrong. He was guilty of every accusation she lobbed at him, along with other crimes that she didn’t even know about. This, what was happening, was just a culmination of the consequences of his own actions.

“But May,” his protest was as thin and flimsy as tissue paper. And so was he, ready to shred at the very next pressure mounted on him.

“Is that everything, Peter?”

Even though he didn’t nod, she took his silence and craned neck as an assenting answer. Peter heard her feet shuffle back toward the door and he heard the latch mechanism open, but his senses were hazy and staticky, and so everything sounded incredibly distant as he withdrew into himself.

“I love you, Peter. But I can’t do this anymore. Goodbye baby.”

And then the door closed behind her and that was it. Mr. Stark’s family was conditional, May had rejected him, and Peter was left with nothing.

The ensuing conversation with Mr. Stark, after the man had found him walking listlessly in the general direction of lower Manhattan (his mind had been too numb to consider that it was a 12-mile walk), had been the equivalent of having sharp salt crystals ground into a fresh, openly weeping burn wound.

And now? Peter really wasn’t sure if he had anywhere left to go after his welcome wore thin with Rhodey. As much as he wanted to stay with Rhodey, Peter was keenly observant of the fact that the arrangement was temporary. Even though Rhodey (he still resisted adding the Uncle to the front to avoid any potential disappointment), had been gentle and caring with him in a way that no one had in a very long time, the man had not signed up to take care of him in a permanent capacity, or even as a long-term guest.

Peter’s guilt simply wouldn’t allow him to impose his presence on Rhodey for any significant span of time. Rhodey may be happy to have him around for now, but that would change. Either Peter’s presence would just lose its shiny novelty and Rhodey would get sick of him, or Peter would do something that would change Rhodey’s mind about him.

After what had happened with May and Mr. Stark, either possibility bore down on him as inevitable. If not one, then surely the other.

Peter was too self-conscious of the fact that Rhodey was another adult who had not signed up to take care of him. Morbidly, he considered that technically Mr. Stark had, at one point, signed up to take care of him when he signed the guardianship papers drawn up. But his hand had also been forced; the alternative to taking Peter left undiscussed but a dark and leery figure anyhow.

Their latest confrontation had revealed just how Mr. Stark felt about signing those papers, and the truth was pulverizing. Guardian. That’s what he’d signed up for. To be responsible for Peter’s welfare for as long as it was legally required for an adult to serve in that capacity. Not a father. Not his dad. Maybe a mentor? Even that felt like a presumptuous stretch at this point.

Mr. Stark told him with his jagged, barbed words that Peter’s expectations had been sorely misguided when he thought that living with him and Pepper constituted having parents.

A sob that felt too massive for his chest felt stuck, and for a moment, Peter panicked, his hand scrambling and grasping until he found his inhaler. He didn’t resort to using it yet, but he did turn over and bury his face in the soft pillow on the bed in Rhodey’s guestroom.

Mr. Stark had been so agonizingly right when he pointed out that Peter had no other options. The same way May had been right when she gave him the laundry list of ways he’d betrayed her trust.

How could Peter argue against either of them about their respective points? He couldn’t. Peter didn’t have a leg to stand on because he did not have anyone else he could claim as a parent and he had turned his back on May time and time again, though he hadn’t seen his actions in that light at the time.

Going back to Mr. Stark’s house, tail between his legs, would be too humiliating, Peter knew. He couldn’t go back and face just how badly he’d misjudged his place in - or more accurately, next to - the family. Eventually, Peter would have to face it, but for now, he would bide his time with Rhodey.

Peter would selfishly hoard every drop of warmth and care that Rhodey offered him so he could stash it away and use it in tiny increments when he needed to feel loved and wanted.

Chapter Text

Tony’s return to the lake house was slow and lumbering, the drive feeling more akin to a funeral procession and his mood sunken to depths known only in defeat by the hands of villains. His cheek throbbed with a vengeance even worse than the initial strike, and the empty passenger seat next to him mocked him with its vacancy and the orange glow of the “Passenger airbag OFF” light on his dashboard.

Returning home without Peter had never even been an inkling of a possibility. The last time he’d returned home without Peter Parker… the dazzlingly sharp and quick blade of that memory cut him down and stole his breath.

Rhodey hadn’t given an option when the man said that he was keeping Peter with him for that night and Tony fought off the unspoken “and indefinitely” that dangled precariously in the silence between them. At least this time he knew Peter was safe. Maybe not emotionally or psychologically well (big round of applause for all that being Tony’s fault), but physically, he was safe in Rhodey’s care.

For the remainder of that night’s dark drive, Tony was thankful for both the autopilot of his vehicle and the autopilot of his mind. He really only remembered small snatches. FRIDAY’s calm acquiescence when he asked her to take over as the driver, the headlights illuminating an exit sign advertising a burger joint that he should have thought to take Peter to, and finally, the slow crunch of gravel as they pulled into the driveway.

“We’re home, Boss.” She sounded solemn, as though she was suffering Peter’s absence the same way he was.

Once inside the house, the dramatically contrasting mood was jarring. He stumbled backward, throwing his prosthetic arm out for balance as Morgan plowed into him with her arms outstretched for a hug. Pepper was sitting on the couch, curled up with a book and looking as calm and relaxed as he could remember in recent months while a movie played on the television in the background and the low light of the standing lamp sent a warm glow across the living room.

No one seemed to notice the anguish painted across his face or the defeated slump in his stance. Morgan was the first one to notice that he was unexpectedly alone.

“Daddy! You’re home!” The little girl exclaimed, squeezing him tightly before looking around him suspiciously as though he’d promised to bring her a present and she was expecting him to deliver. “Where’s Petey?”

Tony imagined the wrist gauntlet of his armor taking hold of his heart and squeezing mercilessly; it seemed the only action capable of causing him as much pain as he was currently in.

Struggling down to his knees, Tony put himself at his daughter’s eye level. He brushed a strand of brunette hair behind her ear and cupped her cheek in the hand that allowed him to feel warmth. Tony was only aware that he’d been silent too long when Morgan’s gleaming eyes went puzzled and her forehead scrunched.

“Daddy, is Petey playing hide-and-seek again?” He was nearly bowled over by her innocent inquiry. “He’s not a very good hider. He’s too big to fit in the good hiding places.”

“No Momo,” Tony replied, trying to manage a smile to put her at ease. “But he is at a sleepover with your Uncle Rhodey.” His excuse felt shameful and illicit. The first lie of magnitude he’d told her. Her eyes lit up magnificently with excitement.

“Woah! Can I go too?” Suddenly, Tony wished that he’d chosen a different lie, one less enticing to a six-year-old.

“No baby,” he swallowed, trying to parse out what to say next without losing composure. “Um, Uncle Rhodey is going to take care of your big brother for a while.”

At this admission, Tony noticed Pepper sitting up in concern out of the corner of his eye. He realized that he’d said out loud his fear that Peter would not be back with them any time soon. But really, with how things had gone, he could not expect or earn Peter’s forgiveness with any haste.

“Why is he staying with Uncle Rhodey? Does Petey not want to play with me anymore?” Tony ran a hand over his face and didn’t even wince at the deserved twinge of his bruised cheek. Morgan was making an already terribly challenging evening so much more so.

“No no no,” he crooned quickly. “It’s nothing like that sweetheart. Peter is just… he’s really sad right now and Uncle Rhodey is going to help him feel better.” It was a massive oversimplification of events, but not a lie at least.

Morgan nodded, accepting his excuse. By now, Pepper was standing next to them, and Tony truly didn’t know whether he would see concern, relief, or a blank slate expression when he looked up at her.

“I don’t want Petey to be sad anymore. He’s sad a lot.” Tony wanted to blame exhaustion for the urge to cry that washed over him, but he knew it simply wasn’t true.

What had happened with Peter, what was happening with Peter - its roots traced farther back than Tony wanted to admit. Today’s argument wasn’t an exception or a one-off. It was the culmination of issues that Peter had been bearing, straining to hold and Tony’s beyond harsh words had caused his back to buckle.

“I know, baby.” Tony brought her in for a tight hug, feeling acutely like he was attempting to glean any shard of comfort and forgiveness for what he’d done to Peter by compensating with Morgan.

“I love you 3,000”

It took nearly three hours to extract the entire story of what had happened from Peter.. Arduous didn’t even begin to describe the process for his nephew, with some stretches of deafening silence that Rhodey wasn’t sure would end, stammering, struggling, sweat, tears, and feelings that didn’t even have words to match.

Peter’s explanation had started with how he’d ended up at Rhodey’s front door, soaked and traumatized. Then, to provide context, Peter had recounted an earlier conversation with May, which had subsequently required him to detail why he felt that going to her was his only option, and so on, and so on... reaching all the way back to how Morgan had fallen from a tree and Peter’s rescue attempt had caused everything to go wrong.

The heartbreaking story kept unfurling, each instance of his nephew’s suffering forming a jagged edge within his normally sturdy and solid self-control. Tony’s immature streak had never gone fully extinct, but those immature actions had regressed to those of the harmless variety, Rhodey had believed. Certainly when the man had become a father to an infant and married to no-nonsense Pepper Potts, those selfish immaturities would have vanished, simply for the sake of self-preservation if nothing else.

Rhodey had never believed Tony to be capable of hurting a kid, certainly not his own kids, with his selfishness and immaturity. But Peter had been hurt. Crushed by Tony’s selfishness and immaturity. Selfishness disguised as protectiveness for his family. Immaturity not even attempted to be camouflaged by benevolence. And a vulnerable kid who had trusted him without question left in his egotistical path of destruction.

It wasn’t through obligation that Rhodey began the task of picking up the pieces, though that sense was burgeoning and bitter. He wasn’t trying to prove Tony as an unfit parent, which the man had done on his own. Rhodey’s only concern was for Peter when he told Tony with no room for argument that Peter would be staying with him.

“I talked to Tony,” he said softly, omitting the word “dad” because it felt like profanity. “We agreed that you’re going to stay here with me for a bit, is that okay?”

Peter only nodded in response, and Rhodey was left wondering if, unintentionally, the kid was feeling even further abandoned by Tony. Like Tony was trying to take the torn notch in their relationship and shred it all the way down the middle.

In those delicate first hours, then days after Rhodey had taken over Peter’s care, he’d felt overwhelmed by the weight of what Peter had undergone, both before and after that visit that had ended in a hospital visit. Vaguely, he wondered where Peter found light and joy in his life, and then regretfully came to the conclusion that the lack of such sources was the root cause of why Peter held on so tightly to the idea of living with the Starks.

Rhodey thought back to the day of Miles’ birth and the conversation he’d had with Peter in that waiting room. What he’d initially interpreted as the skittish, nervous demeanor suitable for a teenager about to experience the arrival of a younger sibling was really a signal of a far more dismal circumstance.

All of the signs were there if he’d been looking without the shroud of Tony being an exceptional parent.

“Mr. Stark mentioned me?”

Peter had sounded so apprehensive. So surprised to hear that Tony acknowledged him.

“I’m just staying with Mr. Stark and Ms. Potts. I don’t think they consider me as a brother to their kids.”

Rhodey had been so quick to dismiss these insecurities - which, looking back, should have rang alarm bells because Peter had been staying with them for at least three months at that point. He should have been far past acting like a timid, unwelcome guest. He should have been settled in and have found his place as an integral part of the family.

“You’re part of the family, kiddo. I promise.”

And then he’d so hastily and thoughtlessly guaranteed something that he had no right to guarantee to Peter. It had seemed so obvious to him back then, before he was privy to how Peter was actually treated there, that Peter was part of the family. Hell, he’d considered the kid an honorary Stark before the Snap, before Thanos. One of Tony’s chosen family. Just as important as himself or Happy, or Bruce or Nat.

How different would things be for Peter right now if he’d listened to what Peter was telling him instead of tossing out feel-good platitudes like a card dealer?

Perhaps Peter never would have been asked (read: forced) to undergo a horrendously dangerous experiment (he refused to call it a medical procedure) to be injected with a substance meant to bind his powers, but had never been sufficiently tested? Maybe Rhodey could have intervened before Peter felt so misplaced with Tony and Pepper that he had gone back to May in a last-ditch attempt to garner acceptance and love.

Through Peter’s lengthy, complex account, what resonated most with Rhodey, choking him with a tangy, chalky aftertaste, were the circumstances surrounding why Peter no longer had super powers. All of the questions and uncertainties surrounding that heinous injection that Peter had been forced to endure, the life-altering side-effects (and he was talking more than just physical), the implications of what Tony, and to a lesser extent, Bruce, had done to Peter Parker - they haunted him more than any “what if” or “should have” from combat missions and Avengers missions.

Amidst the outrage swelling within him that sent a throbbing to his temples, Rhodey pulled out his phone slowly, like it was composed of a heavy tungsten. He knew Peter’s version of the events that preceded having his powers taken from him. And he knew snippets of Tony’s carefully curated story, which he looked at with such a high degree of skepticism that he wondered if a single word was true. There was only one player left in the scenario that he hadn’t heard from, and he had a dreadful and sinking feeling that what Bruce was going to tell him would shatter what was left of Peter and Tony’s strained relationship - if there was anything left.

As he dialed Bruce’s number, Rhodey decided that he hated that the situation had to come to this. But there really wasn’t any other option at this point. In no way could Tony be trusted to do what was best for Peter’s wellbeing, and he certainly couldn’t be trusted to speak the truth about why Peter’s powers were muzzled. Rhodey needed to know the truth. And, far more importantly, Peter deserved the truth.

_____

The dusty, heavy daze in which Peter had been existing over the past three days (he thought it had been that long, but he couldn’t be sure), felt impossible to shake. Or, more aptly, Peter was too afraid to shed the shroud that he kept wrapped around him for fear of what faced him once he decided to fully rejoin the shitshow that was reality.

He kept two corners of a blanket fisted tightly in his grip, draped over his shoulders like a cape in an attempt to retain some warmth. Despite the generous mountain of blankets Rhodey had left on the guest bed, and the thick sweaters and pants, Peter hadn’t fully shaken the damp cold that had encased him when he’d arrived in the first place. He considered that the chill that had taken up residence could be internal, but that was a more grueling issue to solve, so Peter continued his pursuit to keep his body surrounded by layers.

Socked feet padded quietly toward the kitchen to get a glass of water, his thirst finally intense enough to win out over his desire to be quiet and invisible so as to not be an undue burden on Rhodey.

It didn't matter how many times he repeated to himself that Rhodey didn’t mind his company, that he was a welcome guest, and that Rhodey had reiterated in nearly every conversation that he could “help himself to everything,” Peter couldn’t shake the reflex to be as little of a problem as possible. He supposed that after all the disappointments and let downs, that his reaction was woven into the very fabric of his being.

As a kid at a new school, weeks after moving in with Ben and May, he remembered wetting his pants in second grade because he’d been too shy and nervous to raise his hand and ask the teacher where the bathrooms were and if he could go. It seemed to immensely stupid now, since the humiliation of wet pants and needing to be sent home was far worse than if he’d just asked. But a kid as withdrawn and sheepish as Peter had a terrible time overcoming the instinct to do anything he could to not be a problem.

At almost 17 years old now, shuffling toward the kitchen, he still felt like that bashful little boy who was too afraid to ask for what he needed.

It was the most aware he’d been since he’d arrived, but it didn’t stop Peter from nearly stumbling back when he entered the kitchen and saw Rhodey sitting across from Dr. Banner, both men wearing grim, sincere expressions.

Immediately, Peter’s mind scuttled like a frightful spider to the only conclusion he could conjure of why Dr. Banner would be here. It must be time for his next injection. Peter’s subconscious screamed itself raw in protest. His eyes were blown wide and locked on Dr. Banner, the fight or flight instincts scrambling to establish dominance over the other.

In that same instance, Peter harshly chastised himself for thinking that the injections would cease simply because he wasn’t around Mr. Stark’s kids anymore.

No! I don’t want another injection! I’m tired of the pain and the aches and the bruises. I’m tired of being tired. I didn’t think Uncle Rhodey would do this. I’m not around the kids. I’m not going to hurt anyone.

Inwardly, Peter was aware that his complaints were juvenile and selfish, and even unfounded. He regretfully let them go as quickly as he’d snatched onto them, conceding that fighting it was pointless by now. If Rhodey had gone through the trouble of getting Dr. Banner here, then he must be planning to send Peter back to Mr. Stark’s soon, so he couldn’t have a lapse in his treatment.

Still, it didn’t stop him from hurriedly sputtering, “I just had a shot last week,” as he dropped the blanket from his shoulders.

Both men turned to look at him, taking notice of his presence in their hushed discussion. Peter briefly acknowledged that they both watched him in sadness. Before either could speak, he launched further into pleading his case.

“Mr. Stark has been doing them every 15 days. And I just had one six days ago.” Rhodey and Dr. Banner’s silence felt like a rebuke, and Peter began to doubt himself.

“Unless the dose changed or something. Mr. Stark doesn’t really tell me much about it. But you’re the expert Dr. Banner,” his throat tightened in anguish, strangling his voice mid-sentence when Rhodey stood up, putting his hands out to calm Peter’s burgeoning mania.

“No no no Pete. You’ve got it all wrong, kiddo.” Peter’s mind blanked. Having been so certain about what was happening, he couldn’t even fathom what an alternative could be.

“Come sit down, Pete.” Rhodey said in his pacifying voice. Apprehensively, Peter complied.

To Peter’s surprise, Rhodey was not the first one to address him when he sat down. It was Dr. Banner, who Peter had never seen appear so worn and haggard in his large, green state.

“I’m not here to give you an injection, Peter.” Dr. Banner said matter-of-factly, putting only the very worst of Peter’s fears to rest for the time being. But if he wasn’t here to administer a dose of serum, then why was he here and why did he look so gravely concerned?

Rhodey was kind enough to offer up an explanation. “I asked Bruce to come over and talk to you, Pete.” The man seemed to struggle with what he was trying to say, which didn’t assuage Peter’s irritated anxiety.

“I don’t think that Tony has been honest with anyone about the whole situation with your powers and whatever he had Bruce create to make them inactive. So I wanted you two to talk and to tell each other what Tony said to convince you to go along with things.”

Peter swallowed with immense difficulty, looking between a solemn Rhodey and a regretful Dr. Banner. For a moment, he felt locked inside himself. The bitter resentment he’d harbored for Dr. Banner warred with the resigned comprehension of why the scientist would do what he did. Mainly, Peter’s disappointment and crushed feelings had been at the hand of Mr. Stark, but Peter would be lying if he claimed that he didn’t hold anything against Dr. Banner.

Peter just never thought he’d get the chance to ask for an explanation.

“Peter, I owe you far more than an apology, but I have to start somewhere.” Dr. Banner said, already sounding exhausted.

Peter’s knee-jerk, people-pleasing characteristic coaxed the “It’s okay,” from his lips before he could even think better of it.

“No, it’s not okay, Peter. I broke so many rules, laws, codes, and ethics when I made that… drug.” Dr. Banner spat the word out like an obscenity. “I didn’t listen to my instincts, both professionally and personally, because someone I trusted asked it of me, and you were the one who suffered for it.”

The subsequent “It’s okay,” died in Peter’s throat. Because for once, Peter felt like it was okay for him not to be okay with what had happened. With what Mr. Stark demanded of him. All the times he felt like he had no choice but to go along with the charade, despite how uneasy it made him - Peter had accepted that he was the one in the wrong. But now, Dr. Banner was telling him that he wasn’t crazy. He wasn’t alone.

“Peter, when Tony came to me and asked me if I could engineer something to suppress the DNA that expressed your powers, I didn’t want to do it. I wasn’t just hesitant, I refused initially because I wasn’t going to create something so life-altering without talking with you extensively. I wanted there to be physical and mental check ups, examinations, trials. Developing something like what Tony asked for, and under the conditions he wanted it, was so far against my moral code that I shut him down two different times.

“When he told me that you wanted no involvement in things, to not be part of it at all; that’s when I said no the second time. You were the one that this was going to impact, so you needed to be there every step of the way. And I told Tony that if it wasn’t something you wanted, then I wouldn’t go ahead with it.”

At this point in his explanation, Dr. Banner paused, looking stricken and slouching as though an enormous weight had just landed on him. Peter didn’t know if he was expected to say anything in response, but even if that had been the expectation, he had no idea what he would say. He was learning the naked truth behind the saying, “The devil is in the details.”

“That was when Tony told me what had happened - or, his version of what happened with Morgan’s broken arm - and he told me that you were the one who came up with the idea to bind your powers and that you were the one who asked for help in finding a way to do that.”

The rickety foundation in which Peter had been treading narrowed to a pinpoint under him. He didn’t know whether he wanted to vomit, scream, or just disappear entirely. Tony had told Bruce that it was all Peter’s idea. It was his own want to bind his powers and that Tony was just a middle-man, a liaison to help Peter stop being a monster.

“Oh,” was all he could utter, heartbroken by the blindfold that had just been ripped off and the devastating truth that laid in front of him.

“I shouldn’t have done it, no matter what Tony told me,” Dr. Banner continued, voice thick and heavy with anguish. “I was projecting my own issues onto you, Peter. I remembered what it was like to not have control over myself and my strength. I destroyed a city, people died, I tried to hurt my friends. And I thought back to how I felt then and knew that if I could have something to keep me from hurting people, I would do it in a heartbeat. But those were my issues, and it was not my place to put them on your shoulders or make choices in my own interest that impacted you.

“Tony said that you were too afraid and ashamed of what happened to want to be part of developing it. I believed him because I lived in shame and fear for… well, for pretty much my entire life. I thought I was doing right by you by trying to do right by a past version of myself, Peter.”

Dr. Banner looked up from his entwined fingers on the tabletop and tried to catch Peter’s eyes, which were unfocused and glazed by the bombshells that descended upon him.

“I have no idea what parts of Tony’s story were true and what parts were lies and manipulation. But no matter what, I did not do right by you Peter, and I am sorry for that. I hope you will let me try to make things right and try to help you the right way.”

The air of finality in the room, bookended by the distressed sigh of Dr. Banner that moved all the air around them signaled to Peter that it was his turn to speak. His voice felt stuck in the base of his throat, thick like cool molasses.

There was so much he wanted to explain. So much that he needed to expel that he almost confused it for nausea. As problematic as what Dr. Banner had done, Peter no longer harbored any ill-will toward him. It was painfully clear that they were both lied to by Mr. Stark. They were both manipulated and made to believe only the things that Mr. Stark thought were relevant. The things that Mr. Stark deftly twisted and convoluted the facts like a magician’s illusions. And how the man had preyed on not just his own emotional deficiencies and weaknesses, but Dr. Banner’s as well.

Yes, Dr. Banner had not done the right thing initially, but he was here now, laying the truth out bare for Peter to pick through and exposing his failures in both morality and procedure.

Peter couldn’t hate him for that. He’d been left in the dark by so many since returning from the Snap. Honesty and transparency were strong building blocks toward forgiveness. And after all, it wasn’t like Peter was teeming with people in his corner, willing to fight and advocate for him. And even fewer people who had actually told him “sorry,”

“I never wanted to give up my powers.”

He’d had every intention to detail the entire story to Dr. Banner, just as he had to Rhodey. All the way from reluctantly climbing up the tree after Morgan to how drained and ashamed he felt of himself after having his powers taken from him.

But that simple statement of dissent conveyed it all. The way that the veins and tendons in Dr. Banner bulged, pulsing with a fluorescent green, and the abrupt shattering of the coffee mug in his fist told Peter that he need not say another word to explain what Mr. Stark had done to them.

Chapter Text

Having the door to his garage-turned-laboratory ripped from its hinges and thrown aside like a crumpled napkin was not how Tony envisioned his lab-time/self-imposed-punishment/reflection-all-the-ways-he’d-fucked-up, beginning.

The (for lack of a better term) hulking silhouette of Bruce Banner was, for one suspended moment, terrifying. Rage-painted eyes, green muscles curled and coiled in preparation to launch an attack, teeth clenched so hard he was certain they would crack, and he wasn’t sure if it was his memory planting false sensory input, but a growl reverberated in his eardrums.

With his stomach taking a free-fall, Tony recalled that rage being directed at him back in the time of Ultron while the man’s mind was under Maximoff’s spell. The obvious difference being that currently his eyes weren’t clouded over with manipulation. They were clear, sharp, and aimed at him with the accuracy only FRIDAY could replicate.

On almost any other occasion, Tony would have met Bruce-Hulk’s alternative entrance style with sarcastic wit, but he was too tired that day. Physically, his every joint ached and he’d removed his prosthesis in a fit of agitated desperation earlier that morning. It still sat discarded on the lab table, looking more like a defunct suit prototype than a part of him.

Mentally, Tony was checked out.

“Hey Brucie,” Tony greeted with a defeated sigh and half-hearted wave from the only arm still attached to his body.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Bruce’s aggression matched that of his entrance and Tony resigned himself to the reason for the ambush.

“I don’t know. Am I missing an arm or something?” Tony said flippantly, gesturing to his haggard appearance. Huh, he guessed his sarcasm hadn’t fully left the building.

A green fist the size of a volleyball smashed a crater into his lab table, making Tony jump back, a cool bead of nervous sweat running down his back. With his laid-back countenance, it was easy to forget how physically daunting that Bruce was now.

“You lied to me!”

Tony couldn’t even try to defend himself against that accusation. All the pits he’d dug himself into lately - with Peter, with Rhodey, with Bruce - they all seemed to have reached each other to form a giant pit. Tony was tired of digging and he didn’t have the energy to climb out.

“I know. And I’m sorry for that Bruce, honest—”

“No. You don’t get to apologize. Not for what you did to me. And especially not for what you did to Peter.”

Peter’s name effectively exterminated any self-defense Tony had left in himself. He looked to the scuffed concrete below, subdued and prepared to receive his punishment. It was almost like how he faced Howard when he was very young, except now Tony knew exactly what he’d done wrong. And he was guilty as charged.

“You lied about everything, Tony! This is worse than Ultron. Back then, you hid what you were doing, but now? Now you just lie to get what you want from people! You told me that Peter approached you first. You told me he asked for a way to control his powers. Well guess what, Tony.”

Every single word was landing on Tony like a punch from Thanos. And he didn’t have to wonder for long what lay beyond the aggressive rhetorical question, because Bruce launched back into him venomously before he could consider a response.

“I actually talked to Peter. I listened to every single word he said. Because that’s what you do with the people that you love. And Peter said that he never, ever wanted to give up his powers. He told me that you asked him to do it and he felt like he didn’t have a choice because you and everyone else in that house,” Bruce pointed brusquely toward the lake house. “Everyone was afraid of him.”

Browbeaten and sad, Tony tried to grab hold of his reasoning, his motivation behind the actions that caused this disaster. “I didn’t want anyone to get hurt. Pepper was scared after what happened with Morgan. I just… All I wanted was to protect my family, Bruce. That’s it.”

But now, Tony had to admit that what he’d once convinced himself to be solid, secure reasoning now crumbled like tissue paper or wet sand under scrutiny.

“Protect them from what, Tony? From a teenager who wanted to be part of that family? That kid would have done anything for you. And you knew that. You took his love for you and you weaponized it. How can you live with yourself?”

Bruce’s menacing fury fizzled more with every passing moment, but it didn’t console Tony, because he saw the anguish that stood in its stead, and that evoked a far more intense discomfort within him.

“You know Tony, you created this entire mess and you stabbed me in the back more times than I ever thought possible. You were my friend and I trusted you. But I really couldn’t give a shit about what you did to me. I’m an adult and I can make my own decisions. And I made the wrong ones and they hurt Peter. As much as I want to blame you for what I did, I can’t. But I do blame you for hurting Peter.”

“I didn’t…” Tony stammered, unsure what words he was even grasping for.

“You’re a smart man, Tony. I think you know what you lost here.” By that point, Tony was blank with despair and an all-encompassing guilt.

Every reason, defense, and rationale that he’d sold himself on to lie to Bruce, to lie to Peter - they all deserted him as though they’d sensed the loss of their weight and floated away.

Every word and action he’d taken in pursuit of his goal to bind one and protect the others returned to him simultaneously. He’d used the word “monster” to describe Peter. Or, rather, he had told Bruce that Peter saw himself as a monster. But the end result was the same - he was the one who put “monster” and “Peter” in the same sentence. He’d twisted words, distorted intentions, and had used tenuously-trusted emotions of his friend and his son to suit his goals.

Whatever “noble” intentions he’d sold to himself - and to Bruce and Peter - were unequivocally false. And really, he’d known this truth the entire time, from the first instance that Pepper looked at Peter like a menace instead of a kid. Bruce was right, he was a smart man, and so it had been impossible for Tony to commit all the betrayals he had and to not foresee the coming implosion of it all.

But while he’d foreseen the potential consequences and precipitating disaster, Tony hadn’t prepared for it. He’d been laying one brick at a time for the path ahead of him, just trying to keep his wife and children happy and safe. And now he was out of bricks.

“I know,” Tony admitted to the leaden silence that seemed to span miles and oceans between himself and Bruce.

“Peter’s a great kid. One of the best.” Tony closed his eyes against the agony, pressing his fingers into the sockets to physically push away the burgeoning tears and memories of himself telling everyone else how amazing that Peter Parker was. Gushing to all the other Avengers about his kid, his spiderling, his Underoos. How he would be better than all of them once he didn’t need training wheels and a curfew.

“But I hope he doesn’t ever forgive you.”

_____

Pepper Potts did not hate Peter Parker. Nor did she dislike him. In all truth, she found him to be a great kid - responsible, mature, polite, helpful, kind - all the things that she hoped would rub off on Tony when the two spent time together before the universe was halved.

Under an objective and rational oculus, she trusted Peter as well. He was more level-headed and reasonable than her husband on any given day. She was well-aware of his stubbornness and hero complex, which were some of the most obvious characteristics that he shared with Tony, but Pepper couldn’t hold those qualities against him. Not when he had played an integral role in softening the harsh edges of Tony Stark before their marriage and children, or when he had appeared so anguished and devastated when they all believed that Tony wouldn’t survive snapping Thanos and his army out of existence.

She couldn’t hold his flaws against him when he wasn’t here with them right now. Away, living with Rhodey under circumstances Tony hadn’t willingly offered and she hadn’t asked him to divulge.

But, as she touched upon, all of this was her view of Peter Parker through that clear, objective lens. And at length, Pepper found that lens both distantly inaccessible and muddied beyond recognition. What Pepper saw of Peter through the distorted, darkened lens of severe postpartum depression was an entirely different entity.

It was an unexpected phenomenon, her actions and reactions after giving birth to her son. She could look at a situation rationally and understand that her worries were unfounded, unlikely, and most of the time, just plain fanatical. But no matter how fervently she strove to convince herself that the dangers around her were conjured from thin air, not backed up by either weight or precedence, Pepper’s mind would feed those imaginary dangers heartily. An imagined concern could grow and twist like a weed constricting a trellis, impossible to untangle from real life.

Vividly, Pepper recalled an incident a few short weeks after Morgan’s birth, when she and Tony had decided to go for an evening walk along the waterfront. With a tiny infant cradled closely to her chest, Pepper was overcome with a suffocating fear as they walked across the pier to see the sunset. A plethora of worst-case scenarios swarmed her.

What would happen if the wood under their feet broke suddenly and they fell into the water? Could she swim while keeping her baby alive and safe? How could she save helpless newborn Morgan? What would happen if Pepper drowned, or Tony? Morgan was so small and she needed to be protected with everything Pepper had to give.

When they’d stepped off the pier finally, Pepper’s feet light and hurried, she remembered letting out a lungful of air and blinking back stinging tears before Tony could notice them.

At that time, Pepper hadn’t acknowledged the irrationality and unlikeliness of her terror. She hadn’t connected the panic to anything other than the normal experience of new motherhood. Certainly not postpartum depression, about which she had heard of, read about, and listened to podcasts extensively.

But Pepper had believed that arming herself with knowledge about it would protect her from its clutches.

And with the birth of her second child, and her own awareness of what it felt like to suffer from PPD, Pepper had once more fallen under its dark, suffocating shroud of worry, anxiety, and irrationality.

It was an imperfect storm, because implying it was a perfect storm would have meant that all of the happenings that came together to set into motion her severe, harsh, indifferent treatment of Peter were unlikely to have occurred in the timespan or sequence they did, but that wasn’t true.

Perhaps there was an inevitability to what had happened. Tony was always going to make a sacrifice to save the universe and one teenage superhero in particular. Pepper was always going to be fearful to a fault for her children's’ safety after the things she’d witnessed since the birth of Iron Man. And Morgan was an adventurous little kid, so she was always going to find some way to get hurt.

The events just precipitated so that the direction of her fear and depression tilted toward Peter Parker.

There was the painful, worrisome pregnancy that she only learned about after her husband’s near death and her own reckless sojourn into the battlefield. She’d been dumbstruck for days after the pregnancy was confirmed - how close she’d been to putting the unborn child in danger - how close she’d come to becoming a single parent of two children.

There was admittance after admittance to the labor and delivery ward for a whole host of complications, each one sending her spiralling with guilt for her own selfish decisions. If only she’d asked Tony to forget time travel.

I sometimes feel I should put it in a locked box and drop it at the bottom of a lake… go to bed.

In response she had asked him if he would be able to rest, but what if she had asked the opposite of him?

The other half of the universe would still be snapped out of existence. There would be no Peter. No return of so many of their friends and loved ones. No happy ending for anyone but herself and her family. It was horrendously selfish to even think about such a possibility, and Pepper hated herself for letting the thought even tickle the outside of her consideration.

What’s done is done, and all she could do was try to cope with the fallout.

Pepper recalled that - unwittingly - her sentiment toward Peter had drastically altered when Morgan had broken her arm. Yes, Peter had saved her from an injury that would have been worse than a broken arm, without a shadow of a doubt.

But her daughter’s pained screams and frightened wails were a far more powerful force than objective reasoning in that moment and just about every moment since.

And then the contractions started and her blood pressure skyrocketed and what was a hospital visit to care for Morgan spiraled quickly from her grasping fingers. They admitted her quicker than she’d thought possible, signing paperwork with one hand while a nurse administered an IV in the other. A doctor told her in a tone that sounded as though it was meant to pacify, but was only stern, that it was likely she would be delivering early. Too early.

The entire process was a blur - receiving a steroid shot to develop the unborn baby’s lungs, meeting the team of NICU nurses who would be taking care of the premature child, monitors strapped tightly every which way around her abdomen - and Pepper desperately wanted Tony there to hold her hand and tell her that it would all be okay.

But she’d ordered him - under intense threats - not to leave Morgan alone for even a moment. Even with Morgan in surgery, she wanted Tony right there in the waiting room to talk to the surgeon after it was over. It was what Pepper wanted - needed - but that didn’t mean she was just fine in the labor and delivery suite on her own.

Being so terribly alone, all Pepper could think about was how close she had come to becoming a single parent. How Tony would have died not knowing about their second child. And how much she needed to protect her family from any type of threat.

Pepper was unable to disentangle the wonderful qualities of the Peter Parker that she knew from the untenable threat that he presented to her children.

Would Peter ever intentionally use his powers to harm Morgan or Miles? Never.

Could an incident, similar or even worse to what happened with Morgan, happen with Peter’s powers? Absolutely.

And if that happened, it would be with the knowledge that Pepper had not pursued every possible avenue to keep her babies safe.

The nuclear option seemed like the only option to let her rest.

To bind Peter’s powers would be to protect her family.

Everything that had happened since, Pepper tried fervently to believe, was a preferable outcome to what could have happened if they hadn’t subjugated Peter. An asthma attack was better than a broken bone, or internal bleeding, or - god forbid - an accidental death because Peter couldn’t control his powers and didn’t know the full scope of his strength.

Restraining Peter was supposed to assuage her fears. Which would ease her depression. Which would in turn, make her life infinitely easier. She would be able to unfairly freezing in cold anticipation of an accident whenever Peter was in the same room as her children. Her family would be safe, and it could include Peter, which would make Tony happy beyond measure.

But none of the above is what happened.

There were a plethora of examples that Pepper could point to in order to show that she still lived in the trenches of her fears and anxieties, and that the teeth of her depression were still deeply embedded, pulling her down with a force she was helpless against.

None of those examples could better represent her issues better than her current position, however - clutching Miles close to her chest as she had once done with Morgan, sitting curled up on the floor with tears pouring down her face, dripping off her chin and onto Miles or cooling tepidly on her damp neck - terrified as she listened to the low, threatening baritone of Bruce Banner tearing into Tony stridently from the lab.

Logically, Pepper knew that Bruce was not a threat to her family or her children with the clarity of a freshly cleaned window on a summer day. Bruce was there on their wedding day, standing next to her husband with a wistful expression that perfectly portrayed the bitter sweetness of the occasion. Bruce was one of the first people to hold Morgan after she was born, and the same with Miles. He was one of the few people that she and Tony didn’t think twice about asking to watch their children.

Again, however, postpartum depression leapt directly over logic into the void of unfounded, unreasonable fear. Fear that Bruce, with his substantial, imposing form, would bring harm to her husband - the father of her children. And that he would come for her and her babies next.

The echoing rage she could hear through the walls and up the stairs was writing its own horror-story conclusion in her head and it was all she could do to not sob outwardly. He was yelling at Tony about Peter, and whatever Tony had done to bind Peter’s powers and protect their family.

She didn’t know anything about how it all had occurred beyond her desperate and scathing ultimatum of “No powers or no Peter,” and she hadn’t asked Tony to spell it out for her.

All she had cared about was that he had done what she told him was necessary to keep their family safe. And now, whatever he had done, whatever extreme he had gone to, appeared to be blowing up in Tony’s face.

Eventually, through distress, which Miles had graciously slept through, Pepper could no longer hear Bruce and Tony downstairs, and her hiccupping sobs had devolved into a silent strained cry. She lacked the strength to go investigate what had happened, intense terror and anguish having turned every muscle to tissue paper and every bone to jelly.

Pepper felt stuck. Not just in her position on the floor, but mentally and emotionally rooted to the ground, like if she tried to take a step in any direction, she would fall flat on her face and hurt the infant held close to her. So she stayed, crying herself into exhaustion, though her eyes never seemed to run dry of tears and her face stung with irritation.

She simply stared at her baby, comforting herself in his peace and safety. He was safe. Morgan was safe. Tony was safe. Her family was still whole, which most people did not have the fortune to claim, even after the snap was reversed.

All she had wanted was to keep her family safe, whole, and together when she asked Tony what she did of him.

The ends justified the means, she told herself, as though repeating it would take the thought from illogical to rational, to make it right, if she ever needed to explain to Peter why he had to lose his powers.

Even through the muddied, fraying blindfold of her postpartum depression, Pepper could recognize the dangerous nature of that thinking.

The impossibly light sound of the bottom of the door brushing against the carpet ripped Pepper from her blackened, thick melancholy and she looked up to see Tony’s silhouette in the doorway of the closet in which she’d hidden away with their son.

He looked ceaselessly tired and at least a decade older than he had five years before. Still, when he registered her distress, Tony hastened to sit himself next to her, careful not to disturb the still-sleeping infant.

“Pep, tell me what’s wrong? Is someone hurt?” He asked hurriedly, but all Pepper could do was shake her head, her crying worsening.

It was two or three minutes until she could breathe long enough to address him with tentatively controlled breath and eyes that could see through the flood of tears.

“Tony, I need help.”

_____

After so many months - or maybe it had been years - of taking primary care of himself emotionally, Peter found the positive attention Rhodey fed him constantly during their days together to be immensely confusing, almost baffling.

In the short weeks since he’d arrived on the man’s front porch, drenched and devastated, Rhodey had shown him more concern and attention than he could remember receiving since before Uncle Ben died. Without Uncle Ben, the erosion of his relationship with May had been so slow that he would have never noticed it while it happened. But, examining them now versus then, the contrast was stark and unignorable.

It wasn’t that May didn’t love you enough to take care of you, she was just busy with work. She had to pay for rent, groceries, insurance, and all that other stuff somehow. You weren’t neglected.

The internal voice that vehemently defended May through everything had gone quieter since their last confrontation, Peter noticed. It didn’t intrude as often, and if he listened closely, he could swear it sounded unsure of its messages.

With every question from Rhodey - how did you sleep, are you hungry, is your room okay, too hot or too cold, do you have any allergies, what do you want from the grocery store, what’s your favorite show, movie, book, color, etc., do you need anything, at all, just ask - lobbed at him, Peter wondered if the man was just overcompensating because he felt bad for Peter, or if this was how parents were supposed to treat their kids.

Not a parent. Don’t entertain that. Even if it feels nice; right to imagine Rhodey being more than just a friend of your legal guardian who took you in when you didn’t have anywhere else to go.

At least once daily, Peter would find himself overwhelmed by the questions, almost bristling under the constant attention when he was so accustomed to caring for himself and tending to his own needs. What did any of it matter, anyway? This wasn’t permanent.

But that truculent agitation would fade when Peter would open the refrigerator and see the juice that he’d offhandedly mentioned a few days before sitting on the top shelf. And when, seemingly out of thin air, a duffle bag containing his clothing and his school bag materialized in his room. He didn’t have the heart to ask whether Mr. Stark had dumped it on Rhodey’s door with a flimsy good-riddance, or whether Rhodey had gone and retrieved his things from the lake house. One option was infinitely less painful than the other, so he tried to imagine it was the latter, rather than the former.

Rhodey clearly meant so well whenever he wanted to spend time with Peter, like eating meals together, watching a few episodes of that new sitcom, or listening to Rhodey animatedly tell more stories about his time in the military. And Peter was silently grateful when the man steered clear from superhero stories, as Peter was not in the mindset to think about Iron Man with anything but heartbreak and betrayal.

It was like being someone’s kid again, he allowed the tiny wisps of hope to undulate deep inside himself, in a place where he played pretend that everything in his life was okay. That same place he still imagined his mom and dad being there to comfort him on bad days, or where he fantasized about how Ben would have reacted - with love, patience, and mentorship - to Peter having superpowers. Peter used to allot space in there for the Starks, but lately he found even the fantasy of belonging with them fraught with too many conflicting emotions.

Through these weeks, Peter remained mostly out-of-reach emotionally, unwilling to let himself become complacent somewhere that his presence was temporary. He participated in the things Rhodey wanted to do with him, he was a good listener whenever the man wanted to talk to him, but overall, he kept close to himself.

After the embarrassing spectacle he’d made when he spilled everything to Rhodey, his guilt at putting all that onto one person prevented him from going any further. He could tell that Rhodey wanted him to share more, to be more open and more of a presence, but it was hard. Peter felt like he was running into a brick wall whenever he considered it.

He’d been so open and vulnerable with Mr. Stark, and Pepper too when he’d first come to live with them. That “bright-eyed and bushy-tailed chatterbox” persona had shone through because he had trusted them. The way he’d trusted May.

What was the point in being that open if it was just going to get trod on and thrown back in his face?

When the turning point came in his and Rhodey’s relationship, however, he hadn’t been expecting it in the least. Especially since it related to something he was vehemently trying to hide from his legal guardian.

_____

It was a bad state of affairs, Peter mused, when he looked at his email inbox and was more inclined to open the increasingly urgent and stern emails from teachers and administration at his school than the ones from Mr. Stark.

Personally, Peter found it bizarre that someone like Tony Stark - a man who created multiple AI personalities, a suit that was literally the most advanced weapon the world had ever seen - would resort to communicating in a medium as trivial as email. What would he try next? A letter through the postal service? Maybe a telegram or skywriting? Okay, skywriting wouldn’t be too out-of-character for Mr. Stark, but still, seeing the unread emails unnerved him.

With his heart laying heavy like lead in his chest, Peter skipped over the subject lines that read:

“I’m sorry Pete. Talk to me.”

“You there, Underoos? Give an old man a chance.”

“Miss you Spiderling.”

Instead, he opened the emails with Midtown’s domain - the dread at seeing the state of his academics more palatable than the ache of remembering when he thought Mr. Stark would be his dad.

The results… weren’t great. Of the six classes he was taking, Peter was beyond being able to scrape back up to a passing grade in four. The other two, his teachers told him that if he submitted all missing assignments and tests by the end of the month that they wouldn’t penalize him for his “inconsistent participation.”

Peter nearly laughed at the phrasing, but it came out more as a pathetic croak. If anything, he actually was consistent - just consistently non-participatory. Still, he was grateful for the reprieve from two teachers who he’d had before the Snap. Those teachers who were once again teaching their students from five years prior acted with more understanding and forgiveness, Peter noticed.

Still, that didn’t excuse him from the consequences of failing four classes in one semester. Four. More than enough to lose his scholarship. More than enough to simply fail out of school.

If he did, who would know and who would care?

Skimming through the dull, mind-numbing options to re-take the courses, Peter couldn’t bring himself to feel anything but numb. He wasn’t even upset at himself.

With everything else in his life having gone to shit, how could he expect his academics to take a different trajectory?

“Hey Pete, snack delivery.”

Peter managed to turn before he even registered the words, a shiny green, light-weight package thumping against his chest before falling to the carpet with a crinkle. Peter identified it as a Fruit by the Foot before smirking at Rhodey, who stood in his doorway with a host of other snacks in his hands.

“It’s getting harder to sneak up on you, Spider-Man.”

Even though Peter laughed along with it, the smile never went farther than his lips. The small resurgences of his powers were an unspoken, unacknowledged happening between them. Peter could tell that if he wanted to talk about it, Rhodey would be happy to, but Peter was content to ignore anything involving superpowers for the time being. He was still too wrung-out from learning the truth from Dr. Banner.

“It’s hardly called sneaking up on me when you come into my room to pelt me with snacks at three o’clock every day.” Peter replied, dissolving into real, bubbly laughter when Rhodey did actually start to pelt him with the remaining snacks while goodnaturedly calling him insolent and big-headed.

They were both laughing and smiling. There was no conflict or bigger issue looming above. It felt… It felt really nice. And it felt real. And Peter felt lighter than he could remember. Even separate from his plethora of issues. They were still present, of course, but Peter could imagine himself shedding their weight and leaving them on the sidelines for a few precious moments while he got drunk off uncomplicated joy.

As their simpering calmed, Rhodey took a seat on Peter’s unmade bed and tore into one of the snacks he’d brought. It was a ritual that Peter was grateful for, though he wasn’t sure how to express it. Whatever his intention, Rhodey took time each and every day to spend time with Peter and to ensure he ate something. Sometimes they were silent as they munched on their respective snacks, sometimes they were too busy talking to even eat.

It was another nice thing, Peter acknowledged objectively from afar.

“What are you working on there?” Rhodey asked, gesturing toward the laptop screen where the shabby state of Peter’s academics laid bare. Just about every muscle in Peter’s body tightened.

This is it. This is what breaks the spell. All this time, you’ve tricked him into thinking you were a good kid, but now he’s going to see the truth. He’s going to see that you’re failing and he’s going to tell Mr. Stark. And this whole thing will be over. All because you were too lazy to submit some assignments. Slow clap for you, Penis Parker.

Peter swatted at his temple like an errant fly had landed there, disconcerted by his own inner-voice calling him by Flash’s favorite moniker for him.

“Um, just some school stuff,” Peter said before turning back to close the most incriminating windows.

“Anything I can help you with? I’m not as great at the science stuff as Banner, but I know a thing or two. History and Literature though? I’ve got your back there, Pete.”

Inwardly, Peter wanted to cry at how little he deserved the attention and kindness. Rhodey was being so nice. He was actually trying to be involved with Peter’s life. And what did Peter have to offer back? Failure.

“Oh no, just uh…” Peter’s dismissal died in his throat as he looked at Rhodey and saw a simple, unconditional desire to help, and realized just how much he wanted that help. From coaching him through a terrifying asthma attack to giving him warm food and dry clothes when he showed up out of nowhere - Rhodey had never demanded anything in return or landed judgement on Peter for needing help.

Peter chose to take the leap of faith, tentative as he was to jump when remembering how his leap of faith with May had resulted in crashing to the ground under terminal velocity. He didn’t question himself about how he knew, but Peter knew that Rhodey would be there to catch him.

“I need help,” he rasped, not quite fully believing that he was reaching out until Rhodey’s face crumbled into that of a concerned parent - just like Uncle Ben’s - and he extended an arm meant to invite and comfort Peter. Like a moth to lamp, Peter drifted to the bed and sat next to Rhodey, his taut muscles relaxing under the warm weight of the comforting embrace that pressed them together.

“I’ll help you with whatever you need, even if it’s dance or French, or something else I’m garbage at.” The pair laughed before lapsing into a soft, forgiving silence.

Peter couldn’t help but feel ridiculous at how upset he was and how deeply he was drinking in the comfort from such an inane issue (well, compared to his other issues). It was high school. Low-stakes, fixable, high school. There was no spaceship. No purple villain on a rusty orange planet. No one had died, been hurt, or was in the danger of either. He wasn’t being told that he no longer had a family or told that it would be best for everyone for him to relinquish his powers - to change his very DNA.

It was just school.

And someone offering to help you with no questions asked. How many times did Mr. Stark help you without you having to ask?

“No, that’s not fair… He’s busy. He has the kids and Pepper, and the business, and his recovery—”

You were supposed to be his kid too. Don’t forget that. He made you fend for yourself, if not physically, then emotionally. When did you ever feel like he was taking care of you?

Peter banished the contentious, worsening argument in his head about Mr. Stark in favor of taking in the moment with his… with Rhodey. A hand had found his hair and was ruffling it lightly. Rhodey wasn’t pressing for more information than Peter had given him, but it was under that lack of expectation that Peter felt most easily able to share his vulnerabilities.

“It’s a lot of them, actually. I, uh, I haven’t been doing my work, for uh, for a few months.” Peter dismissed the nervous clench in his stomach before it could even bite down, knowing Rhodey wouldn’t be unkind. And he was correct. Rhodey exhaled a hum of understanding.

“Well you’ve had a lot going on lately, so I can’t really blame you for not keeping up.” Any residual tension left within Peter disintegrated and he pressed himself fully into Rhodey’s - his dad’s - side. “Just give me the rundown of what’s going on and I’m sure I can speak with some people at your school and get it all sorted out. Tutors, extensions, whatever you need.”

Peter closed his eyes and sunk himself into the fantasy that his mind was fabricating, of Rhodey being more than just “Rhodey” or even “Uncle Rhodey.”

“My offer to help still stands too. I know you’re a whizz kid and everything, but maybe you’ll need some company, or you can teach me a thing or two and we can give Banner a run for his money.”

At this point, Peter knew that his dad was just rambling, speaking more to comfort than in seriousness, but he still had to voice his correction that Dr. Banner’s seven doctoral degrees and research were unmatched and that Peter couldn’t even begin to try to surpass that level of genius, but that he had a lot of questions he wanted to ask the scientist.

“Take it easy, Pete. I’m sure if I told Bruce that you wanted to pick his brain about his research that he’d break my door frame to make it over here.”

Their light laughter again lapsed into a blanket of peaceful silence, in which Peter allowed himself to fully indulge in a reality where Rhodey was his dad, and he was Rhodey’s son. And there was no question whether or not he was wanted, welcome, or loved.

Was the dreaming dangerous and reckless? Yes. Would it do more harm than good in the long run? Absolutely? But for once, Peter couldn’t help but to let himself have what he wanted.

“Hey kid,” his dad whispered. “I’m glad you told me you needed help. I’m always there for you, whether you need me or not.”

_____

Rhodey was on a phone call with people he described “as overpaid as they are boring” when a knock on the door startled Peter while he sat on the couch reading over the next chapter for his chemistry class. It startled him more than he anticipated, primarily because it was so unexpectedly loud.

Another sign that his powers were creeping back to him.

Peter didn’t think anything suspicious when he went to answer the door. It could be a grocery order or a lunch delivery. Or mail that didn’t fit in the box.

Once he opened the door, however, he wished he hadn’t. Time didn’t just screech to a halt; it cocked its fist back and socked him in the stomach, stealing the air from his lungs.

“Hey there, kiddo. Long time, no see. Have you been taking care of my Honeybear?”

Chapter Text

Peter’s tongue sat like lead in his mouth and phantom echoes of shattering glass reverberated in his ear drums as he stared, shellshocked at Mr. Stark.

Having spent ample time around the man, Peter could tell that the easy casual attitude that Mr. Stark donned was nothing more than a simulacrum of the real thing. He could see the hairlines cracks snaking their way across the facade, revealing a striking desperation that starkly contrasted its camouflage.
Neither spoke as Peter tried to regain his faculties - the conclusion of their last interaction playing out while he felt the delicate sense of protected peace he’d been tentatively building collapse under him.

When Peter was still unable to speak after what could have been anywhere from thirty seconds to five minutes, Mr. Stark’s face crumbled like ancient stone masonry. And under it, Peter saw a tired and sad man. But he couldn’t muster any pity for him.

“Tell me exactly how I’m not your daddy dearest when you don’t have any other options, Peter.” PUNCH

“Can I come in, Pete? I want to say I’m sorry.”

His body’s numb dissociation responded in kind and Mr. Stark followed Peter in the house with confident ease. Peter fought the agitating instinct that his home was being invaded. As much as he’d let it become his home (unwittingly), Peter told himself that Mr. Stark had just as much right to be here as he did.

Silence still reigned as Peter followed Mr. Stark into the kitchen, where the man opened the refrigerator and started parsing through the selection. Peter’s agitation grew as Mr. Stark made himself at home, pulling out a bottle of the iced coffee Peter had become fond of.

Common sense told him that he should go alert Rhodey and let him deal with Mr. Stark, but Peter reminded himself scoldingly that Rhodey was busy with important things and that he should be able to handle this by himself. It was just Mr. Stark. Thanos and the Vulture hadn’t knocked down the door.

Mr. Stark drank from his (mine - Peter thought possessively) coffee before sitting the glass bottle down and actually addressing Peter.

“Listen Peter, I know you and I didn’t leave off on the best foot. I mean, I know I fucked it up so bad that you actually punched me. And I deserved it, believe me kid, I know I deserved it. I’m just lucky you didn’t have your powers or it might have spun my head around a few times…”

Peter scoffed indignantly, in bitter disbelief that after everything that had transpired between them, that Mr. Stark would make light of something so painful for him. Some apology, he huffed to himself.

Mr. Stark appeared to notice his tense anger. “I shouldn’t have said that. I’m sorry Pete. God, I’m really falling behind on the apologies here, I mean where do I even start?” his mirthless laugh sounded more like a croak. Peter was all too aware of the man’s transparent hope that Peter would speak and put him out of his awkward misery, but he still didn’t have anything to say.

“I fucked up. I know, I know. I already said that,” Mr. Stark put his hands up defensively, even though Peter remained stock-still. “I fucked up. Bruce let me have it, that’s for sure. And your Uncle Rhodey.”

Peter involuntarily flinched at the reference to “Uncle Rhodey.” Even though it was the correct moniker, he was deeply entrenched in his personal fantasy of Rhodey as his dad at this point. It did nothing to keep the tenuous threads of his fantasy from fraying that Mr. Stark - the man he’d once bet his life on calling his dad - was here to rub reality in his face.

“A lot of what happened, well it happened because I didn’t know how to help the people I love. I thought I helped everyone when everyone came back and Thanos was gone…” Peter had to look away from the faraway stare that stole Mr. Stark’s eyes. It disappeared with a heavy blink and Peter felt caught when Mr. Stark caught and kept his eye contact.

“But the people I love still needed me, and I couldn’t use armor or nanobots, or even those stupid stones to help. Pepper was suffering. Hurting in ways that I’ll never understand. Hurting because of decisions that I made. The only way I figured out to help her ended up hurting you. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I swear, that was never my intent—”

“Shut up.”

It was a toss up on who was more gobsmacked by Peter’s harsh order. Their eyes were still locked - Peter stricken and trembling, Mr. Stark abashed and remorseful.

“You can’t-,” Peter struggled to summon the words, but flustered determination bolstered him. “You can’t stick a needle all the way into my bone and tell me that you never meant to hurt me.”

Shamefaced, Mr. Stark scrambled to his own defense.

“I’m so sorry that it hurt, Pete. I never wanted—”

“What’s going on here? Tony, why are you here?”

Peter’s head jerked toward the disruption and seeing his dad standing in the doorway, expression steely with his arms crossed over his chest, a relaxing agent flooded him. He felt like he was pulled from battle and told he was safe, ordered to rest, because someone else would take care of it from here.

“Honeybear, I was just…”

“Pete, you okay buddy?” Rhodey cut Mr. Stark off without even looking at the man, his eyes only showing attention and concern for Peter. It was a balm for his rankled, agitated frustrations. He nodded, drinking in the protectiveness - not War Machine or Iron Man protecting Spider-Man. James Rhodes protecting Peter Parker.

“Good. Would you mind hanging out in your room for a few minutes while I talk to Tony?” Peter nodded again, walking toward Rhodey to pass to his room. The man patted his shoulder and then gave it a firm, comforting squeeze.

“Thank you kiddo, I appreciate you.”

There was no way this was just a man offering defense to some kid he got landed with. This was so much more. If Peter could remember what it felt like, he would say that it was a dad protecting his son.

_____

Rhodey was not an angry man by nature or habit. In contrast, he was particularly well-known for his even temperament through the span of his military career. His criticisms, even if sharply delivered, were always constructive, and to drive him to yell meant committing mistakes that were likely to cost lives. When someone asked how he could be so calm in the face of such volatile people and situations, Rhodey would just reply that he had plenty of practice.

If he had to trace the true origins of that characteristic, Rhodey felt that the bread crumbs would lead back to his friendship with Tony Stark. Through their decorated history, Rhodey had assumed the role of a counter-weight of sorts to Tony’s volatile attitudes and unpredictable behaviors. The more turbulent that Tony acted, the more even-keeled Rhodey became.

It became a mark of his capabilities. If he had the ability to handle Tony Stark, then he could handle anything else thrown his way.

But in that moment, watching Tony ambushing Peter, who looked like a trapped and terrorized animal, Rhodey was lightyears beyond angry. A potent streak of protectiveness surfaced as he interrupted the one-sided confrontation that more resembled an attack rather than a conversation.

He fought the instinct that pulled him to physically place himself between Peter and Tony as a form of protection. And it wasn’t until he heard the slow squeak of the hinges on Peter’s door closing that Rhodey could let himself breathe freely. Even though the threat was still present, his kid was no longer in danger.

Squaring up his shoulders, he turned back to Tony.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing, Tones?” Though his volume was low, Rhodey’s voice was resonant and sobering, conveying the levity of his aggravation. Tony did not respond in kind.

“I came to talk to Peter. To tell him I’m sorry,” he said righteously, as though it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“Did you really think that ambushing him was the right move? Maybe try a phone call or an email first,” Rhodey snarled. He refused to let Tony take the upper-hand in this conversation as the man was so apt to do.

“You think I haven’t tried that?” Tony asked indignantly, face twisting in irritation. When Rhodey didn’t take the bait, only staring him down, Tony appeared to retract his aggressive attitude. “Kid isn’t answering me.”

Rhodey didn’t reveal that he already knew about most of the unreciprocated messages - the phone calls and texts at least. Of course, imagining Tony Stark sitting down to write a bunch of emails that would go unanswered was a picture that piqued his humor.

“That’s his choice. Maybe wait until he’s ready.”

“How much longer do you think I should wait, Rhodes?” Rhodey could tell that Tony was fighting to keep himself from becoming rattled again, and if the situation were different, he might have been proud of his friend for trying to rein in his emotions. “I don’t want him to think I’ve abandoned him. That’s why I keep trying to get him to talk to me, so he knows I haven’t forgotten about him.”

Rhodey nodded, unmoved by the downcast admission.

“I think that Peter felt abandoned by you a long time ago,” he said, each word carved with calm intention. When Tony’s eyes darkened and his nostrils flared, Rhodey prepared for an inflammatory response.

“Let me talk to my kid, Rhodes. I just want to fix things.”

“Why, because Bruce found out the truth and made you feel bad?” Rhodey knew that he was pushing Tony’s buttons, aggravating for the sake of aggravating, but it was all in the name of protecting Peter. What sort of protection was he providing Peter if he just rolled over at a billionaire’s whims and let him say whatever he wanted to manipulate Peter into forgiving him?

“Damn it Rhodes!” Inwardly, Rhodey felt a swell of satisfaction at the crumbling veneer.

“Listen,” Tony started again, a shaking, tenuous grip on his temper. “I appreciate that you’ve been taking care of him and sending updates and all that. But it’s time that things start going back to normal. I want to apologize to Peter and take him home.”

“Miss your babysitter? Or your house cleaner and chef? Are you tired from making bottles for Miles because Peter isn’t there to do it for you?”

“Fuck you. You don’t know anything about my kid.” Tony’s voice shook, but whether from rage or wariness, Rhodey couldn’t tell.

“On the contrary, Tones, I think I know more about the situation with Peter than you do.” For once, Tony was struck silent. “Do you even know where Peter went when he left the tower? Did you even notice that he was upset before you picked a fight with him?”

Like watching a giant tree fall in a forest, Rhodey saw Tony collapse into the nearest chair with a self-deprecating sigh and his head landing in his hand. Anguished defeat radiating off him in droves.

“No. I don’t know why he left or where he went. I never asked. I could tell he was upset when I found him, but I was too far up my own self-righteous ass about proving a point to care.”

It was a small victory, hearing Tony concede to just a few of the mistakes he’s made. A piteously small victory, but a victory nevertheless. But Rhodey was too deeply entwined in Peter’s welfare to reward such a small achievement. He’d watched Peter fall apart and try to put himself back together in jagged, ill-fitting pieces - unable and unwilling to ask for help because he didn’t trust that anyone would want to help him. No, Tony didn’t deserve clemency for the very basics of being a good person. Not when Peter had suffered so terribly and was just beginning to show signs that recovery could be possible.

“Tony, for months, the only attention you’ve given Peter was to make sure that his powers were bound, so that he could live alongside your family without feeling like an outcast. So please do not claim to me that Peter is your kid.”

In the silence that unfurled between them like a live, exposed wire, emitting threatening sparks at irregular intervals, Rhodey could tell that the gloves were off between him and Tony.

“In case you forgot, May gave him to me, Rhodes. You aren’t entitled to him because we are going through a rough patch.” Tony’s face was an irregular prism of shadows and crevices as he leveled his eyes at Rhodey, voice lowering to a growl.

Rhodey maintained his stature and temperament, the deeply ingrained habit of evening his countenance in the face of Tony’s unraveling composure expressing itself with a stony expression.

“Have you talked to Peter about May recently? Or at all?” Rhodey replied.

“No, I didn’t want to bring up something that might hurt him. Peter knows that if he wanted to talk about her, that I was there.”

Rhodey shook his head at the pathetic attempt to sound compassionate. Any goodwill he’d extended Tony previously was long-burnt out.

“Tones, your head is still up your ass. And I think you need to leave.”

Fury and indignance replaced the posture that defeat had previously stolen as Tony put his hands on the countertop and pushed himself up to his full height.

“No, I'm not leaving. I came here to apologize to Peter and I’m not leaving until he hears it.”

“No, you came here to ambush Peter, and it’s pretty clear that you only want to apologize to make yourself feel better. You haven’t asked me how he’s doing. About his health, his school, whether he’s happy. Tony, haven’t done shit today that shows me that you have that kid’s best interest in mind. And that, right there, is the crux of the issue. You’ve never acted like a parent to Peter.”

Tony was well on his way to the front door as Rhodey continued his reproach. Rhodey followed, fully expecting his friend to storm out and slam the door behind him. But at the threshold, Tony stood with his hand on the door handle, shoulders and head slouched. The light in the foyer was low from the overcast sky, so he couldn’t be sure, but he thought that maybe he saw the surface tension of tears.

“Please, can you tell him that I want to talk to him? To apologize. For everything.”

It was a long, dense moment before Rhodey tilted his head in a barely discernible agreement.

“It will be up to Peter if - not when - he decides he’s ready to talk to you. And whether or not he wants to forgive you.”

Tony’s breath hitched, and any doubt Rhodey had about his friend crying was erased as the man wiped away tears clumsily with his prosthetic arm.

Tony Stark whispered a despaired, lamenting thank you before leaving.

_____

On the other side of his bedroom door, Peter sat on the ground, furled up with his knees to his chest and his face buried in his hands. The brewing conflict within him had escalated while he’d been listening to the conversation in the kitchen.

Whether or not he should eavesdrop was a moot point as his hearing robbed him of the choice. He heard every word from Rhodey and Mr. Stark like they were standing directly in front of him. He heard their breathing quicken and slow, he registered the tension as a slight stinging tickle of his spider-sense. The undulations of anger, disappointment, guilt, and blame roiled and Peter attempted to keep himself from getting pulled under by the current.

It was to no avail. By the time the sounds of Mr. Stark’s departure registered, Peter’s emotions were pulling him apart so fiercely that he imagined a rope in each hand, each attached to a respective car bumper and those cars rapidly accelerating in opposite directions until he was ripped apart.

And it all revolved around whether or not he should go back to Mr. Stark.

Everything from gut instincts to common sense screamed no. There was no forgiveness and redemption to be had for what Peter had endured, for what he’d given up in hope of obtaining simple acceptance - for that sacrifice having been in vain.

Bolstering that argument, Peter also told himself that he had Rhodey and that imagined life where Rhodey was his dad. He was doing better every day - physically, emotionally - Peter sensed a distant stability forming under him, constructed by the consistent care and attention that Rhodey gave him freely and unconditionally.

There lies the rub, however.

Because while he could use Rhodey as an entire persuasive argument in favor of removing Mr. Stark from his life with surgical precision, Peter could also sense his reasoning twisting and distorting sinisterly to convince him of the opposite.

Don’t forget: this is temporary, Peter. You are a guest. Col. Rhodes is doing you a favor - an enormous, generous favor.

The words “temporary” and “guest” generated by his mind made Peter go cold. The phantom shattering of glass returned, like a mirror exploding into splintered shards in his head.

There had been no indication of this arrangement being anything deeper than the emergency shelter and care offered to him. Then again, there had also been no indication that his stay was coming to an end, he considered with a modicum of cautious optimism.

Still, even though Rhodey hadn’t mentioned him going back “home” or dropped any hints that suggested “after he left,” Peter couldn’t get a handle on his insecurities. They curled and thrashed around him, impossible to control for more than fractured moments. They suggested that he was wearing out his welcome rapidly. And that with having asked Rhodey for help with school, he had unfairly placed a burden on the man who was already doing more than enough for him.

When would Rhodey realize that Peter was taking advantage of his kindness and generosity?

When would Rhodey remember that he hadn’t signed up for a kid?

When would Rhodey come to see that Peter was preventing him from living his life?

As loudly as his common sense screamed at him and hit him over the head with evidence to the contrary, Peter couldn’t bring himself to believe that his place here with Rhodey was for keeps. It was too risky to set his hopes and expectations on such a precipice. The potential fall would be catastrophic.

Peter was resigned to which side of himself was victorious, and it wasn’t his common sense. It would be better to start the work to forgive Mr. Stark and to make the move back on his own terms - no matter how much he didn’t want to.

It’s better to make the decision to leave now rather than to wait for Rhodey to ask me to leave.

Peter had been asked to leave before, and he wasn’t in a hurry to repeat that experience. Even with the advantage of foresight, Peter didn’t want to see Rhodey’s face when he told Peter that it was time for him to go back to the Starks. He didn’t want to experience the awkward rejection that he would inevitably feel when Rhodey asked him as nicely as possible to pack up and hit the bricks.

Daunted by the prospect of putting aside all of the pain and conflict between himself and Mr. Stark, Peter gulped and closed his eyes. He wasn’t even gone yet and he was already missing this life, his room, and the closeness he shared with Rhodey.

For just a little while longer, Peter let himself build the fantasy world in which he and Rhodey were family. Dad. Son. Love. Want. Welcome. Warmth. Security. Each quality was intricately weaved into his imaginary world like a colorful thread, fabricating a deep, vivid picture of a life that Peter wanted with such ferocity that he ached.

Tony had almost fallen back to sleep when a gentle vibrating nudge from his watch brought him back to consciousness. He tried to stifle the groan that grumbled in his chest, cognizant of not waking Pepper up, even through thick, cottony sleep that he desperately wanted to sink into.

After coming back to bed for the third time that night from feeding a growing and teething Miles, Tony was dizzy with exhaustion. Part of the recovery plan for Pepper had been to ensure that she received quality, uninterrupted sleep. It was just a miniscule facet of the overall, in-depth plan dictated by the doctor that Pepper had seen after admitting she needed help, but that doctor had stressed that every part of the treatment plan was vitally important to her recovery. That didn’t make it easier for Tony to drag his sorry ass out of bed whenever FRIDAY let him know that Miles was awake and needed him.

The idea to utilize FRIDAY had come from Peter and how the kid had used his spider-sense to wake up before the baby began crying loud enough to wake up others. FRIDAY’s sensors were tweaked to sense Miles’ sounds and movements, alerting him when they reached a certain threshold so he could tend to the baby before waking Pepper.

Even though that alert came through as merely a gentle, persistent thrum from his watch, Tony despised it at that moment. It wasn’t this bad most nights - they were actually down to only one wake up with Miles on average - but this night felt particularly hellish and eternal.

Despite the notification vibrating against his wrist, Tony started to drift back to sleep. His heavy eyelids drooped as the pillow halved under his head.

“Boss,” he barely registered the whispered voice in his sleepy trance. “Boss, you have a message from Peter.”

Tony’s heart stuttered in his chest. He sat up in a hurry, heavy limbs putting him in danger of waking his wife despite his best efforts.

When Pepper’s breathing stayed even and she did not appear disturbed, he dismissed the buzzing on his watchface and grappled for his phone on the night stand.

The screen’s brightness assaulted him and he squinted his eyes against the harsh light. True to FRIDAY’s intel, a text covered the screen.

“I’m ready to talk about stuff.”

He read it over and over, rubbing the sleep and stinging from his eyes to try and believe it. Each time, he was afraid it would say something else. But it didn’t.

Peter had reached out to him. Peter wanted to talk. Peter was ready.

Chapter Text

“Thwip, thwip! Gotcha! There’s no escape from Spider-Man!”

A red blur flew across Tony’s vision when he came downstairs, tired and sluggish. He attributed the lethargy to Miles waking up at 4 a.m., which woke Morgan up, and getting them both back to sleep had been a feat of heroism beyond that of even Iron Man’s capabilities.

The red shape was familiar, but only vaguely. Tony could recognize that specific shade of red under any circumstances along with the relentless stream of wit that accompanied it, but that’s where the familiarity ended. The illusory Spider-Man figure was far too short to bear any further resemblance. Too short, and too much his daughter.

Morgan, with the Spider-Man mask pulled over her head, haphazardly jumped from the couch to the floor, back up to the lounge chair and over to the ottoman that had been pushed under the windowsill. With each exaggerated motion, she stuck her arms out, wrists cocked back in a mirror-image of how Peter shot webs. The matte black web shooters were loosely fit around her tiny wrists. They were designed to fit the user, sure - but they would only shrink down so far.

Tony watched for a few more moments yawning, stretching, and trying to shake off the overtiredness. He took in the scene’s softness and memorability, imagining briefly that the scene should have included Peter. His daughter continued leaping and bounding to and fro, up and down, and over and under, spouting quippy threats to imaginary criminals that she fought for their crimes against other toys.

Once she apprehended the teddy bear and threw it in the makeshift jail - under the end table beside the couch - Morgan looked over and spotted him with a wistful smile and glassy eyes.

“Daddy, I’m Spider-Man! Just like Petey! I got all the bad guys and the nice lady in the hat said I talked more than Petey too!” Morgan’s voice was muffled through the mask because it was draped over her face falling to her shoulders rather than fitted, but Tony found it amusing to imagine the conversation between Karen - Peter’s AI - and his daughter. The notion also put him at ease, because if Morgan had been in any real danger, Karen would have alerted FRIDAY, who would have pinged him in a second.

“Look at you go,” he said, recalling a faint and distant memory of saying the same thing to a startling young Peter Parker who defended his onesie and tried to deny his identity. “You’ve got mad skills there Maguna.”

Morgan began giggling uncontrollably, running toward him in a manner that he knew meant that she was going to jump in his arms and that she trusted him to catch her. Tony braced for the impact. “Oomph,” the sudden weight of his daughter pulled at the connection point between his prosthetic arm and his shoulder, but he no longer feared that they would separate, but she did feel heavier than he was accustomed to.

“Where’d you get the mask, you menace?” He asked, adjusting her to a more comfortable position and looking directly into the white eyes of Peter’s mask. It was strange staring into the mask and knowing that Peter wasn’t underneath, standing at the ready to fulfill any orders thrown his way - unless Peter felt he had a better idea to save people, of course - then he would do his own thing and get lectured later.

That dynamic between them seemed lightyears away now, crinkled and yellowed like an old sheet of paper. He could barely cobble together a mental image of Peter without red, watery eyes behind glasses. With gaunt, angular cheeks, his features distorted into a stricken, disbelieving scowl.

“Peter’s closet has alotta cool stuff, Daddy.” Morgan replied smugly as he carried her into the kitchen where the coffee was brewing and Pepper was coming downstairs with Miles. Carrying her still felt like more effort than he thought necessary, but he brushed it off, uninterested in his own weakness. “You should see it! He’s got all kinds a’ toys an’ pictures. I found his suit too, but it didn’t fit. But the mask did and the lady asked me where Peter was and I said he was at a sleepover to be less sad and I could see a ton a’ blue lights and lines and numbers an’ stuff.”

In the midst of Morgan’s rapid ramblings, Tony tried to pick out and pocket the small, important details while nodding along. Before his wife could spot their daughter with the red mask, Tony plucked it off her head.

“Hey! That’s mine Daddy!” She protested.

“No, it’s Peter’s. Remember?”

“Yeah, but…” Morgan scrambled for an excuse like she did when she explained how her vegetables ended up on Miles’ highchair tray. “Petey said I could borrow it.”

“Did he now, you little menace? And did he also tell you to become a stuffed animal vigilante?” She looked confused at the term, also caught in her lie.

“Mommy! Daddy took my mask and called me a men-iss,” she over-enunciated the syllables and Tony had to fight back the fond memory of teasing Peter with the term, knowing how much he hated it because of J. Jonah Jameson’s frequent usage to describe him in the tabloids.

As much as he’d tried to avoid the gaping maw in the house where Peter used to be, Tony couldn’t help but see evidence of it in every square inch that morning. It was in the kitchen where Peter would prepare bottles in the middle of the night. It was outside, gently pushing the tire swing with a far-off echo of “Hold on tight, Momo!” And its absence grated sharply with every breath that suddenly felt labored and forced.

Everything in his body and mind went heavy in one punishing second. His limbs, his eyes, and even his blood felt high density.

Tony went down with Morgan in his arms, hitting the tiled kitchen floor in a jarring heap. He knew this feeling - this awful sensation of his heart seizing - he remembered it from Obidiah’s betrayal and from various arc reactor malfunctions and improvements.

There was no arc reactor sitting bullseye in his chest now. This was his heart malfunctioning all on its own.

In the seized paralysis, he wished his body would just submit to unconsciousness, because the frightened and confused screams of his daughter, barely-contained panic from his wife, and wails from his young son overwhelmed him in his helplessness.

This would be an awfully good time to have a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man around, Tony’s mind churned out as his dizzied vision finally went back.

_____

Every single buzz of Peter’s phone from his pocket made him feel like he was carrying a live bomb. All of the courage he’d gathered to text Mr. Stark that he was ready to talk had abandoned him, scattering like dead leaves on a windy day. It wasn’t like his phone received a mass of notifications each day, but somehow, Peter imagined that every distinct ding and tone were Mr. Stark pressuring him to talk sooner rather than later.

Because he hadn’t provided a date or time, just some nebulous idea that he was ready to talk in the future. It had hardly felt right to do at the moment, sending that message and then immediately ditching his phone under the bed, dreading any sort of reply. And ever since, he’d only felt swelling regret in the face of that choice, and he didn’t feel like he had the option to renege on his offer to Mr. Stark.

He’d silenced the notifications to relieve himself from that Pavlovian reaction of his gut clenching, but now the vibrations were doing much of the same.

Peter slid his hand into the pocket of his jeans and turned the phone off entirely. When it powered down, the gadget went from feeling like a block of tungsten back to what it actually was. The bomb was disarmed.

Avoidance was far from a permanent solution for a problem such as this one, but the temporary relief it provided gave him life-breath. He didn’t even know for sure that the repeated calls and texts were from Mr. Stark, but the only person Peter was concerned with communicating with at the moment sat next to him on the couch, hands unoccupied as they watched some morning television before starting on their work and school assignments for the day.

The air between them was lazy and relaxed, with both of Rhodey’s arms slung over the back of the couch and Peter messily enveloped by a throw blanket, the intro to the next episode of their chosen sitcom jingling familiarly.

Peter couldn’t take the pressure that continued building in his throat, stemming from his gut and making him feel impaled by a stack of rebar. He couldn’t let Rhodey keep on living in blissful ignorance of Peter’s betrayal.

It wasn’t even with courage that Peter blurted out what he did next. Just reckless desperation borne of a guilty conscience.

“I told Mr. Stark that I would talk to him.”

Every muscle in his body braced like he was expecting a loud, scolding reaction. He knew he had it coming.

After everything he’s done for you, you’re going to turn around and throw it in his face for Mr. Stark?

Apprehensively, he searched Rhodey’s features for the betrayal he anticipated.

“Okay,” Rhodey said carefully, as though he was attempting to determine the best way to handle him. “That’s not a bad thing Peter.”

Peter’s eyes widened and sought out Rhodey’s. That… that was not what he’d been expecting.

“Are you sure you’re ready?” Rhodey asked, and Peter shook his head, surprised at his own candor. It was easy to be honest with Rhodey, Peter was realizing, more and more with each hurdle they cleared.

“No,” Peter shook his head, his uncertainty bleeding through whatever facade he’d attempted to uphold. “No, but I just want to talk to him; hear him out, you know?” At that point, Peter wasn’t sure whether he was trying to convince Rhodey or himself.

It didn’t matter, however. Rhodey smiled warmly and leaned over to squeeze his shoulder in the manner Peter was coming to associate with security and support. Peter was tempted to lean away, his ears and neck going hot in guilt for how little he felt he deserved Rhodey’s understanding.

“Hey, I’m not mad at you.” Peter was taken aback at how easily Rhodey had read his worries. “This is your choice, Peter, and I support you. Remember, you’ve got me kiddo.”

A light breeze would have toppled Peter over at that moment as he tried to understand the concept of unconditional support like it was a foreign language he’d never heard spoken aloud. His expectations for Rhodey’s reaction had been thoroughly subverted.

It wasn’t as though Rhodey had given him any reason to expect a coarse, hostile reaction. Rhodey had never acted that way toward Peter, but Peter couldn’t help but to expect the worst. Maybe it was conditioning or maybe it was anxiety. And just maybe, Peter was projecting his anger at himself onto his expectations of Rhodey.

The self-loathing slammed into his stomach like a giant fist and Peter gasped and fought against physically doubling over at the horrible sensation. Everything was so complicated! So convoluted! And it was entirely his own doing. He’s the one who punched Mr. Stark and then ran away. He’s the one who latched himself onto Rhodey without giving the man much of a choice but to help him. And his efforts to untangle the situation’s knotted strands only seemed to tighten the tendrils until he was stuck in a situation where he had to hurt someone who he loved.

I’m fixing things with Stark for Rhodey, to do right by him. So he can have his peace and freedom back. No more problematic pseudo-super-teen taking up his valuable time and money. I’m not trying to be ungrateful or hurt Rhodey. Or to throw his hospitality back in his face. That’s the last thing I want. I can make it up to him. I can make up for all the trouble I’ve caused, all the money I’ve cost. If Rhodey will let me, I will do right by him.

Peter found himself at odds with the brutally honest and realistic voice that kept him in check. Because he could not reconcile what it was telling him with Rhodey’s unconditional support.

It was tempting to discard his mind’s twisted, writhing logic in favor of putting his trust and belief in Rhodey. Oh so very tempting. What would happen if he let himself fall and trusted Rhodey to catch him?

A jarring vibration coming from Rhodey’s phone against the coffee table would have sent Peter flying to the ceiling if not for the hand on his shoulder grounding him. The familiar unpleasantness of getting a call on his own phone flooded him like the gray melting slush in a winter parking lot.

Pinpricks set his nerves alight as the residue of cortisol’s brief but intense surge. It wasn’t his phone. His phone wasn’t even on. Rhodey’s phone was ringing, not his own.

Rhodey’s forehead creased when he picked up his phone. Peter tried not to be nosy, turning his head away and nodding when Rhodey said that he needed to take this in his office.

“I’ll shower so I don’t… you know…” Peter mumbled, rubbing his hand against the nape of his neck. Rhodey knew he could hear just about every single sound in the house, and Peter didn’t want him to think he was eavesdropping on private business.

There was a fond glimmer in Rhodey’s eyes when he looked back at Peter. A wry, familiar smile that Peter couldn’t help but return. And Peter allowed himself to acknowledge, for the first time, that when Rhodey looked at him like that, it felt like home.

_____

Peter should have listened to his dreadful instincts when that phone rang. His spider-sense had been warning him, and he hadn’t paid attention. He’d dismissed it, and another person he loved was hurt.

Any feelings of “home” and “dad” were lost to him when Rhodey came back in the room to tell him that Mr. Stark had suffered a heart attack. That he was in surgery. Alive. For now. That they should get to the hospital.

What if Mr. Stark died? What if Peter didn’t fix things and Mr. Stark died?

Peter had almost lost him after the battle, after he snapped with those stupid stones. And here he was, at the precipice of losing him again.

_____

Any fragile stability Peter had been clinging to since the news about Mr. Stark had crumbled beneath him when they arrived at the hospital and Pepper immediately enveloped him in a tight, earnest embrace. The questions he had about Mr. Stark’s condition fell back down his throat as she expressed how glad she was that he and Rhodey had gotten there so quickly, that she didn’t want to be alone, but Happy was with the kids and she didn’t want to cause a panic by telling everyone about what was going on.

The deluge of information swept Peter up in its winding current, and he struggled to stay afloat while understanding what was happening and Pepper’s sudden affection.

If Pepper noticed his stiffened response to her hug, she either didn’t notice or didn’t say anything. She obviously had more pressing issues at hand.

Mr. Stark was in recovery. The cause of the heart attack was speculation at this point, but his doctor, the same one who had performed the surgery to remove the need for the arc reactor, hypothesized that the stress on his body from his injuries was still majorly impacting his systems. The doctor had assured Pepper that she didn’t believe the damage to be major, but that she was ordering more tests to determine the extent. All they could do now was wait until Mr. Stark woke up.

Pepper led Peter by the hand to sit next to her in one of the chairs as Rhodey took the seat on the other side of her. She kept his left hand clasped in both of hers, sniffles and emotionally-fraught coming out in a jumble.

Peter was too paralyzed to actively offer any comfort, but thankfully Rhodey took that mantle. In that moment, Peter realized how Rhodey reacted better in a crisis than anyone he’d ever known. He was grateful that he didn’t have to imitate a figure of support for Pepper right now. His emotional endurance was running on fumes as it was.

The longer they sat in the waiting room, the more Peter settled into the depths of his conflicted emotions. It felt less like settling and more like realizing he was stuck in knee-deep mud.

Pepper still held his hand sheathed between her own and despite the warmth, he wanted to retract it. The way she was acting - so familiar - it irked him. The way she spoke to him about Morgan and Miles - as though he’d been on vacation rather than living with Rhodey because of a series of massive betrayals and let downs - ignited a spark of anger in his gut.

She was acting like things between them were normal; a normal that Peter was all too aware had never actually existed. Pepper was acting like the maternal figure he’d wanted way back when. Like the history of her distrust toward him hadn’t led to a web of lies and self-hatred and needles in his back.

He resented her for it, and the resentment bubbled in a low heat that he wouldn’t allow to come to a boil.

This was the time to focus on Mr. Stark. This wasn’t about him or his issues, anger, resentment, and distrust.

Still, Peter considered, half-listening to Rhodey and Pepper talking about Mr. Stark having another recovery period, a heart attack didn’t have a right to wipe the slate clean on his relationship with the Stark family. Did Pepper expect him to forget? Would Mr. Stark?

It felt hideously selfish to even be considering how he himself had been wronged when Mr. Stark, still his legal guardian and supposed “father” figure, laid unconscious in a hospital bed after a heart attack. A small part of him argued that he should be grateful that Pepper was treating him so kindly, and wasn’t this what he’d wanted?

Yes, it had been what he’d wanted. Previously. Before.

Now? Peter knew exactly what he wanted, but he also acknowledged the impossibility of it. If this was what he got, then he should accept it and try to be grateful. Because, as Mr. Stark had so sharply reminded him, he didn’t really have any other options.

Yes you do. You have options. Rhodey. Rhodey. Rhodey.

Peter shut down the aggravating yips of his subconscious, trying to settle into reality rather than continue living in a dream that could never come true.

_____

Rhodey nodded along to Pepper, hearing her speak, but not listening. His attention was locked onto Peter, who sat stock-still, his expression flickering between conflict and guilt before settling into an indifferent mask that was even more troublesome.

The worry for Tony was tremendous, no matter the shambles of their relationship at the moment. No matter how many times he’d been in this position before, helplessly waiting to learn the fate of Tony Stark, it didn’t get easier. Somehow though, this moment right here, with Peter looking so trapped and terrified, his hand clutched by Pepper’s like a bear trap, was the most unbearable.

Rhodey fought the burgeoning need to pull Peter aside, cup the kid’s face in his hands, and tell him that his anger and resentment were still valid. And that a heart attack didn’t mean Peter was automatically expected to grant forgiveness for everything that had been done to him.

He regretted not saying anything on the trip to the hospital, but they had both been in shock at that time. Even if Rhodey had thought to say something, the words wouldn’t have broken through the blank paralysis of worry.

Rhodey could only hope that he could reach Peter before the kid’s savior complex demanded that he sacrifice himself in order to repair the things he’d not broken.

_____

Mr. Stark was awake. Awake and recovering. Recovering and in the room where he would stay until he was transferred to the Tower’s medical ward.

Mr. Stark was awake and he was going to be okay. It was just a setback, the doctor said. Minor. No lasting damage. Rest and monitoring.

The words ran over Peter and fell off him like water off a duck’s back. The expanding bubble of overwrought worry exploded in his chest and he was left feeling hollow and scooped out. He was light, but in a way that made him feel untethered and like he would drift away if he couldn’t fasten himself to something secure.

Rhodey’s hand on his shoulder helped relieve the dreaded fear of turning to dust, anchoring him to the present as his entire history with Mr. Stark played out in his field of vision, blocking out the plain waiting room.

Peter was standing now, though he couldn’t remember how or when. Contact with Rhodey remained his constant. A blink later and Pepper had grasped his hand and was guiding him through the heavy double doors, down the hallway, to the left, then a right down another long hallway. His feet moved independently of his mind, which was trying to solve a barrage of conflicts in the incredibly limited time before he faced Mr. Stark.

You punched him. And the last time you saw him, you told him to shut up, remember?

Yeah, but he deserved it. And he wants to apologize. You already agreed to talk to him, so it’s just a hop, skip, and a jump to an apology. It’s inevitable - Mr. Stark always gets what he wants, so why prolong it. Hasn’t the man suffered enough?

You’ve suffered too, Peter. Don’t forget that. He claims he never meant to hurt you, but it isn’t really like he made an effort to not hurt you. And, whether he meant it or not, you got hurt. You’ve been in pain for a long time and Mr. Stark only made it worse.

Turning into the room and seeing Mr. Stark in a hospital bed, under blankets and with wires poking out from under the oversized, baggy hospital gown, looking nothing like the man he’d punched - nothing like the man he harbored a bone-deep anger toward, Peter wanted to yank his hand free of Pepper’s guiding hold. The impulse to pull back and pivot on his heels, using all his energy - superpowered and not - to sprint away, gave a painful prickle across his skin.

Mr. Stark’s over-tired, sunken appearance sloughed away when he spotted Peter, leaving an earnest desperation in its stead. Peter was frozen in place, Rhodey behind him while Pepper had dropped his fingers to take her seat in the recliner next to the hospital bed.

“Peter,” he didn’t recognize the voice, as hoarse and scraped as it was. It lacked the confident note that hallmarked Tony Stark’s every word and action. “I’m so sorry.”

“I want to make things right, Pete. I can’t stand leaving things how they are. When I was falling down and I couldn’t breathe, I could only think about how I never got to apologize to you and tell you what you mean to me. When I woke up, I thought about my family, and you are a big part of that family Peter. I miss you so much. You’re my son and I know I haven’t acted like that. I’ve been a terrible father to you and you had every right to hit me. But I don’t want to waste any more time without making it up to you and being the father that you deserve. Peter, you’re one of my babies, just as important as Morgan and Miles, and I love you so much. I’m so sorry. Please come home, Pete. Please.”

The slow trickle of words exploded into a treacherous rapid. Everything came at once, like a roaring wave that knocked him off his feet and pulled him under, overwhelming him with its size as well as its force.

Peter wilted under the poor quality of silence and the aggressive expectation that bore down upon him. Mr. Stark was obviously awaiting his response - his acquiescence and forgiveness, more likely. He couldn’t rip his eyes away from Mr. Stark, his pleading expression ensnaring Peter almost sinisterly.

This time, when the itch to turn and run prickled his skin, Peter couldn’t dismiss it.

Rhodey’s fingers slid off his shoulder as he used his enhanced speed to flee. His hearing should have picked up whatever Rhodey said to him as he glanced at the man’s lips moving, but Peter’s head was filled with a dissonant roar that grew louder by the second.

The only thought that separated itself from the muddled minefield of his subconscious was a relief that he had at least some of his powers this time as he ran away from Mr. Stark.

That, and a whisper that somehow echoed like a scream in his head; a drawn-out and never-ending “No.”

Chapter Text

In what could possibly be one of the most important split-second decisions of his life, Rhodey tore his caustic, disbelieving stare from Tony and ran after Peter, who was fleeing down the hall at a pace that threatened to reveal to the floor’s other occupants that he was enhanced.

“Peter, wait up kid!” He called out, aware that the kid could hear him even if he whispered, but wanting to break through the panicked buzzing he knew consumed Peter.

A hitch in Peter’s stride let him know that Peter heard him, but he kept running like a villain of previously yet unknown power was pursuing him like prey.

If it weren’t for the nurse escorting an elderly woman in a wheelchair directly into Peter’s escape path, a hiccup that displayed that Peter’s powers had not yet made their full recovery, Rhodey wasn’t sure he would have caught up with the teenager.

Peter’s face, from the tips of his ears to his cheeks, was fire-engine red as he apologized to the woman and her nurse profusely, mortified at his dereliction of manners. Once Rhodey was close enough that Peter wouldn’t try to escape him, he stopped and watched as the white-haired woman put her hand out gently, with a slight tremor, in acceptance of Peter’s apology. Peter took the offered hand softly, repeating his apology one final time before the nurse started pushing the wheelchair down the hall once more.

Rhodey gave Peter a fond smile as the chagrin fell away from his face. Even when running panicked from an emotionally wrenching, terrifying situation, Peter was still an amazing kid. It was no great mystery why he was dubbed the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.

The moment didn’t last, and the red-faced embarrassment that drained was instantly replaced by the realization that he was caught and cornered. It made Rhodey ache down to his toes that Peter could consider himself cornered by him, but the kid was still operating in fight-or-flight, so he tried not to take it to heart.

Wordlessly Rhodey squeezed Peter’s shoulder with compassion and led down the hall. Once Peter realized that Rhodey wasn’t trying to get him to go back to face Tony, Peter let himself be guided easier through the hospital's many corridors.

Walking with Peter felt like guiding an unmanned vessel, Rhodey thought as he looked for somewhere both empty and quiet for them to talk. Peter kept his eyes glued to the floor, his feet shuffling any which way he was directed, looking not uninterested in his surroundings, but rather, unaware.

It wasn’t until Rhodey located a waiting room that was far off the main hallways in the unit, in a largely unpopulated corner of the building that life flickered back into Peter. The kid froze at the sight of the waiting room, an unfamiliar haunted expression taking hold and draining his face of color entirely.

“Can we not…” Peter mumbled, eyes darting from the room back to Rhodey, not staying on one or the other for more than a second. “I uh, I hate waiting rooms.” The kid gestured dismissively, a mirthless pull of his lips indicating his struggle. “My parents... and, um, my Uncle Ben…” Peter’s unmentioned “Mr. Stark” hung in the air like thick smog.

Empathy washed over Rhodey as he apologized to Peter and told him calmly that they could go wherever he wanted. But Peter was not in a state to choose or direct, so Rhodey came up with a solution that he hoped would put Peter at ease.

“Let’s head to the roof.”

_____

Gaining rooftop access at the most secure hospital in New York City had been less challenging than Rhodey had anticipated. Despite his distaste for using his status as a public figure - the “Iron Patriot” that some people still couldn’t let go of, despite its short-lived and unimpressive resume, it proved useful in requesting access.

The clipped, private “Avengers business,” was enough to get him anywhere he wanted, it seemed, though he didn’t plan on testing the theory.

Peter’s instant ease when they were on the rooftop made everything except the kid fall away. Over these past several weeks, Rhodey had observed that Peter wore his emotions outwardly. In how he carried himself, his facial expressions, speech - Peter was an open book - so watching Peter’s muscles uncoil and his shoulders unfurl from his ears, Rhodey knew he’d guessed correctly.

Where did Spider-Man prefer to be other than perched atop the New York skyline?

Rhodey didn’t push the kid to speak immediately. Peter deserved at least a few moments of tranquility in the midst of the emotional hurricane that settled over him.

The kid climbed a stanchion deftly and crouched down, spider-like. It looked like Peter was observing the surrounding city, its buildings, citizens, sounds - Peter had once described it as a living, breathing being, and Rhodey could see the resemblance.

Seeing Peter in his element was relieving and Rhodey considered that between the Snap and the awful injections, that the kid probably hadn’t gotten the opportunity to sink into his identity in a dreadfully long time.

He let the silence rest for a while longer while Peter absorbed the sights and sounds and allowed himself to embrace the part of his identity that had been blund and slipped by the person he had trusted the most.

Speaking up to address the overgrown elephant in the room made him feel strangely like he was taking from Peter.

“You don’t have to accept his apology.”

Peter stiffened, but didn’t move or respond.

“You don’t owe him anything, Pete. A heart attack doesn’t change what he did to you.” This time, Peter’s head dropped like his neck suddenly lacked the strength to hold it up.

“I know.” It was relieving to hear, but Rhodey sensed there was more buried within the words. “But, he said he loved me. And that I was part of the family.”

The ache returned as Rhodey watched Peter battle within himself. That it was Tony’s doing that caused Peter’s struggle? Rhodey struggled to keep his anger at a low simmer so as to not make things harder for Peter.

“He does love you. But that doesn’t mean he’s done what’s best for you, Peter.” He tried valiantly to not let his emotions color his words. Peter needed stability and security in him, not emotional outbursts that would only add to his own volatility.

“I know.” This time, Peter muttered it into his chest and sounded disappointed. “I just really wanted to be part of his family. And as much as it hurts, everything that’s happened…” Peter trailed off and shook his head, his eyes closing tightly against the specifics of “everything that’s happened.”

“I hate that I still want that. I shouldn’t still want that.”

“Pete, I don’t want you to feel bad for wanting a family,” Rhodey said earnestly. “You should never feel guilty for that. You haven’t done anything wrong to feel bad about.”

Rhodey physically recoiled at Peter’s self-deprecating scoff.

“Sure doesn’t feel like it.” Peter was still speaking into his chest, but his eyes were glazed over, unseeing. “I broke Morgan’s arm. I punched Mr. Stark.” He paused and exhaled forcefully. “They wouldn’t have bound my powers if they didn’t have a reason.”

“Come on Pete, we went through this. In absolutely no scope, no situation, no universe, was what Tony did to you the right thing. And it certainly wasn’t your fault.”

Rhodey was losing his grip on the tethers that controlled his emotions. Peter sounded so anguished and defeated, and it felt like all the good work they had done had been demolished in one ill-thought and ill-said statement from Tony.

Even though Peter was shaking his head, he did finally look over at Rhodey, and while his eyes were no longer dazed, they were bleary and confused.

“I’m sorry… I just. I can’t help looking for a reason for all of this.”

The rush of empathy was hot from his head to his toes as Rhodey moved toward Peter, his reflex to comfort the kid unignorable.

All of the damage inflicted upon him by Tony, by Pepper, by May, and by the trauma of being a teenage superhero who had lost a fight on an alien planet against the Great Titan, had clearly warped his psyche and how he viewed the world around him. And while the task of digging through all of Peter’s crossed and tangled wires was daunting and quite possibly an impossible task, Rhodey couldn’t fathom not trying.

There were at least a hundred separate times he could have given up on Tony, but Tony wasn’t who needed him now.

“Peter, there is no reason—”

But he was too late. When Peter finally blinked the glassiness from his eyes and looked at Rhodey, all he could see was ruin and devastation.

“I can’t. I, um… I need some time.” Peter leapt down from his perch, breathing suddenly heavy and labored. His eyes darted around like a predator was closing in on him. Rhodey held his hands out to calm the kid and show him that he meant no harm, but Peter looked to be tumbling toward a panic attack.

“I’m sorry, I just… I can’t right now…” Peter paused in the midst of his panic, suddenly appearing self-conscious. “Can I…” He gestured to some nebulous place behind him, pleading for permission. “Is that okay?”

Desperation poured from Peter in droves, but Rhodey could tell that the kid was waiting for his okay. He nodded, asking Peter if he had his phone and then requested that he keep it on, just to make sure the kid was safe. Peter agreed, looking eager to flee until Rhodey gave him the go ahead.

Rhodey didn’t immediately follow Peter as he retreated, sensing the acute need for space.

_____

“I’m sorry… I just. I can’t help looking for a reason for all of this.”

The cadence of Peter’s steps through the Queens neighborhood were far slower than the other pedestrians around him. People nudged by him, grazing his shoulder and muttering impatient insults that he couldn’t care less about. If his enhanced hearing hadn’t returned, he probably wouldn’t have heard what was being said. Either way, he wasn’t able to bring himself to care about his surroundings after he’d taken the subway to Queens.

It was an achingly similar trip to the weeks before when he’d made his last-ditch-attempt to be part of May’s life again, but this time Peter wasn’t vibrating with anticipation and rehearsing his talking points in his head as though repeating them would make them more likely to persuade her. A lot of good that did him.

Peter’s mind was still on repeat, but it was his own cowardice that tormented him this time.

He’d been so close to spilling his guts to Rhodey, the fears that he kept tucked away in a calcified nook of his heart, and then he’d run, again. Which he couldn’t seem to stop doing whenever he was faced with some non-negotiable conflict that he couldn't bear to face.

Peter had punched Mr. Stark and then ran. Mr. Stark had apologized to Peter, and then Peter ran. Rhodey was trying to bring him back from the brink of his self-destructive conflict, and he ran.

He just hadn’t been able to stomach the prospect of putting into words his worst fears. Of haphazardly stitching together the scraps of black terror and insecurity and timidly presenting them to Rhodey like he actually expected the man to accept the poor excuse for a gift.

In a different life, if Peter was someone with better skills to cope and communicate, he would have told Rhodey his truths.

I keep looking for a reason for everything that has happened, because if there isn’t a reason - if I didn’t do anything wrong - then all of it - my parents, Ben, May, Mr. Stark, Pepper - all of it happened because of something wrong with me. Something that I don’t understand and can’t fix. There has to be a reason because if there isn’t, then I’m what’s wrong.

That tempestuous insecurity had started as a wisp of a child’s fear after Peter’s parents had died. With each ensuing tragedy, it had grown more tangible, more corporeal until it called itself an old friend and took up unsanctioned residence within him.

Now it was emerging, its claws hacking at the walls that encased it. Sitting up on its haunches and baring its canines like it was ready to launch its attack.

Terrifyingly aware of the impending assault from his own mind, Peter walked aimlessly.

Queens wasn’t home and hadn’t been for a long time. Rhodey’s brownstone wasn't home, no matter how desperately he wanted it to be and despite the fact that his stuff was there. The lake house with Mr. Stark and his family was probably going to be his home again, because the longer he considered it, the less capable he felt to reject the apology. It was like Mr. Stark had said so many weeks before: It wasn’t like he had any other options.

Without a destination in mind, Peter gave into autopilot and let his feet take him wherever they saw fit. And his feet must have been listening to his stomach, Peter thought when he saw Delmar’s right across the street.

It meant he was also in an extremely close vicinity to his old apartment, but Peter didn’t let himself look back at that building and the Pandora's box of memories it contained.

Peter walked into the sandwich shop without hesitation, a wistfully nostalgic smile blooming and dimpling his cheeks as the array of scents greeted him with rosy familiarity. Freshly baked bread, deli meats and cheeses, the briny, vinegary smell of pickles that he loved, along with a hint of cat dander and plastic packaging - it smelled closer to home than anything Peter could recall since before the Snap.

There was something else familiar too. Something that was so familiar that he was convinced for a moment that he was back in time to when it would have been a regular occurrence to see his best friend ordering a sandwich at the counter of Delmar’s.

Ned.

Peter’s stomach clenched fiercely, an altogether not unpleasant hybrid of nerves and yearning pulling taut. He stood dumbly like a deer in headlights as his best friend turned around, as though sensing him through his own version of spidey-sense.

It hadn’t been enhanced senses that clued Ned in, however. Later, Peter would realize that Ned’s name had tumbled out of his mouth the moment he recognized him. That, and the bell that jingled unrhythmically above the door and a disgruntled meow from a cat he’d awoken from a nap on a stack of newspapers next to the entrance.

“Peter?”

Peter didn’t realize how much he dreaded seeing dislike or even neutrality in Ned’s eyes until he met his friend’s stare and saw the opposite. Twin nerves and yearning and identical cluelessness for where they stood bonded Peter and Ned, but there was no disdain, no unpleasantness or cool formality, and for Peter, that was everything.

It was those parallel anxieties and uncertainties that bonded them initially in grade school, after all. Two children who didn’t conform to the socially acceptable “cool” characteristics, who were either too afraid to speak or dumped massive amounts of information about Star Wars, the solar system, race cars, trains, dinosaurs and more on whoever acted interested.

They were cut from the same cloth, no matter their different familial circumstances and socioeconomic disparities.

“Ned,” Peter repeated, this time actually aware that he was speaking. “Hey, um.” He brought his hand to the back of his neck and rubbed back and forth in a nervous habit. “It’s been awhile.”

Ned’s face quirked and Peter was worried he’d said something wrong. That worry evaporated as Ned dropped any and all pretenses and approached him with his arm outstretched in the first gesture of their secret handshake. Peter’s arm reciprocated and without taking their eyes off each other, their hands went through the complex and needlessly long routine that they’d perfected as eleven year-olds as the price of entrance into their blanket fort.

Peter’s relief was palpable, almost physical in its intensity when Ned asked if he wanted to sit somewhere. Almost as if by magic, a familiar voice parroted an order that he’d said probably more than a hundred times before. “Number five, extra pickles, smashed down really flat.”

The man himself, Delmar, passed over the sub wrapped in white paper with a smirk that ached like home. “It’s on the house this time, Parker. As long as you promise to come by and catch me up on whatever crazy life you’re living.”

Peter nodded, squeezing both his thanks and his promise to return past the rock lodged in his throat.

Even though there was no seating in the store, Peter and Ned walked to the back and found the stacked milk crates that they used for both chairs and tables waiting for them as though no Thanos, Snap, injection, separation had ever happened.

It felt to Peter as though all the things he’d run from had fallen away, or at least had been pushed to the backburner, unimportant in the face of mending his fractured friendship.

An awkwardness settled between them as they unwrapped their sandwiches. It seemed that neither knew where to begin, where to pick up from. All of the insecurities that had grown inside Peter while he lived with the Starks reminded him of a distasteful blue and green mold, expanding rapidly because of the ideal conditions to grow. He choked on them.

That insecure part of him expected Ned to stand up and walk away from him without a word. Or maybe Ned would unload on him everything he didn’t like about Peter, and then get up and walk away from him. Neither would be characteristic of his best friend, but Peter had decided months before that he couldn’t trust what he expected of people.

Their sandwiches eaten, Peter started to worry that the divide between them couldn’t be bridged. Ned hadn’t said anything, but then again, neither had he. Inwardly, Peter flailed, grappling desperately with his insecurity for what to say to repair his friendship.

But then Ned broke his chocolate chip cookie in half and offered half to Peter wordlessly. The gesture wiped Peter’s insecurities clean for that moment and he accepted the cookie.

“My sister died.”

Ned started, the statement sounding completely out of left-field. What began as a trickle of information, a hard-fought statement to utter, turned into a burst dam as Ned detailed what had become of his life since he returned from the Snap. Some of it Peter had a vague idea about, but given his preoccupation with his outsider status in May’s life at the time, he doesn’t remember as much as he should.

Peter listened intently as Ned described intimately how his little sister had died when the Snap was reversed in a tragic accident. How during the time he was snapped, Ned’s father had left his mother and then come back when the rest of the universe did to try to put their family back together. How his father had left again the moment Ned’s mother suspected she was pregnant. How Ned and his mom had gotten closer and how he felt the burning obligation to take care of her and what remained of his family. And, with a teary, wistful inkling of a smile, how he was dealing with being a big brother to a newborn baby sister.

“Her name is Isla, but I call her Lala,” Ned said, sounding as though he still couldn’t fully believe his fortune. “She’s only about six weeks old right now, but she’s… she’s everything.” Peter smiled at Ned, the genuine happiness for his best friend offering a warmth he’d forgotten he was capable of feeling.

“That’s amazing, Ned.” Peter said, looking at the picture proudly displayed on Ned’s phone of the infant, swaddled in a purple muslin blanket. Ned’s entire body language shifted to a giddy pride as he talked about how he didn’t expect a newborn to be so difficult, but that every moment with her was worth his exhaustion and falling behind on school.

The reflex struck Peter to talk about his similar experiences with having a newborn around and falling behind on (read: failing) his schoolwork. But all of the commonalities ended there, and Peter could think only of the disparities between his and Ned’s experiences instead.

It wasn’t like he’d been allowed to closely care for Miles. After all, he’d only been allowed to even brush a gentle finger across his dark brown hair after proving that his powers were sufficiently weakened. Peter had woken up multiple times in the night to make bottles for the hungry infant, but that felt more like a task performed to earn his keep and demonstrate the value of keeping him around to Mr. Stark and Pepper. His schoolwork suffered, but it wasn’t because he was exhausted from caring for a newborn during all his hours at home, or making sure his mother was doing okay while trying to balance returning to a world five-years-later and advanced scientific coursework as a junior at Midtown.

Peter’s own excuses - depression, losing his powers, missing May (and missing Mr. Stark, even though they lived in the same house) - sounded self-centered and inadequate when he recounted them in his head. Peter knew Ned wouldn’t see it that way though. Vaguely, Peter wondered when he’d started to view himself as a wholly selfish person.

“She didn’t want me to take on so much responsibility, but it’s just the three of us now, and I want to take care of them.” Ned explained to Peter, several minutes into talking about his life. He had the look of someone who hadn’t had anyone to talk to about real things for a long stretch of time. “My mom still does stuff to remind me that I’m her little boy. Like notes in my lunch and surprise Lego sets. She doesn’t want me to not be a kid anymore. I tried telling her that I’m technically 21 now, but she said that even when I’m actually 21 that I’d still be her baby just as much as Isla was.”

At that, Peter immediately chastised himself for the flash of envy for what Ned described. Ned had suffered, had lost significant pieces of his life with the Snap, and Peter was green with envy because of the relationship with his mother? Maybe that’s why he considered himself selfish, Peter thought scoldingly. Because he was taking Ned’s struggles and making them about himself and his losses.

Before a new silence could lapse, Ned asked him about his own life, eager to catch up and fill in the blanks between the sparse knowledge of Miles being born and Peter’s powers being bound.

Peter snapped his head to his chest, unable to face the reminder of Ned looking so eager. It was too similar to when he’d ask Peter about any moment spent with Mr. Stark, or request that he break down his patrol as Spider-Man into heavily detailed analysis. The hero worship hurt to look at in the face of his own lack of heroism and how Mr. Stark had fallen from his ivory tower in Peter’s eyes.

“Mr. Stark sucks.” He could hardly believe he’d said it before discovering how good it felt to utter the words. He kept going.

“Ms. Potts sucks. May sucks. Even Morgan sucked for a couple of weeks,” Peter drug his fingers through his hair, a mirthless laugh falling from his lips. It was an ugly sound, but the relief it offered was irresistible.

Going into specifics was still too difficult, the words turning to overlapping gibberish when he tried, but Ned didn’t prod.

“I’m so sorry dude, that really sucks. Like it really really sucks.”

It was such a Ned thing to say, and it was exactly what Peter didn’t know that he needed to hear. Peter was taken back to his friend’s similar brand of comfort after Uncle Ben had died.

“But Colonel Rhodes is awesome though.” His voice lost some of the choked, sorrowful qualities as he told Ned about his favorite parts about living with Rhodey (while omitting the series of heartbreaks that led him there in the first place).

“No way. You’re staying with Iron Patriot?” Peter grinned at the awe-struck expression Ned’s face morphed into. It was comforting to realize that his best friend didn’t see him any differently, and that maybe Peter hadn’t changed as much as he thought after everything that happened.

“He prefers War Machine,” Peter corrected glibly, remembering how he’d asked Rhodey that very question over a platter of nachos that they had prepared together and shared.

“War Machine, got it. That’s so cool Peter.”

All at once, Ned appeared to remember that this wasn’t some after-school hangout from back when things were less complicated. Less complicated, meaning that they were still keeping Spider-Man a secret and discussing guy-in-the-chair responsibilities on a Wednesday afternoon before Peter started patrol. The weight of all they had lost, gained, all that could never be the same settled between them like a layer of ash.

“I’m sorry about your sister and your dad.” Peter said, meeting Ned’s eyes and hating the sadness and maturity that took over them.

“I’m sorry about May and the Starks.” Ned replied, and even though he didn’t know the full scope of what unfolded, Peter had full faith in his friend’s absolute sincerity. “And I’m sorry I wasn’t a better friend. I had a lot going on, but I should have been there for you.”

Peter had already forgiven Ned before the apology was delivered, but he found himself short on meaningful words once more, the amount of emotionally-high-stakes conversations having worn him thin.

So he offered his hand out instead, a repeat of their handshake to signify that their friendship was mended. It would never be the same, they both knew, because they weren’t the same people, but their friendship would change to facilitate those differences.

After the handshake, the tension was dissolved.

“Your meme game is strong, man.” Peter laughed at the compliment, replying that he was in the process of teaching Rhodey about using gifs. “It’s like the only way he texts me now.”

Ned said that it was time for him to go pick up Isla from her daycare, but that he promised he would text Peter later. Instead of a third rendition of their handshake, Ned pulled Peter into a hug, which he reciprocated in earnest.

As he watched his best friend leave Delmar’s, Peter felt a piece of his heart fall back into place, settling so smoothly that the seam from the break was nearly invisible.

Perhaps if he could mend one part of his life, Peter had the capability to mend the other parts too. If he took what was in front of him, what was offered to him… was that all he had to do to repair his life?

_____

“headed back to hospital. gonna talk to mr stark.”

“Do you want me to pick you up?”

“nah, it’s ok. ty tho”

“Stay safe kiddo. Call me if you need me.”

Peter eyed the text from Rhodey, grinning at the appended gif of Spongebob Squarepants that read “See you soon” before sliding his phone back in his jeans pocket and starting the return trip. The fuzzy warmth and camaraderie he gleaned from the reunion with Ned was fading rapidly as the gravity of the situation with Mr. Stark bore down upon him.

He felt pulled in two different directions, between the life he’d dreamed of having with the Starks and the life that he was tentatively rebuilding after the implosion of that dream. The implications of either decision were dizzying and frightening, especially in the face of Mr. Stark’s heart attack and Rhodey’s unwavering support.

One felt like setting himself up for possible (yet familiar) failure and the other felt like launching himself in the air and having no idea where he would land.

By the time Peter arrived back at the hospital, no matter how the pros and cons stacked up, he knew his decision.

All he could do now was hope with every fiber of his being that it didn’t blow up in his face. Again.

_____

When Peter returned to Mr. Stark’s room at the hospital, he tried to convince himself that he wasn’t dragging his feet and that the weight in his chest was one of burgeoning happiness. He wasn’t able to talk himself out of the guilt that bubbled up into his throat like acid, however.

Mr. Stark looked startled when he saw Peter, and Peter winced at surprising someone with a heart condition. The man didn’t seem fazed, however, as he gestured for Peter to sit on the side of the bed, telling him that he wanted to be close to him. Dazed and reluctant, Peter complied, thinking that he would rather situate himself in a corner, any modicum of safety preferable to this vulnerable proximity.

Pepper was there too, sitting in the chair on the other side of Mr. Stark’s bed. The cool and unfriendly expression he’d grown accustomed to wasn’t present, but neither was the desperate worry from the waiting room earlier. She looked gathered and prepared, more akin to the face she wore as Stark Industries CEO. Her hands were folded and rested on the bed as well, the surface appearing to act as a makeshift conference table.

Peter forced himself to sit still, ignoring the itch to run again as it intensified into a prickle scuttling across his skin.

Without preamble or any attempt at small talk to put a crack in the stony tension, Mr. Stark did that thing where his eye contact demanded Peters and he launched into a continuation of his earlier apology.

“Pete, I’m so glad you came back. I’m sorry I ambushed you earlier. It’s just- when something like this happens, you realize that you don’t have all the time in the world to fix things with the people you love. And I couldn’t bear the thought of things continuing between us the way they were. I needed you to know how sorry I am for everything and how much I want to fix things, and how much you mean to me.” Mr. Stark paused, sounding almost winded in his explanation.

“I realize that in my attempt to apologize for ambushing you, that I am, in fact, ambushing you again.” It was that brief, shining glint of Mr. Stark - the Mr. Stark he knew before whose wit could diffuse any situation, that finally softened Peter’s resolve. Not by much, but enough to convince himself to stop looking stricken.

“What I’m trying to say here Pete, is that we want you to come home. All of us. Me, Pep, Miles, especially Morgan, and I’m entirely certain that Gerald likes you best, so count him in too.” Mr. Stark paused and cut the humor, the sincerity in his face wiping everything else away.

“Peter, you are a big part of our family. It hurts to not have you there. I know we’ve been through a lot, Underoos, but I hope you will allow me to make it all better. I lost you once, and I can’t bear to not have you again.”

Tony Stark and red-rimmed eyes filled with tears was a sight that Peter didn’t think he’d ever become accustomed to or comfortable with. Seeing his childhood idol unable to speak through the thick swath of emotion was nearly unbearable and Peter thought back to Mr. Stark being the last thing he saw before turning to dust on Titan. Even then, injured and haunted, Mr. Stark hadn’t looked this vulnerable.

Peter was at a loss for words as Mr. Stark collected himself amidst his upset. He couldn’t just concede and say that yes, he would come home. On top of the massive snarl of hurt feelings and resentment relating to Peter’s role (or non-role) as a member of the family, the elephant in the room remained his powers - what had been done to them, to him - and what conditions would be strung along with the “coming back home” offer.

After all, the lion’s share of his powers were back and close to fully functional. There were some that were still on the fritz, like the stickiness necessary for wall-crawling, and he swore that the spider-sense was about as reliable as a magic eight ball, but he felt more like himself than he had in a long time.

The need for glasses had passed, though he kept them in a case that stowed in the duffle bag under his bed at Rhodey’s. He kept the inhaler too. Because he was still petrified of being without one again while he was unable to breathe, his throat constricting more with every passing second. Sometimes, that awful tightening sensation crept up on him, and the panic that ensued inside his mind left him scooped out and hollow. What if Rhodey wasn’t there to guide him through an attack the next time? Peter wanted to be prepared, and palming the inhaler was a habit that calmed him.

Mr. Stark and Pepper both continued to eye him expectantly, and Peter felt no choice but to voice his raw, painful fears.

“I don’t know if I can…” On its own accord, Peter’s hand went behind his back, fingers barely glancing against the lower region near the hem of his shirt where the injections had been administered. Phantom pain from the shots, their impossible depth and that horrible, sickening anticipation just before the pop of the needle breaching the iliac crest robbed Peter of his breath.

“I just can’t do it again.” It was all he could offer up in explanation, but thankfully, Mr. Stark appeared to understand his vague miming if the torrent of guilt was any indication.

“No more shots,” Mr. Stark declared hurriedly. “I never should have done it in the first place. I’m so sorry Pete. Never again. I promise. I just need my spiderling back.”

Before Peter could even begin to register the apology - mostly all of the elements that it sorely lacked - Mr. Stark was diving back into the deluge of apologies, explanations, and declarations of family and love.

“I want to be the dad that you need me to be, Peter. Let me be that for you and I won’t screw it up this time.” The overwhelming feeling returned, lapping at Peter’s ankles like a rapidly rising ocean tide. He was too deeply sunk into the sand to move and rescue himself, stuck at the mercy of whatever Mr. Stark had to throw at him.

“And Pepper wants to be your mom.” Mr. Stark said, sounding like a Hail Mary offering.

Peter’s chin, which had been glued to his chest in an unconscious attempt of self-preservation, jerked up at the hot-button mention of Pepper and the “m” word. He was shaken by it, by having such a primal desire tossed out in the open, his vulnerability on display. Hot blood tinted his cheeks in unexpected embarrassment.

Months ago, Peter had relinquished any ideas and hopes that he’d fostered about Pepper being his mom. With how she looked at him when he was near her children - afraid, stricken - and her distant interactions with him (both in frequency and vicinity), the thought of Pepper ever being Peter’s mom was absolutely ludicrous and foreign.

As he stared back at Pepper, whose eyebrows were arched in attention and earnest, Peter wondered if she knew how badly he had wanted for her to be his mom at one time. Had she known that he’d wished to be her son, just the same as Miles, when she was icy and borderline unfriendly with him?

“I’m sorry I haven’t been there for you, Peter,” Pepper joined in the conversation, dumping another vague blanket apology in his lap. “And I’m sorry for everything you went through. I want to be there for you now. I want to be your mom, just like I’m Morgan and Miles’ mom. Can you forgive me, Peter?”

Just like that? Peter thought, pointedly. After all of the times she looked at him like he was enemy number one, like he was harmful to her children, when he was just scraping by? All of the times he missed May and was nearly consumed by the smoking crater she left inside him, and Pepper wouldn’t even deign to look in his direction? How at one point he’d been so catastrophically upset by Pepper’s reaction to him trying to hold Miles that he’d bruised his own ribs with his tight grip, just to feel something other than sorrow and shame? How even after his powers were ripped from him, Pepper still didn’t want him near her children because he was chronically sick with strep?

The entire scope of how ostracized and unwanted Peter had felt around Pepper took over his oculus, but it felt impossible to voice any of those grievances in response to her request for forgiveness.

“We can start fresh Peter. I want you to call me mom, and Tony wants you to call him dad. You are our son and we love you.”

Chapter Text

“We can start fresh Peter. I want you to call me mom, and Tony wants you to call him dad. You are our son and we love you.”

Two Hours Prior

“What are you doing, Tony?” Pepper spat after Peter ran and Rhodey gave chase. How had her husband woken up from surgery and gone directly into pleading to Peter for forgiveness? Was that his first concern after his heart attack?

She listened, albeit impatiently, as Tony explained how he needed to have Peter back, how he’d done so much wrong in regards to the kid, and that he’s been without Peter before and he can’t do it again.

“I tried to hide my grief from you, from everyone during those five years because I didn’t think there was anything I could do to make it better. No way to bring him back or anyone else. But I can fix this. I have the power to make things better and to bring him back to us.”

The lightness that Pepper had embraced in the recent weeks, the lightness that had taken over in the absence of fear and dread, grew heavy in her chest like wet sand.

“This needed to be a conversation,” she said with difficulty, overcome by the barrage of old fears returning. Her hands being jerked from the wheel and losing control. “You can’t just make these decisions - these huge decisions - without talking to me. I’m your wife. We have children, Tony.” Her voice broke under the strain, the back of her throat beginning to ache with the effort to not cry. The day’s emotional deluge was drowning her like quicksand - slowly, but with no escape.

“Like it was a conversation when you told me to take Peter’s powers?” Pepper hadn’t expected him to strike back. She inhaled sharply like she’d sustained a hit, recovering with a steely reserve that traditionally was saved for negotiations over billion-dollar business deals.

“I was trying to protect our family, Tony.” It came out surprisingly even for the torrent surging through her.

“Peter is our family,” Tony replied, desperation taking the place where he was traditionally decisive. “Listen Pep, ever since he came to live with us, I’ve done a piss-poor job of treating Peter like he was part of our family. I was focused on you and Morgan and Miles, and I don’t regret that for a second - never will - but I spent so much of my energy trying to protect our babies from an idle, out-of-proportion threat that I made it so Peter didn’t feel like he was one of our babies too.”

The unspoken “he isn’t” that Pepper ached to utter still managed to hang in the air between them.

“I miss him,” Tony was crumbling under the pressure of the day as well, Pepper could tell. The utter exhaustion, the uncharacteristic weakness and swimming eyes reminded her of very few times in their lives. After he was rescued and returned to Earth to see the destruction wrought by the battle he’d lost on Titan. When he realized that his arm was no longer viable and would need to be removed. She couldn’t even think of a third, though she supposed that this instance would serve in that place.

Pepper moved to sit on his bedside, just to be closer to Tony. She reached her hand out unconsciously to grasp his, but paused when she remembered that his prosthesis had been removed when he’d been in surgery. She knew that he hated to be without it, that it exposed a vulnerability that he wasn’t yet ready to address, but he didn’t seem to care about anything other than their family at that moment.

And wasn’t that what she loved most about Tony Stark? How, through all the bullshit facades, immature and reckless behavior, how he loved harder and more sincerely than anyone she’d ever met? Tony making Peter a priority wasn’t her husband putting his former intern/superhero mentee above his family. Peter was his family.

Pepper tried not to feel resigned as her certainty grew of this being one of those instances that Tony’s stubborn bullheadedness would win out. He wouldn’t take no for an answer - he couldn’t. She’d been around him long enough - before marriage and kids, as well as after - to know when arguing against Tony was a futile endeavor.

Of course, that meant that she needed to start the work to come to terms with her fears, irrational or not, concerning Peter Parker being around Morgan and Miles. She could tell, just from the time she’d spent with him earlier that day in the waiting room, that his powers were back. His silhouette, while still not that of a man, was fuller with the return of his wiry musculature. His glasses were gone and she believed, from the twitches and responses to stimuli in the waiting room, that his senses were as keen and sensitive as they once were.

If Pepper was going to do this for Tony, if she was going to agree to bringing Peter back home, then she needed to try and make this work. She would need to make an honest-to-god effort into bringing Peter into the fold of their family, where she knew that Tony wanted him to be all along. He’d wanted Peter nestled safely under the protective bubble that he created for her, Morgan, and Miles. Tony had created it for Peter, as well, Pepper was aware, but she had unilaterally begun pushing him toward the barrier of that bubble, irrationally terrified that by having him so close, her children were in danger.

Tony was right when he argued that she hadn’t given him a choice when she wanted Peter’s powers stripped. She hadn’t even known whether it would be possible when she demanded it, but she had been wearing blinders then, and she told herself that if Tony Stark could solve time travel to bring back half of the universe, that he could get rid of Peter’s superpowers (his strength, most importantly) to keep his children safe.

Those ideas needed to be put behind her, she was overwhelmingly aware by now as Tony continued to monologue about family and parents and love. About mom and dad. About their three kids and how he needed to make things up to Peter before it was too late for a second time.

“I want him to feel every bit our kid as the other two rugrats. I want him to call me “dad” and I think if he keeps calling me “Mr. Stark” then I’m going to beat myself over the head with my own fake arm,” Tony, at this point, was almost rambling. She wasn’t sure if it was the fog of anesthesia lifting or the euphoric haze of pain medication descending that created this sincere, idealistic man who looked on the verge of begging her.

“And, if you’re okay with it, I think he’d like to call you “mom,” Tight-lipped, Pepper nodded to show her husband that she was still listening to him despite her lengthy silence.

She’d figured that this matter would come, so she wasn’t surprised by the sudden mention. Tony never did things half-way, ever, so if he wanted Peter to be part of their family, if he wanted them to be Peter’s parents, he would want it all the way.

Pepper was not deterred by the notion of Peter calling her “mom,” she just wished that all of this wouldn’t go so fast.

Early this morning, she had come downstairs, ready for another routine day of taking care of her children and answering emails for SI, to find her husband sprawled on the floor, looking red-face and as though he was suffocating before falling unconscious. And now, as the sky’s orange and purples gave way to the diluted darkness of New York City nights, she was being asked to put her fears aside and to bring Peter into their family as a full-fledged member who Tony referred to as one of their babies, and who called them mom and dad.

Peter’s presence around the house was a quiet one most of the time, faultlessly polite and unassuming, Pepper considered, truly thinking about what the reality would look like with him back home. In the last few days before whatever happened, happened (she was still unclear of the exact circumstances that led to Peter staying with Rhodey), Pepper would even say that he scuttled around the house like a spider that was afraid of being seen and smashed under an angry and terrified shoe.

She felt guilty for causing that. In her own campaign to remove living in fear from her life, she’d passed that onto Peter, making him afraid of where he lived.
He was kind, helpful, and Pepper tried to believe that she was beyond the postpartum-induced fears that he would accidentally hurt her children.

There was another thing to consider as well.

The unexpected visitor who came to the lake house, tan file folder in hand, clearly trying to hide excited nervousness behind a stony, professional facade.

She was a representative from Child Protective Services and she was here because of a call about a teenage boy who may be experiencing mistreatment - but oh, she was certain that it was just a mistake and that there was nothing amiss here, but she needed to follow up on the call, “by law, I’m sure you understand!”

Pepper, a cold sweat between her shoulder blades, a blank pit of panic opening in her stomach, had plastered a cordial and understanding smile on her face and said that of course she understood, and that of course she could take a look around, and of course she was happy to answer some questions. No, the teenager in question was not here at the moment, he was visiting his uncle in the city, but she could take a look around his room.

Stiffly, Pepper had given the woman a tour of the house, apologizing for the various messes left behind by the baby (who was currently napping) and her little girl (who was almost done with Kindergarten!) And oh, how exciting was that, the woman said, and they began speaking back and forth about how the time flies when they are this young, and how she misses when her daughter was that age now that she’s graduating college and she and her wife have an empty nest now…

Any topic that kept the obviously star-struck woman from asking about Peter’s complete non-presence in their house. Frankly, Pepper thought the woman was more disappointed when she said that Tony wasn’t around than she did when she said that Peter wasn’t around.

Along the way, Pepper eyed the folder held in the crook of the woman’s elbow suspiciously, noting every time the pen touched the paper, whether to make a checkmark or to jot down a note. Thankfully, the CPS worker’s demeanor never faltered or gave way to concern by the time they circled back to the kitchen where Pepper offered her a cup of coffee.

“Just as I figured, nothing seems amiss here Mrs. Stark. I apologize for taking up your time this morning. If you could, when Peter comes home, have him give me a call and I’ll close the file. Thank you so much for your hospitality.”

Just that easily, Pepper took the offered business card, resisted the urge to correct her name to Miss Potts, as she still preferred that name even after marriage, and sent the CPS representative on her merry way. She knew for certain that several protocols had been breached or simply tossed to the side during that visit. The clout of being Pepper Potts, former CEO of SI and wife of the man who saved the universe, obviously had impacted any impartiality or formality that was certainly supposed to be practiced.

In the end, that visit - while being non-consequential legally - had scared her deeply. She’d never told Tony, had never passed along the business card for Peter to call, and nothing had come from it since. But the potential implications still haunted her.

Investigations into Peter, and what her husband had done to get rid of his powers, could - god forbid - potentially lead to having Morgan and Miles taken from her. And that, that was the consequence that she couldn’t bear to consider.

Bringing Peter back, making him part of the family, would erase the - admittedly slim - possibility that she would lose her children. All she had to do was say yes.

“Let’s bring our baby home, Tony.”

The tears that spilled down her husband’s scruffy cheeks turned her stomach in agonizing guilt for her kept secrets and subterfuge.

_____

“We can start fresh Peter. I want you to call me mom, and Tony wants you to call him dad. You are our son and we love you.”

Inwardly, Peter was almost furious at how kind and gentle her voice sounded. The part of him that was outraged at her suggestion to start fresh, the part that asked “how dare she?” was swiftly silenced by the suggestion that he call her and Mr. Stark mom and dad.

It felt like Pepper had navigated his defenses with some sort of high-tech missile and had found the fleshy underbelly of childhood yearning and wanting that Peter kept protected and silenced.

The word “mom” was about as problematic and triggering for Peter as “with great power comes great responsibility.” It reduced him to something smaller, made him diminutive under the confused hurt of a little boy who was trying to rebuild his life.

Years and years ago, when Peter had begun to emerge from the cocoon of grief that had encased him since the death of his mother and father, he had tried calling May “mom” once. He’d lived with Uncle Ben and Aunt May long enough that the memories of Mary and Richard had begun to smudge at the edges, their voices distorting slightly, and some recollections of his childhood with them were eroding into things that Peter couldn’t distinguish between real and something he made up.

May was tucking him into bed while Ben was working the night shift. After his bath with the watermelon shampoo and lavender soap, he’d picked out soft flannel pajamas with polar bears printed on them, and May had helped him when his arms were tangled in the sleeves. Peter brushed his teeth, climbed in bed, and listened attentively as she read him a chapter of the library book he’d checked out. Warm blankets and a soft voice had him drifting to sleep, Peter heard the book close and felt his mattress shift as May stood up to leave.

“Goodnight mom,” the young Peter had muttered sleepily, stifling a yawn. To this day, Peter couldn’t recall whether it had been purposeful or a slip of the tongue from a sleepy little boy at bedtime, but it really didn’t matter because of how May responded.

“Oh baby, no…” Her voice had retained its tender crooning, but Peter’s sleepiness was shoved aside by mortification. “I’m not your mom, Peter. I’ll always be your Aunt May.”

Well, that had been a lie, but at the time, Peter had been steamrolled by the rebuke. He remembered how he’d rolled over and tucked his blankets up over his head after she left his room, and the night spent promising himself that he would never call Aunt May his mom ever again. And if Aunt May wasn’t mom, then Uncle Ben couldn’t be dad, and as much as they looked and acted like his parents, they simply weren’t.

“Peter…” his head jerked up at Mr. Stark’s cautious voice, addressing him like an animal huddled in the back of its cage. They were waiting for him to respond, and he must have been silent for a bit too long.

His tongue sat like lead in his mouth as he tried to react, but no matter what looming doubts and fears he conjured, all Peter could think about was the little boy who had wanted a mom and been told no. That little boy still sat within him, curled into a ball and wanting what was being offered just as much now as he did then.

Peter couldn’t bear to refuse something he’d wanted so fervently, not when it was being offered up on a platter. He tried not to consider everything that had come before this offer and tried even harder to take Pepper’s statement of “fresh start” at face value.

He wanted a dad and a mom. He wanted to fix his life so it would stop crumbling out from under him.

So, with a reluctance and fear he tried valiantly to ignore, and bone whine knuckles grasping onto a fledgling hope that things really could be different, Peter nodded his head in agreement.

He just wished that it didn’t feel so much like giving up and giving away a part of himself.

Chapter Text

When Peter approached Rhodey to tell him his decision - to confess, was more how it felt - he imagined himself as a little kid going to tell a parent that he’d broken the new toy that he’d promised to take care of because he’d been careless. Rhodey had never been awful to him, or even unpleasant, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was about to be raked over the coals for agreeing to give Mr. Stark and Pepper - mom and dad? - another chance.

When he found Rhodey, the man had instantly switched into a worried mother hen, asking him if he was okay, hungry, cold, and looking him over like like he was just a kid, not a teenage superhero who had been stabbed, grazed by bullets, and who apprehended more than his fair share of criminals as Spider-Man. Rhodey never looked at him like he’d been to space and fought Thanos.

Peter wanted to bristle at the treatment at first, since at one point he’d fought tooth and nail to be considered one of the big guys, an Avenger - not just a kid. But he couldn’t. Having an adult who worried about him, like actually, sincerely worried about him beyond his capacity of Spider-Man, felt too nice to disregard.

It was nice to be a kid, sometimes. And to let someone be the adult.

As Peter struggled to voice his decision, Rhodey just waited patiently, telling him to take his time, that things were going to be okay, no matter what.

The flicker of sadness and disappointment in Rhodey’s eyes when he said that he was going back to live with Tony and Pepper, as brief as it was, crushed Peter. He hated the no-win situation he’d found himself in, where in doing what he felt was best for Rhodey, he was also hurting the man and causing disappointment.

Before Rhodey could begin to placate him, Peter launched into a speech, reciting the bone-deep gratefulness he felt for Rhodey having given him a place to stay, food to eat, someone to talk to, all when the man didn’t have to. He’d had no obligation to take Peter, nevertheless keep him for as long as he did, but he had. And that didn’t even cover the safety, ease and support that Peter had grown to savor waking up to each day.

Rhodey’s hand on his shoulder, warm and just the right weight to offer comfort, made Peter trail off at the beginning of another iteration of apologies and thanks.

“Peter, remember when I told you that you had nothing to be sorry for?” Peter nodded, suddenly bashful at the calm response to his hurried rambling.

“That’s still true, but I’ll go ahead and tell you again. Peter Parker, you do not have to be sorry for doing what you feel is right. You don’t have to be sorry for wanting a family.”

Peter fought for his next inhalation, bowled over by the sincerity and compassion radiating off Rhodey.

“And Peter, I want you to know that I’m still there for you, no matter where you live. I’m still in your corner. I’ve told you this probably a thousand times, but you’re a kid, so you still need to hear it. If you need me, I’m only a phone call or a text away. I don’t care if it’s two in the morning and you need a ride because you and Ned ended up somewhere you shouldn’t be, or if it’s two in the afternoon and you just want to chat about how the churros on 133rd are better than the churros on 138th.”

Through tears he didn’t even know he was crying, Peter choked on a laugh.

“The lady on 133rd puts extra sugar on them,” he rasped, and they were suspended in a moment of lightness amid the heavy conversation.

“Yeah, just for you though. When I go there by myself, I swear she scrapes off all the good stuff because you’re not there. You should see how she scowls at me.”

They let themselves bask in the happiness, each laugh acting like a balm against the raw wounds being opened. As their laughter tapered off, so did the lightness, and they were left with the aftermath of Peter’s decision.

“I’m sorry…” Peter reflexively repeated. He expected admonishment from Rhodey for the apology, but was instead pulled into a tight embrace. Peter returned the hug, mindful of how tight he squeezed because when he first came to live with Rhodey, he could squeeze as tightly as he wanted with his weak limbs. But things were different now, and Peter was different now, and he was getting what he believed he always wanted.

So why was spider-sense still ringing a low siren behind his ears? Why did saying goodbye to Rhodey feel wrong when he had a dad and mom waiting for him? Why did Rhodey’s hug feel like home when a different home awaited him in a cabin next to a lake?

Peter chalked it up to the enhanced sense still being on the fritz. If he let himself believe it was anything else, he was afraid he’d lose his nerve and beg to stay with Rhodey. He was petrified at the notion that he would beg Rhodey to be his dad. So he blamed his faulty sense instead. It was simpler.

“I’m going to miss you, Pete.” Rhodey said, words muffled in his hair.

“I’m going to miss you too,” and Peter had to bite down on his tongue to prevent the comforting “dad” that wanted to roll off with ease.

_____

The kid had packed up his stuff. He’d walked out the front door and gotten into a car with Pepper in the driver’s seat and Tony sitting shotgun. Tony had been discharged from the hospital earlier that day, and they hoped to take Peter home with them now instead of making an additional trip. The timeline was quick, but Rhodey played along for Peter’s sake.

After the goodbye, which felt just as rushed as Tony muttered about city traffic (jokingly, but also not), and back in his house, newly returned to it’s one-person occupancy, Rhodey found the profound sense of failure beyond discomfiting.

He tried to play it logically. What was there to be disappointed about? When Peter came to live with him, it was never decided that the arrangement would be permanent. Peter needed a respite from the untenable living situation he’d found himself in with the Starks and a safe place to land after having his heart broken by May and Tony in the span of one afternoon.

Healing those bonds and reunifying Peter with Tony was the logical goal there. But the actual reconciliation? The reality of Peter leaving to go live with Tony and Pepper? These things left him feeling like he had failed Peter somehow.

There wasn’t a “somehow” about it though, Rhodey conceded. Because Rhodey knew that after everything he’d learned about Peter’s life with the Starks - from saving Morgan from falling from a tree to being subtly forced to undergo a rogue, untested medical procedure at the hands of his guardian - that he would never be able to see Tony as a fit parent for Peter.

And it wasn’t just Tony. Peter was less vocal about the strained, tenuous relationship he had with Pepper, but from what Rhodey had gleaned, she was just as much (if not more) in the wrong than Tony with how she treated Peter. Peter had confessed to him that the time Pepper had refused to let him hold newborn Miles that everyone else had witnessed had not been the last. The kid said that he felt like a criminal whenever he was around Pepper, and that feeling didn’t subside after he’d given up his powers to Tony’s heinous injections.

Rhodey had heard the explanation from Peter. He’d listened with a degree of skepticism when Tony told him why he wanted Peter back home. How things would be different now. If Pepper had been part of their conversation, he was certain she would have parroted much of the same.

For Peter’s sake, he wanted to believe that it was all true and that the shiny new family and home they were offering him was real. Maybe it was his weathered perception of the world, or that his very nature demanded a calculating view of things, but Rhodey found himself challenged to fully buy into their promises.

Every promise and guarantee sounded trite and tired. It was so easy to promise these things now, but would the promises hold up with time? With stress? With anger and the motions of being a family?

Again, for Peter’s sake, he certainly hoped so.

Rhodey already found himself missing the teenager’s presence, and he’d only been gone for five minutes. Shoes kicked off into a disorganized pile by the door, sweatshirts haphazardly thrown over the back of couches and chairs, and a bedroom that looked distinctly comfortable and lived in - all of it made the house that Rhodey had mostly considered a contingency plan into a home that he wanted to make more livable.

Tony had once told him that Peter was exceptionally neat and tidy for a teenager, so Rhodey had been taken aback when that hadn’t turned out to be true. Taken aback, but not upset or perturbed, because soon enough, Rhodey believed he’d discovered the root of the discrepancy.

Peter was comfortable here, and he let himself relax and feel like he belonged. And that obviously must not have been the case when he was living with Tony and Pepper.

The disappointment that Rhodey felt was palpable, but it was not in Peter. Never in Peter. The lion’s share of Rhodey’s disappointment was reserved for himself, with the remainder distributed equally between Tony and Pepper. He wished he had done more to make Peter feel at home. He wished that he’d made Peter feel like this was a place that Peter could stay - was welcome to stay. He wished that he’d imparted on the kid that he wanted Peter to stay with him and to be his family.

Rhodet’s harshest, most fervent wish was that he’d done enough to make Peter see enough worth in himself to realize that he deserved far better than how he’d been treated by the Starks. He wished he would have convinced Peter that banal, blanket promises of “better” and “love” and “family” and “not like it used to be” were not somewhere he should feel forced to place his hopes.

Regretfully, Rhodey opened the refrigerator and saw everything stocked just for Peter, including the cookie dough that he’d promised the kid he could eat raw if he passed his Spanish conversation assignment (which Rhodey had happily, and to Peter’s enthusiastic surprise, fluently participated in).

He couldn’t quite pinpoint the landmark moment when having Peter living with him evolved from a temporary solution that sheltered the kid from his stormy living conditions to subconsciously wanting the situation to become permanent. But whether it was a specific pivotal moment in time or whether the effect was slow and steady over time, Rhodey only cared that Peter was getting taken care of and being loved in all the ways he deserved.

Sharp selfishness cut at Rhodey as he believed ardently that he was the best person for the task.

Exhaling forcefully, Rhodey shut the refrigerator and retreated to his office, looking to escape and avoid the craters of space left behind by the boy he’d unconsciously come to see as his son.

____

“Petey, lift me up and spin me again!”

Peter pretended to be winded, panting and putting his hands on his knees to convince the eager Morgan that he didn’t have the energy to continue the spinning game.

“Momo, my arms are tired from spinning you so much,” he said, feigning exasperation. It was a complete lie, of course. His powers had felt fully restored for weeks now and if Peter wanted, he could spin Morgan around in circles for hours.

“Aren’t you dizzy?” Peter asked, hoping that she would relent. He loved playing with her, really. But activities like this never failed to ignite a spark of dread low in his gut. It was too similar to last time.

“That’s the most fun part! ‘Cause the floor moves all wavy.” Morgan walked unevenly, waving her arms at her side in demonstration. And despite his misgivings, Peter couldn’t help but smile at her. Seeing Morgan happy never failed to make him happy, and there hadn’t been any incidents yet. He’d been able to hold back his enhanced strength and not harm anyone. That counted for something, right?

Fighting his reservations, Peter grabbed Morgan’s hands again and lifted. He checked their surroundings to make sure their flight path was clear before pivoting his feet in circles and spinning her around. Even before the first full rotation Morgan’s contagious laughter had resumed.

Around and around they went. Aware of all that was at stake, he tried to keep himself calm and centered instead of dwelling on everything that could go wrong.

His forehead creased in concentration, Peter kept his senses laser focused to carefully regulate the strength all the way from his shoulders to his fingertips. Too loose and he could accidentally let go. Too tight and… he didn’t like to consider that. He couldn’t let down his guard, not even for a fraction of a second. If he lost his focus and his freakish strength hurt her again...

Morgan’s joyous, giddy laughter - one of Peter’s favorite things to hear - for the briefest moment flashed into a shrill shriek of pain - before reverting back again to her bubbly giggles. Peter’s chest seized and he instantly feared losing control of himself. He couldn’t let himself be the monster that Pepper once feared.

Despite Morgan’s protests, Peter slowed them back down and told her shortly and decisively that they were done spinning. A frown wilted her happy expression at his hard-edged tone. Guilt welled up, but Peter shoved it back down. He wouldn’t feel bad for doing what was best for his sister’s safety.

When he refused to budge on the spinning issue, Morgan marched away with a huff. Peter knew that her grudge would fade quickly, so he didn’t pay it much mind.

Even though it was only for a fraction of a second, the memory of Morgan’s pained scream was toxic and resonant. It left a sickly tang in the back of his mouth that he couldn’t swallow away.

The couch caught Peter as he fell back, bombarded the echoes of Mr. Stark asking him to bind his powers and Pepper yelling “No!” when he reached to pick up Miles. Broken remnants stuck to him like hot tar and feathers.

Peter was sure that at any moment Pepper would come around the corner like a force of nature to scold him for how he put her daughter in danger with his carelessness.

Morbid curiosity spurred him up from his defeated position on the couch, eager to search her out to either prove his mind right and endure the seething lecture, or to prove his imagination wild and wrong. Down the hall, Peter found Pepper in the office, intently checking a page of numbers against her computer screen. She noticed him immediately.

“Hey Peter, how is it going out there?” She smiled at him, and her tone was so amiable. There was no indication that she was angry or afraid. Still, he couldn’t shake his skepticism.

“Fine,” Peter nervously rubbed his hand over the back of his neck, now realizing how prepared he was for a gutting and finding himself unprepared to respond to kindness. “Morgan was grumpy that I wanted to play something else,” he offered, and Pepper gave a knowing smile.

“She and Tony react the same when you tell them no, I swear. Look at Tony the next time I tell him that he’s had enough coffee for the day and his face will be the mirror image of Morgan’s when I tell Morgan that she can’t have cookies before dinner.”

Peter’s subdued, muffled snigger would have to do as a response, as he was still too constricted by thick vines of fear.

Looking as though she wanted to reassure him, Pepper said “I’m sure she’ll come back to play with you as soon.” Peter nodded, his hand reflexively returning to the nape of his neck. When Peter didn’t turn to leave, Pepper’s brows knit together in concern and she didn’t return to her work.

“Did you need something Peter?”

Peter stuttered, the sounds not even coming close to resembling words before pulling himself together. He hated that he was like this; expecting the absolute worst and struck dumb when his expectations were subverted. They were trying to make him part of the family, so why was he determined to see the worst in them?

“No, I uh… just came by to say hi,” Peter replied lamely with the first excuse that came to mind. He couldn’t very well say that he came by to see if she was afraid of him playing with her kids, after all.

She just smiled back at him kindly, a twinkle of amusement as she greeted him back. “Hi to you too, Peter.”

“I’ll go find Morgan,” Peter blurted out, his cheeks and ears suddenly hot with embarrassment as he hurriedly retreated. He inwardly chastised himself all the way back to the living room, loathing himself for letting his fears take the wheel like that.

There was nothing wrong, Peter repeated to himself, chant-like. It was just a normal afternoon, living with his family, playing with his little sister while his baby brother napped and his parents worked, so why did his mind have to invent reasons to be insecure?

Why did he have to create unhappiness where it didn’t exist?

_____

Peter was unable to shake his gloomy mood that afternoon, his face stuck as a blank slate as he did a puzzle with Morgan. Well, he started a puzzle with Morgan and finished it while she led her unicorns into battle against her dinosaurs.

By the time Miles was up from his nap, Peter had his bottle ready and told Pepper he would handle the diaper change and feeding after she emerged from her office after hearing the disturbance on the monitor. Her grateful smile and how her shoulders relaxed in relief helped ease some of Peter’s inner turmoil.

“I’m so glad to have you back Peter,” she told him. “You’re such a good big brother.”

Peter blushed under the praise as she walked away, even muttering “thanks mom,” under his breath. Despite her offer in the hospital, Peter still had not gotten up the courage to actually call her “mom” to her face. The fear of rejection was still too palpable.

Once he went through the routine with Miles and got him settled on a soft blanket on the floor next to his toys and after he turned on a show for a now-tired Morgan, Peter finally collapsed back onto the couch, his own mental exhaustion taking hold.

Fishing his phone out of his hoodie pocket, he couldn’t help but grin when he saw a red bubble with the number “14” next to Rhodey’s contact in his messages. Ned came in a distant second with only five messages.

Since he’d left, Rhodey’s texts and calls had been numerous and as predictable as Gerald’s morning bleats to be fed. Every morning he received a “good morning” text and gif, with a supplementary one at night before bed. There were texts telling him to have a good day and calls to just catch up and talk. He checked to make sure Peter was eating enough, snacking between meals, drinking enough water. He asked how Peter’s school work was going, what subjects, assignments, and projects he was working on, and whether he wanted any help.

Peter was sometimes tempted to sarcastically reply “Yes, dad,” to some of the more overbearing texts, but whenever he considered it, he immediately deleted the words and accepted the slice of regret.

Because Tony is your dad now.

Sometimes, Rhodey would just send selfies with crazy filters, a ridiculous gif or string of emojis, none of which ever failed to make Peter laugh and immediately ask what the message was supposed to mean or why he took a selfie.

Scrolling through the backlog of messages from Rhodey and Ned, eased some of the heavy grayness that had settled over him. The ease in which he could just be himself with Rhodey and Ned was striking, and he tried to disregard the uncomfortable implication that he was exhausted from walking on eggshells around Tony and Pepper. The weight of the mask he unconsciously wore around them never bothered him before that moment, but it was hard to take his mind off of it now.

Needing to be normal enough that Pepper wasn’t afraid. Useful enough that his presence wasn’t questioned. Quiet enough that he wasn’t a disturbance. Fun enough to entertain his little sister. Brave enough to someday be a hero again. Forgetful enough that he didn’t carry what happened with May and everything before he escaped to Rhodey’s.

Peter was seized by a full-body yawn, and he let himself consider how exhausted he actually was from it all. Part of him tried to explain the tiredness away.

You’re still adjusting to things. It’s normal to be tired when you’re trying to balance babysitting and schoolwork. Imagine if you had to patrol too. Now that was real exhaustion, if you can recall.

Another part of him, the part he tried to silence, but it’s audacity and confidence grew by the day, presented the other side of the argument.

Peter, you never felt like this with Rhodey. Even when you didn’t know if you had a place there, Rhodey never expected you to be more than you were at any given moment.

Though he couldn’t refute anything that voice of reason said to him, it still gave him an uncomfortable prickle, so he shushed it. His choice had been made, and he’d chosen this life with Tony and Pepper - dad and mom. And when that choice was decided, Peter told himself it was for keeps. No matter the circumstances.

Still, he could have part of that life with Rhodey, if only through their texts and calls.

His phone buzzed against his leg twice in succession, and Peter picked it up to check the messages. The first was a picture Rhodey had taken of himself, frowning and holding a suspiciously plain churro, the disgruntled churro woman’s cart in the background.

“See, no sugar or cinnamon. Just some cold fried dough.”

Peter laughed and typed out his reply. “Just go to the cart two blocks down. I can’t help it if you pissed off the churro lady.”

“I didn’t do anything! You’re the only one she likes, and she gives us free chocolate sauce when you’re with me.”

Peter was still typing his response when he heard and then instantly smelled Miles spitting up. Discarding his phone, he jumped into action just as Morgan ran into the room, exclaiming “Ewwwwww!” far louder than necessary and then running away urgently to repeat it to Pepper.

Between the incessant chatter, Miles’ gurgling (now happy because his stomach wasn’t hurting), and the overwhelming stench of rotten milk, Peter focused on managing the crisis at hand without letting his senses get overloaded.

It wasn’t until that night, when he went to charge his phone and read the goodnight message from Rhodey that he saw the message sent prior.

“When you’re feeling up to it, maybe Spider-Man can give her a little swing-by and tell her to be nicer to me. Miss you kid.”

The mental image made him smile. He replied to the goodnight message in kind and put his phone face down on the nightstand before rolling right back over and picking it up.

“Friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, at your service to resolve your churro needs… and miss u 2.”

Chapter Text

“Welcome back to where the magic happens, Pete,” Tony exclaimed with what Peter felt was more pizzazz than necessary for a garage-turned-laboratory. Even if said garage-turned-laboratory belonged to one of the greatest engineers of all time.

“Isn’t that how most people describe their bedrooms? You know… that kind of magic?” Peter asked lightheartedly, and Tony groaned in response, telling him that’s not what he meant, and muttering to himself about teenagers and their minds always being in the gutter.

The conversation was light and it helped to keep Peter’s mind off the jittery nerves and turning stomach he felt upon his return to the lab.

Tony had asked him over breakfast this morning if he wanted to work in the lab with him that evening. At first, Peter had almost choked on his scrambled eggs, the similarity of the question to the time he’d been lured and tricked painfully apparent.

A heavy hand clapping his back eased his coughing, and Tony told him to slow down, because his breakfast wasn’t going anywhere.

“So what do you think, Underoos? You. Me. Lab. Pizza. Gummy worms. Hot chocolate. And if neither of us falls asleep, we can even watch a movie that wasn’t made by Disney or Pixar.”

Peter had stared at him searchingly for a stretch, trying to determine whether or not Tony saw the similarities between now and then. Did he realize that he was nearly mimicking the offer he’d given Peter when it had been a ruse to trap him and neutralize him as a threat as though he’d been a wild animal?

When the man’s expression hadn’t changed, Peter realized that he didn’t see the parallels. And he hadn’t been sure if that should have upset him or not.

Peter had agreed with only a bit more cajoling. The way that Tony’s eyes had lit up when he agreed had spread warmth to him, and with that warmth, he’d even tried out something new.

“Sure, it sounds fun… dad.”

Tony had lit up even more, and Peter had felt correspondingly lighter as well.

Now that they were here, nearly 12 hours later, Peter recognized the bulky bundle of resentment and nerves he’d been holding onto all day in anticipation for the lab time. He recognized it, because they only got harder to handle and hide now that he was in the lab with Tony.

Not much had changed, though he didn’t know why he expected it would. One of the metal tables had an indentation in the middle and had been pushed back against the wall, and he briefly wondered about what sort of experiment-gone-wrong had done the damage, but other than that detail, the lab looked very much the same.

Through the anxiety buzzing in his head like a wasp nest, Peter could tell that Tony was speaking, probably rambling, but he couldn’t make himself tune into what the man was saying.

Every step he took across the concrete floor sunk him deeper into that day when his last remaining support system was pulled out from under him. When, amid all of his shitty circumstances, the one person he thought was left in his corner betrayed him and tried to convince him it was in his best interest.

Unconsciously, Peter’s upper lip twitched into a snarl. At one point, he’d been angry at himself for agreeing to having his powers bound. But after being at Rhodey’s and talking through everything with Dr. Banner, that anger shifted to Tony. He was no longer angry at himself for that - though he remained angry at himself for a host of other reasons. For that specific instance, Peter was angry for himself. Angry for the kid who had no other options and just wanted to keep the last parental figure he had left.

“So, I’ve got an extra special treat for us tonight, my spider-child,” the contact of Tony’s arm wrapping around his shoulders and bringing him into a side hug ripped him from the black abyss of aggravation he’d stumbled into.

“Behold… my greatest creations- wait, I guess I shouldn’t say that anymore. My children, made by me- Nope, that’s not it either… My robot babies...” Tony gestured widely toward the two mechanical figures, which at first glance, didn’t look all that impressive. But Peter knew better.

“Dum-E and U?”

“Yep, the first real robots I ever made that were useful. Though, Dum-E really likes to challenge that designation most days; don’t you baby boy?”

A mechanical whirr came alive, but it was distinctly evocative in it’s inflection. And while the sound the machine was emitting made it seem highly-advanced, it’s construction consisting of a claw and a pair of hydraulics on a four-wheeled platform indicated otherwise.

Peter knew far better than that, however. He’d met the bots before, worked with them, and had even consoled Dum-E when Tony had threatened to make his only function a can opener. He looked upon the pair of robots with something that exceeded fondness before walking up to Dum-E, greeting him and stroking the claw mechanism gently like he’d done previously with Murph. Dum-E’s response was similar to a cat’s purring too.

“Would you look at that? He remembers you better than he can remember to execute the tasks that I program for him,” Tony said with mock hurt as U started to roll in a circle around Peter, his whirring high-pitched with excitement.

“It’s not my fault they prefer someone who’s nice to them and recognizes how advanced they are,” Peter laughed as Dum-E’s claw latched onto the hood of his sweatshirt and pulled him closer.

“You would think they would have more respect for their creator. I’m basically their god and this is how I’m treated?” Tony stepped back, exclaiming in pain when U’s revolutions ran over his toe.

Peter ignored Tony, basking in the uncomplicated joy of the bots who he was so fond of and who were just as fond - if not more - of him in return.

“Well, I was going to see if you wanted to build your own robot, some sort of pseudo-nephew-cousin sort of thing, but seeing as you’ve taken my creations from me, I’ll just have to build something for myself. Something new, way more advanced, than you guys,” he gestured toward the bots accusingly. “Something that actually listens to me and respects me. Something funnier too. U has no sense of humor and Dum-E only thinks it’s funny when I get hurt.”

By this time, Tony’s rambling had to get louder to overcome the happy beeps and whirrs, along with Peter’s laughter. Peter’s interest piqued at the offer to build his own robot, but it was too fun rubbing the bots’ affection in Tony’s face to ask them to stop.

It was a few more minutes before the reunion died down in volume and Peter glanced over at Tony just soon enough to see the adoring glint in his eyes before he returned to his bravado.

“What do you say Underoos? Want to build your own spider-bot?”

Peter was just about to agree, ready to nod vehemently because wasn’t it something of a dream come true to have Tony Stark as his dad and to work in the lab with him, building, inventing, and bonding while they tinkered?

Then he saw the stretch of laboratory where Tony was headed, saw a table that once served as the place where he laid to take a needle to the back. If his senses were less finely tuned, the way they were fuzzy and muddled in the weeks following the initial shot, Peter might not have noticed the brief panicked start in Tony’s body language, followed by the man hastily pushing some supplies out of sight that included a piece of white fabric and the clank of glass vials.

Peter could have sworn he felt the freeze spread through his body, muscles creaking as they turned solid and his blood slowing to a sluggish trickle.

How could he let himself forget, even for a paltry handful of minutes, what happened to him - what was done to him here? Clips of the nightmare returned with every shutter of his eyelids. Tony’s expression that he’d initially believed affectionate being revealed as duplicitous. The moment it became clear that the entire situation had been choreographed and there had never been any intention to spend lab time together. How helpless he felt when he’d lain prone on a cold table, the needle in his back too close a metaphor to a knife in his back.

A sudden bump from behind made Peter stumble forward, knocking him from the trance. If you asked Peter how Dum-E could possibly look guilty, he wouldn’t be able to say, but the robot did look guilty and his whir was dispirited as U approached, a white cone clasped in his claw that was placed on top of Dum-E.

The cap read “DUNCE” and both Peter and Tony started laughing in unison as one bot admonished the other. Tony protested that U never stood up for him when he was wronged, but Peter was too wrapped up in his fit of laughter to acknowledge him.

When a massive crate of mechanical parts was uncovered and Tony started sifting through, spouting possibilities for build types and functions, the topic of Peter’s fears and insecurities didn’t quite vanish, but it was shoved to the back of his mind in favor of his love of engineering.

For hours they worked like a well-oiled machine and it did feel like old times if Peter didn’t look further than the surface. Music, food, mechanics; Peter was in his element as he and Tony worked through problems and innovated functions for Peter’s future bot.

Earlier in the evening, close to dinner time when the pizzas were delivered by a characteristically grumpy Happy who grumbled about being reduced to a pizza delivery guy, Peter asked if they needed to wrap up in the lab to do dinner, bath, and bedtime for the kids.

Tony told him that it was all covered and that Happy was helping Pepper tonight before asking Peter to bend a piece of metal back into shape because he was “a heart patient and the savior of the universe, so help your old man out, would ya?”

Peter tried not to let his apprehension bleed through as he chuckled through the mention of his old man, bending the metal like it was made of play-doh before passing it back.

It felt strange, like he was neglecting his responsibilities (a feeling that had never sat well with Peter in any situation), but Peter couldn’t help but try to sink into the atmosphere. He could pretend that he was getting ready to turn 16, that he and Tony were working on a nano-bot housing unit while making repairs and upgrades to the spider-suit that had been damaged by a an iffy landing after Peter had convinced himself he had enough web fluid to make it back to the tower following apprehending a car jacker.

Peter let himself sink back into the ease of that time, remembering how things had seemed so complicated at the time - and to be fair, they were - but what Peter would give to return to that kind of complication… when his dread was rooted in the lecture that Tony would give him for being “reckless about his safety,” and knowing he would be exhausted for his Spanish test the next morning, but deciding that was a small price to pay for helping the single mom by sending her back home with her crying infant so he could get the formula she needed to buy late at night with the credit card Tony had given him.

If he squinted his eyes, Peter could convince himself that what he was working on was red and blue and spidery, or the red and gold of an Iron Man sheath of armor.

“I want to get back to being Spider-Man.”

When Peter spoke the words aloud, he didn’t even realize what he’d said at first. He certainly hadn’t planned on mentioning Spider-Man to Tony, and his own feelings about being Spider-Man were frequently shunted aside or silenced in deference to not giving Pepper any cause to fear him again and the visceral way his heart shuddered when he remembered May’s last rejection and how it delivered her message loud and clear: Spider-Man or not, she didn’t want him anymore.

But Rhodey’s text from earlier, just casually mentioning Spider-Man with no complicated undertones, had reignited the dormant spark in him that loved being a hero and helping people. Sure, the growing spark warred with the part of him that reiterated that he was helping people when he took care of his siblings, and any time he wasn’t there would be time that he wasn’t being responsible - but the itch to fall, swing, flip, and climb was potent.

The abrupt absence of metal clanking together and the inflection in Tony’s heartbeat became the only sounds in which Peter was aware. In Tony speak (with his kids at least), when he didn’t immediately throw down his gung-ho approval, that meant that he wasn’t a huge fan of the idea. Peter waited with bated breath for the impending disapproval and apprehension.

“Back to Spidey, huh?” Tony’s casual tone sounded painfully forced. “Are you sure you’re ready for that, kid?”

Peter shrugged, not having prepared an argument or any counterpoints since he hadn’t even expected to talk about Spider-Man. What he lacked in structured presentation, he held in gut instincts, however.

“Yeah, I think so. I miss doing it. Being him.”

Peter cursed his lack of articulation. He wished he had half of the conviction now that he had when he was yelling at Tony that rainy afternoon on the sidewalk.

When Tony didn’t immediately respond, Peter pushed himself to clarify why he wanted to be Spider-Man again.

“I miss helping people and feeling like I’m making a difference.” It still wasn’t the heroic monologue he’d love to deliver, but that really was never him. He thought back to the first time he ever met Tony, when he said “When you do the things that I can, but you don’t… and then the bad things happen… they happen because of you.”

“You’re making a huge difference here, Peter. You help me and Pepper with the kids every day.” Peter winced at having his own private misgivings directed back at him. It was one thing to think something like that to himself, but it was a completely separate issue to know that his idol/mentor/dad thought the same thing. He was also painfully aware of Tony’s quick departure from any of his nicknames that were related to his alter-ego. Like Tony was trying to convince him to be Peter instead of Spider-Man.

“Yeah, I know, and I love doing that. I just…” He paused to try and make his words cooperate. Having his feelings about Spider-Man tumble out in a messy snarl would help no one.

“It’s been so long since I’ve gotten to be that part of myself. For good reason, I mean the whole turning to dust and then coming back after five years and then going through a portal into the battle for the universe thing was pretty traumatic, not gonna lie. And then there was the stuff with…” His tongue refused to work as he thought about how to describe the incident with Morgan and everything that followed. Soon after, he gave up and plowed on, determined to make himself heard.

“I’m comfortable with being Spider-Man again. And I know it wouldn’t be often, since we live out in the wild like the Unabomber - Happy’s words, not mine,” he said as Tony moved to protest indignantly. “But I think that sometimes I’d like to maybe spend a weekend in the city and be myself again. I promise I won’t take on anything I can’t handle. Nothing like alien weapons or taking down a plane. I just want to help out the little guy again, you know, get back into the swing of things.”

It was a lame attempt to lighten the mood, Peter knew, but he needed to relieve at least a small amount of tension that was building below the surface, intensifying the silent pressure between him and Tony like blood beneath a concussed skull.

Tony put down the wrench he’d been fiddling with before addressing Peter in the same way that Ben used to when he was going to tell him something he knew Peter didn’t want to hear.

“Are you sure that your powers are back, kid?” Tony asked skeptically. “I don’t want you to be crawling fifty stories up just to realize that you’re not as sticky as you used to be.” It was said with a tinge of humor, but not enough to bleed through the chilly apprehension.

Peter wasn’t sure if he expected any pushback from Tony on the matter. Tony from before Thanos and the Snap? He’d make sure Peter’s suit was in tip-top condition and give him the go ahead. Hell, he’d probably even open a window for Peter to leap from and yell at him to remember his curfew so Aunt Hottie wouldn’t dismember him.

This Tony - Dad-Tony - was different, there was no denying it. Hell, he’d thrown a punch at this Tony and still didn’t regret it.

While Tony’s gesture of concern was as warm as it was off-putting, Peter couldn’t help the foul taste it left in his mouth. There would be no question about the efficacy of his powers if it hadn’t been for Tony in the first place.

“Yeah, um… have been for a while. They started coming back when I was at Rhodey’s…” Was it wrong for Peter to enjoy a spark of satisfaction when Tony winced at the mention of the time he spent living with Rhodey? Perhaps, but he let himself have the moment, regardless.

Tony plastered a grudging smile on his face as he stood up from the table and wiped the grease from his hands with a rag. He appeared to be considering what Peter wanted while also grasping for anything that could justify a refusal.

“How about we run some tests and see what you’re made of, and if you’re back to your former glory, we can talk about unleashing Spider-Man on the criminals of New York?”

The mention of “running some tests” kicked Peter square in the chest.

Among the scores of reasons that Peter despised the procedure that left him powerless, he remembered poignantly how inhuman it had made him feel. Being reduced to a science experiment was something that Peter had always feared since the bite. Whether it was Oscorp uncovering what created Spider-Man and deciding that he was their property, or some faceless entity strapping him to a table to poke, prod, analyze like he was a frog set for dissection rather than a teenager who’d been bitten by a spider - the fear was visceral and paralyzing for Peter.

Unexpectedly, Tony had come the closest to turning Peter’s nightmare into reality. Metal table. Needle. Tests. Numbers that came to represent how safe or unsafe he was to be around.

Tony had promised Peter no more injections.

Why did testing his powers feel just as heinous a violation?

Peter had to still his trembling jaw when he’d finally quelled the turbulence inside him enough to respond.

“Uh, no thanks.” His voice was small and strained and Peter returned his attention back to the pile of robot parts, unable to bring himself to witness Tony’s reaction. Disappointment? Relief? Satisfaction? What would be the worst reaction? Peter wasn’t interested in finding out.

“Okay kid,” Tony replied cautiously, also returning to the work in front of him. “Well, if you change your mind…”

They lapsed into silence, Peter no longer muttering ideas and numbers under his breath. Every echo of parts and tools sounded infinitely louder and more resonant to Peter. The music made the lack of conversation more palatable, but every second that passed felt like a falling boulder in danger of crushing him.

He’d ruined lab night, hadn’t he? This wasn’t on Tony. Everything was amazing until Peter opened his trap and killed the easy atmosphere.

Peter felt the familiar sensation of self-loathing churn within him, both molten and scalding as cool and waxy. The dissonance was unpleasant, like being covered in goosebumps and sweat in the same instance.

Once again, he begged the question of himself: Why did he have to create unhappiness where it didn’t exist?

___

Tony dictated the message and then told FRIDAY to get rid of it in at least a dozen iterations. After the fourth or fifth version, he was offended when the AI sighed in exasperation. How? There was no way he’d programmed irritation into FRIDAY, especially irritation directed at him. He was Boss. He should be immune to getting on the nerves of his own creation!

“Let’s try this… Hey there honeybear, the kid asked me if he could don the spandex and clean up the streets again, and… and I wanted to know what you thought because you’ve been a better role-model for him than I ever have and sometimes I think he would have been better off with you because I’m a shit dad… Yeah, FRI, erase that for me, will you?”

“Got it boss,” came her even reply. “I feel obligated to note that the most recent draft is the worst one yet. Even worse than version nine when you said you would rather squeeze your soft wrinkly body into the suit than let Peter be Spider-Man again.”

Tony pinched the bridge of his nose, huffing in annoyance. “You’re a convoluted jumble of code. You shouldn’t feel anything. And where do you get off telling me how bad I’m doing? I can see very clearly that I suck and that I have no idea what I’m doing.”

Slumping in defeat, Tony’s endurance ran out and he was too exhausted to be angry.

“I don’t know how to talk to him, FRI.”

“Peter or Colonel Rhodes, boss?” Tony shook his head, wondering when he’d learn to stop being surprised by her evolving intelligence. It had been a long, long time since she’d been just another AI he’d programmed in his spare time. How her emotional articulation exceeded his own, he couldn’t comprehend.

“Both. I think. I’m supposed to be Peter’s father now and I have no idea what to say to him about the Spider-Man stuff. I’m guessing May knew exactly what to tell the kid when she found out, but I guess she’s not exactly a shining example considering she ran for the hills and dropped him like a hot potato. No matter what I say, it feels like the wrong thing and that I’m fucking thing up even more. And Rhodey? God, I don’t even know where to start with him. He might hate me. Probably does, and how can I blame him? I fucked up and once again, Rhodey to the rescue. I don’t know how he did it, but he fixed Peter and then I took the kid back like a spoiled toddler because he was shiny and new again. And I don’t know how to not break him again and I want Rhodey to tell me what to do, but I can’t admit to him how shit out of luck I feel when I told him over and over that Peter was my kid and not his.”

Tony continued his rant, forgetting at a certain point what he was even trying to say or who he was talking to.

“FRI, erase that too, will you dear?” His voice sounded thin and tired, even more so than when he’d woken up from having wielded all the infinity stones to save the universe and had his arm amputated. At least then he’d had the consolation of winning the battle and bringing back those who had been lost for so long.

This problem, the ongoing issues with Peter, were on an infinitely smaller scale than anything related to Thanos and those powerful fruity pebbles. But not being able to be what Peter needed - worse, not knowing what Peter needed, was cutting him down with expert efficiency.

Like how Peter turning to dust in his arms incapacitated him far more than Thanos stabbing him with his own blade.

“Will do, Boss.” FRIDAY whispered, her voice slight with sadness and regret that was in no way able to be coded or engineered.

Tony Stark had never been one to swallow his pride. It was too bitter and left some sort of fuzzy residue coating his tongue, he used to tease Rhodey. Not to mention that it always left stubborn bits between his teeth that frustrated him to no end. Nope, definitely not worth the trouble. He recalled fondly that Rhodey used to shake his head whenever Tony would keep the metaphor going, recognizing the futility of convincing Tony Stark to practice humility.

His little emotional plea in the hospital didn’t count, Tony believed, since he was deeply under the gauzy influence of medication (and it was hard to hold up the facade of cool and untouchable when his bare ass hung out of an untied hospital gown). Not-really-deathbed-but-in-the-same-league confessions couldn’t be held against him.

However, choking that pride down with a hard-fought swallow, holding his mouth shut, and maybe chasing it with a swig of whiskey, was the right thing to do if he intended to show Peter how much he meant to him. Tony needed Rhodey, no matter how much he would have to grovel.

Tony grimaced as he considered that his best friend might even make him say “You were right.” He would do it, even with the astronomical price.

For Peter. For his son.

If he could figure out time travel for the kid, Tony could bring himself to admit to his best friend how sorry he was and how he needed help to make things right for Peter.

Over in the corner of his dimly-lit lab, he watched the silhouette of Dum-E sitting idle, metal arm and claw folded close to the base. Sitting atop the bot was the white dunce cap, but the lettering was different. Slowly, he ambled toward Dum-E to read what had been written instead.

“Dum-E’s Special Friendship Hat” was scribbled with rushed artistry, and on the floor next to Dum-E, he found a rolled up sheet of posterboard, probably leftover from one of Morgan’s first school projects about her favorite book. His body creaking with an age he didn’t think was applicable to him, Tony bent down and picked it up.

“Peter’s Special Friendship Hat” was decorated with little doodles and decorations, and Tony wondered briefly when Peter had decorated matching hats for him and the dense bot.

Tony couldn’t help his burgeoning smile, nevertheless the rapid stream of regrets that swept him up. Peter was better than all of them - he’d said it time and again back before it all - it was still true.

And to think, Tony had once thought the right thing to do was to sacrifice Peter Parker happiness and security - had ripped away from him the components that made him who he was - in a haphazard, ill-considered and desperate attempt to protect his family.

I sacrificed my family to protect my family.

Chapter Text

When the signs of his life beginning to crumble out from under him appeared, Peter deftly brushed them away as one would a mosquito.

As fault lines formed and spread, Peter stepped over them, refusing to acknowledge that he could dodge them so easily because of prior experience.

When Peter felt tremors disturbing his hastily laid foundation, Peter recognized the impending disaster as he’d never done before.

In the past, when his life was wrecked and demolished, Peter had never been prepared to weather the storm and the damage struck with devastating effect.

This time, when the tell-tale rumbles started to shake him, and the clouds hung dark and low, and the sound in the distance tried to distinguish itself as either thunder or a warning siren, Peter didn’t close his eyes and attempt to proceed as though the ground wasn’t falling out from under him.

This time, in response to the impending disaster, Peter braced himself for impact.

_____

“Hey man, do you want to come stay at my house Friday night? My mom is taking Isla to see her sister in Camden for the weekend and I have the place to myself. We could do school stuff for like an hour so we can claim it’s to study, and then watch movies and eat whatever we want. Come on man, please, I need this. No bottles or diapers or crying. No Cocomelon - this is the dream. Live my dream with me, Peter. Join me in this glorious journey.”

Peter held the phone between his ear and shoulder, picking up the mess of blocks and toys left behind by Morgan when it was time for her to leave for school. He was amused at Ned’s flair for the dramatic.

“You already made the sale, Ned. Yeah, that would be awesome. What time do you want me to come over on Friday? I’ll probably need to get Happy to drive me or something, but it shouldn’t be a problem.”

With a juvenile excitement that Peter had forgotten even existed, he and Ned planned out their Friday night, outlining what movies they absolutely needed to watch, which snacks were a must, and what to do with the freedom that they were no longer accustomed to having.

“See you Friday, man… yeah, I can’t wait. It’s gonna be awesome. Alright, see ya!” Peter hung up the phone and was nearly spring loaded with anticipation for the plans he made with Ned. They both agreed that they deserved the break from their responsibilities.

Fueled by his giddy excitement, Peter cleaned quicker and with more enthusiasm, launching toys toward the basket like a basketball player. He only made the shots because of his powers, because Peter Parker sans superpowers was a pitifully bad athlete.

Pepper told him on a few separate occasions that it was Morgan’s responsibility to clean up her toys, and that if he left a mess, she should have to clean it up later. That morning when the little girl left for school, she’d hurriedly tossed a promise over her shoulder to pick it up later as she ran out the door with her unicorn backpack. Even with Pepper’s reassurances though, Peter gave into the itch to clean. He didn’t want to look at the clutter (more like a disaster zone) for that long. The disorganization made him uneasy in a way he couldn’t quite identify.

As he collected the mess of crayons and colored pencils strewn across the rug next to the open coloring books, Peter mused that he never really cared about being overly neat at Rhodey’s. It wasn’t that he was a disorganized slob or didn’t clean up after himself. At Rhodey’s, he just felt at ease, in control. The urgency to be useful and to keep the chaos at bay wasn’t on his radar like it was here.

Just like the heap of Morgan’s toys, Peter arced his deep-seated control and self-worth issues like a three-pointer to get them out of his field of concern.

He had something to look forward to that didn’t have complicated, tangled strings attached.

Peter and Ned. Spider-Man and the guy in the chair. Just like it used to be.

_____

“Hey Dad, I’m going to Ned’s place in the city on Friday, if that’s cool. I’ll see if Happy can give me a ride there and Rhodey can drive me back Saturday afternoon?”

Inserting himself into conversation at the dinner table still felt awkward and forced for Peter. He’d tried to wait until a good opportunity presented itself, which was an exercise in futility. Needing a lull in Morgan’s imaginative rambles, Miles to be interested in his food long enough to eat it without a fuss, and Tony and Pepper to run out of details of everyday minutia to discuss was akin to waiting for the stars to align and lightning to strike during a lunar eclipse.

So when the table went silent for even a moment, Peter jumped on the chance and said his entire piece before he could be interrupted. He wasn’t nervous about getting permission, though he still managed to trip over the word “dad” for half a beat. And it wasn’t like he asked for much.

Peter’s hopes for a quick response that went something like: “Yeah, of course kid. Have fun doing your nerd stuff with Fred,” were dashed when Tony looked at him regretfully.

“Pep and I need you to watch the little gremlins on Friday for a little business trip to Madrid. Sorry we didn’t tell you before, Pete. Can you and Ned watch Star Wars another night?”

Underneath the cool and charismatic delivery, Peter heard a tremor of guilt, like Tony knew he’d messed up, but the volcanic flare of anger and injustice overcame him. Bubbling emotions surged from his gut and Peter saw his world through a bright, scalding red.

“Are you kidding?” A hard-edged, clipped voice he hardly recognized spilled out, effectively silencing the beginning of Morgan’s next story about her teacher.

Instantly, everyone aside from Miles was looking directly at him, and Peter could tell that his grip on his frustrated feelings was slipping rapidly. But before Tony could recover from his surprise at Peter’s uncharacteristic reaction, Peter’s aggravation took the wheel.

“You didn’t ask me to watch them. I watch them all the time,” he said matter-of-factly, putting his fork down before he squeezed it out of shape.

“Watch the attitude there, kid. I’m sorry that we didn’t ask you sooner, but we need you to watch them this weekend.” Tony sounded strained, which only made Peter further unravel. He thought of how excited he’d been to spend time with Ned, and how with Ned’s own demanding schedule, that this opportunity was already hard to come by. The bubble of magma expanded in his chest, filling with what he knew was going to be an overreaction, but unable to pause the inevitable burst.

“I don’t ask you for anything. I just want to go have my own life for one night. Why can’t you get someone else?” Peter asked, voice warping at the unfairness.

“Peter, sweetheart,” Pepper inserted herself between their tense conversation with the air of a mediator. “You always do such an amazing job watching your little sister and brother. We trust you and they will be much more comfortable with their big brother at home.”

Peter laughed, loud and choked. It was an ugly sound. Something deep within Peter snapped audibly at the notion of trust from Pepper. He felt tricked. Played. Manipulated to the nth degree by her dangling her trust like a carrot on a stick to twist him into compliance. Unbidden, his acidic thoughts spilled out, wanting Pepper to feel flayed with regret like he once had.

“You trust me to take care of your kids like a live-in babysitter? Or do you trust me not to accidentally hurt one of them with my freaky strength?” The fork he’d set down was back in his grip, bending in his fist as Pepper’s eyes went wide and Tony went stiff and defensive.

“Don’t throw a fit and get mad at us because you’re upset, Peter. You asked us for permission. We said no. We are the parents here. I’m sorry it wasn’t the answer you wanted, but you don’t get to speak like that to Pepper.” Tony’s said, deep and grave in a way Peter remembered from the reluctant truce with Doctor Strange on that cursed donut ship.

“But you didn’t ask me!” Peter erupted, loud enough that it even got Miles’ attention.

He wanted to yell at Pepper more, aching with the failing dam of suffering he’d endured because of her distrust, but his overwrought emotions were finding their outlet through the argument with Tony. Overreaction be damned. He wasn’t overreacting. He was only fighting back instead of bending to their will in order to keep them happy to hold on desperately to his home.

“Peter, as part of this family, you have responsibilities.” Tony’s voice was eerily smooth and even-keeled. It sent a shiver down his neck and back and he could only wait for whatever strike Tony would deal him. “I know that you understand a great deal about responsibility, so I won’t stress the importance of that to you. But I do need you to understand that you need to listen to me and your mom. I get that we should have asked you sooner and I get that you’re disappointed. Family comes first, Peter. End of conversation.”

A foreboding rumble shook Peter down to his bones as his mind struggled to make full sense of what Tony said. And once the words clicked into place, Peter felt the explosion of synapses firing in his brain at their heinous meaning and their scathing implications.

Don’t use family against me. Family came first when you bound my powers like I was less than human.

Don’t use responsibility against me. Responsibility doesn’t mean that you can twist my arm and use me at your will.

Don’t use being parents against me. I didn’t ask for that. You offered it to me and you can’t attach strings now.

In Peter’s silence, the dinner conversation resumed, tighter and more fragile than before, and without his inclusion. He didn’t care. It was like the volcano that had sat dormant within him had erupted, but no one had noticed or cared about the disaster conditions, unconcerned and untouched by the destructive rivers of lava.

Peter pushed away from the table abruptly and fled toward his room. His jaw was trembling and distress misfired rapidly inside him. A low buzzing in his head blunted anything Tony or Pepper said as he retreated.

He slammed the door behind him and crumpled to the floor, ignoring how he damaged the hinges and the splinters of wood that flew off at the impact.

How could he have been so stupid to just accept Tony’s blanket apology and offer of family? He’d been so blinded by pitiful hope, grasping at the last straws of family in his reach. Tony’s plea to take him back had been the closest anyone had come to actually asking to have Peter in their lives. Not given to someone who didn’t have an option to say no, or showing up on a front porch, soaking wet and despondent with grief. And Peter had jumped at it, only caring to check whether or not he would be subjected to having his powers bound again. He had only ensured that they wouldn’t abuse him in the exact same way they had before.

The harsh self-deprecation whipsawed through Peter, snapping and grinding everything in its path. Stupid. Pathetic. Blind. Gullible. Naive. Credulous. Idiotic.

Sensing his worsening anguish, Peter tried to calm himself down. He snaked his arms as tightly as he could around his torso and attempted to apply some sort of pattern to his breathing, but he couldn’t focus long enough to count consistently, so it remained haggard and uneven.

It was just a misunderstanding and Peter overreacted. He and Ned could try to reschedule. Peter was just being selfish, throwing a tantrum because he was told no. All they wanted was for him to watch his younger siblings. Ungrateful and short-sighted. The only one making a big deal of things was him and once again, he was creating unhappiness.

What a green thumb he had for cultivating misery under any conditions.

That night, Peter didn’t check his phone before crawling into bed, defeated and exhausted from the self-flagellating task of convincing himself that he was wrong.

Tony never knocked on his door to check on him, but when Peter heard the text alert from his phone, he knew without a shadow of a doubt that it was from Rhodey, wishing him goodnight and sweet dreams. Peter wished he was good enough of a person to respond.

_____

Nightly messages to Peter had become quickly integrated into Rhodey’s evening routine. Right after powering down the braces that ensconced his legs and settling into bed, he would wish Peter a good night, sweet dreams, sleep tight and don’t let the bedbugs bite. Typically, Peter responded within a few minutes with a reciprocating message and accompanying emoji. There hadn’t been a single night since the kid moved out that Rhodey hadn’t received a message back.

Tonight, when he was expecting a text from Peter, Rhodey nearly dropped his phone when he saw an incoming call from Tony.

He answered the call and could hear Tony’s distressed exclamations before he could even lift the phone to his ear.

“I keep fucking this up Rhodes. How do I keep fucking things up with Peter? I’m a genius and I can’t even figure out how to be a half-decent dad to a teenager. I’ve looked for books, tutorials, YouTube videos, parenting Tik Tok - now, granted there isn’t anything specific to parenting superpowered teenagers who you’ve become guardian of after becoming the savior of the universe, but I’m working with what I’ve got. Believe me Platypus, if it’s out there, I’ve tried it,” Rhodey endured the rambling, understanding the desperate response but unable to muster the compassion he knew Tony wanted from him.

“So you’ve talked to him about everything?” He asked simply, and Tony immediately scoffed indignantly.

“Everything? I mean I haven’t done a deep dive on the birds and the bees, but we talk about stuff.” Rhodey nearly hung up the phone right then and there. Tony was probably the most infuriating person to help, and playing that game was not something he could handle at the moment.

“Hey dumbass, shut up with the funny stuff. If you don’t take things seriously, then why should I help you?” He hoped Tony didn’t call his bluff by telling him that if Peter was involved that he would do anything in the world to help.

“Sorry Rhodes, you’re right. Sorry. Spiraling over here. Lots of panic, bad juju and all that.”

Nearly growling, he said “Tones…” low and threatening. Over the phone, Rhodey heard the defeated sigh and could imagine Tony’s bravado falling to pieces, his fingers scratching against his scalp in frustration at his own shortcomings.

“You’re right, you’re right. Again. Sorry. Go ahead Platypus.”

“Did you talk to Peter about May?” Tony’s hesitant moment of bleak silence told him what he needed to know. The reflex to just be angry with his friend for the neglect was strong. It was Peter and what was best for him that kept him civil.

“We hadn’t really gotten to that yet, fill me in?” At least Tony sounded abashed enough to know that he’d done wrong. “What am I missing about the kid?”

Momentarily, Rhodes was tripped up by Tony calling Peter “the kid” instead of “my kid.” Tony was a fiercely possessive man.

Rhodes paced up and down the dim hallway, too unsettled to stay in one place. With one hand, he’d slid back into his braces and powered them up, not caring about the discomfort and fatigue from wearing them all day and then putting them back on again. He considered the messy tangle between himself, Tony, Peter, and May, and tried to figure out which string he could pull that wouldn’t worsen the knot.

“It’s not my place to be the go-between, and I’m not going to say anything that Peter might be upset by, or think that we went behind his back.” Tony’s impatience was palpable, even over a call. They’d been friends long enough that the slightest hitch of breath spoke a full phone call’s worth of insight.

“Come on Honeybear, I’m dying over here,” Rhodey’s own hitch made Tony backtrack instantly. “Sorry, too soon. Definitely too soon.”

“When Morgan graduates from high school it will be too soon,” he said flatly.

“Right, right. Loud and clear,” he suppressed the impulse to feel compassion for Tony’s distress. In the past Tony’s wellbeing may have been his top priority, but that spot belonged to Peter’s wellbeing now. “Can you at least give me a hint of what I’m walking into? Please.” Uncharacteristically, Tony showed a breadth of vulnerability. “I’m scared to lose him again, Honeybear. I need you to help me stop fucking it up. You’re good with him. Better than me.”

That, Rhodey could empathize with. It was what rested on the surface of his subconscious ever since Tony said he wanted Peter back. Unbidden, a flush of fraternal fondness warmed him. His protectiveness over Tony when he was so much younger and they were in college together flared.

“Did Tony Stark just say that I’m better than him? Please, please tell me that FRIDAY recorded that.”

“Of course Master Rhodes. The clip has been sent to you,” FRIDAY’s calming lilt was accompanied by an email notification on his phone with the sound bite.

“You’re the best FRI.”

Even Tony was laughing good-naturedly, not bothering to feign indignance. It was a welcome respite from the strained wire of tension between them.

Taking him by surprise, Rhodey heard Tony’s voice thick with emotion. “If it means doing what’s best for the kid, then yeah, I can admit it this one time.” They sunk into the moment, content to enjoy it before the imminent expiration.

Once the lightness faded into a canvas of gray, Rhodey felt their dynamic pivot from close brothers to adversaries in Peter Parker’s best interest.

“Tony, you just need to know that when you took Peter into the city that day, that he went to see May. It didn’t go well, and that’s when you found him.” Rhodey paused, vividly recalling Peter’s anguish at telling him about the disastrous interaction with May and the salt that Tony rubbed into the wound.

“That’s all I’m going to say about it. It’s Peter’s story to tell. Or May’s. Call and talk to her if you want more details.”

He was pretty sure that Tony was rubbing his hand over his face to cope with his stress.

“So you’ve talked to her then? May’s been incommunicado since we signed the papers,” Rhodey was saddened by the admission, considering the implications of such abrupt abandonment on Peter. The heavy cloak of insecurity that Peter couldn’t seem to shed began to make a bit more sense. He and the kid had talked about May, sure, but Peter hadn’t been able to talk about the entirety of their situation beyond their final catastrophic conversation.

“I tried calling her a few times, but the conversation wrapped up quickly when I would try to bring up Peter. She told me that she’d made sure he was safe with you before she left, and mentioned that she missed him but was doing what was best for everyone. The last time I tried reaching out, she got upset and asked that I not call her anymore. That it was too difficult for her to talk about him.”

Tony was silent on the other end of the phone. Rhodey wasn’t sure how hard-edged his admission had come across, but he struggled to contain himself when injustices toward Peter were involved.

“Okay, I’ll call her.” Tony mumbled, barely overcoming the white background noise of the call.

“Tony, what happened between you two?” He asked suddenly, earning a sharp inhale from Tony that meant it was a question he didn’t want to answer.

“Nothing, Rhodes. Just family stuff. Promise.”

Any goodwill that Rhodey and Tony had tentatively built over their talk drained away at the blatant omission of truth. It was hard for him to come to terms with, that no matter if they fell back into their brotherly banter, the memory of what Tony had done to Peter, how he’d manipulated and lied to Bruce, would remain, a blighted thread that had calcified and preserved in the bond that connected them.

“Tony, I want to be completely honest with you,” the tension was pulled taut again, a wire without a centimeter of slack. “I haven’t forgiven you for what you did to Peter and Bruce. And I’m still angry at you for cutting me out of your kids’ lives when you were angry with me. I’m helping you because doing what’s best for Peter is the most important thing to me. It always will be. I’ll keep helping you as long as you’re putting Peter first and treating him how he deserves to be treated.”

He could hear Tony seething with anger and shame. It wasn’t satisfying - okay, maybe it was just a bit satisfying - but Rhodey wasn’t in this to get the last word in a fight with his oldest friend. All he cared about was protecting Peter as though the kid was his son.

“Do not hurt my kid, Tony.”

“Yeah, gotcha, crystal clear. Later Rhodes.” Tony spat out hastily, temperamental and agitated before the call ended.

Back in bed, too wired to sleep, Rhodey considered sending another message to Peter. With a note of concern, he saw that Peter hadn’t responded to his nightly text. Maybe he was tired and asleep, Rhodey told himself. He would call Peter first thing tomorrow to talk, and then he could check how the kid - his kid - was doing.

Referring to Peter as his kid ignited a fierce protectiveness. Previously, he’d suppressed it, not wanting to lay parental claim to Tony’s kid, but he didn’t care to force it down now. Rhodey thrived on the protectiveness, on the purpose it instilled in him.

He considered Peter his son and himself as Peter’s dad, and Rhodey didn’t think there was anything he could do, or wanted to do, to change that.

_____

It wasn’t like Peter had never been grounded before.

The memory of his first grounding wasn’t vivid, and he couldn’t even remember how long Mary and Richard had grounded him for shortly before he turned six. Really, all he could reliably recall was the then-unfamiliar sensation of an adult being angry with him, and even worse, disappointed in him. Leaving the apartment all by himself, without telling either of his parents, to spend the five-dollar bill he’d found in the couch cushion on all the candy he could desire had not been a popular choice with his mom and dad.

Of course, now Peter could look back on the incident with a calibrated lens and realize that they were just scared and worried out of their minds, and his “grounding,” had only entailed missing dessert one evening and their stern lecture.

Uncle Ben and Aunt May - just May now - had dealt him plenty of well-deserved groundings as well. Peter remembered being angry at the time, sometimes even slamming his bedroom door or raising his voice to them. Uncle Ben’s brand of dealing with Peter’s behavior was to let him cool off - to let both of them cool off, Peter now realized - before his Uncle Ben would lightly knock on his door and ask if he was ready to talk yet, or if he should come back later. Almost every single time, Peter had gathered himself enough to talk about what happened.

Every single time, Uncle Ben would bring some sort of snack for them to share as the man explained to him explicitly why his behavior was dangerous, disrespectful, irresponsible, or any other combination that they knew he could be better than. The snack leveled the playing field, and sometimes Peter would even think that he’d escaped any disciplinary measures before Uncle Ben would slyly inform him that he was grounded for a week, which meant no sleepovers with Ned and, when he was a bit older, no leaving the apartment to dumpster dive for old technology.

When it was just him and May, there weren’t any groundings until she found out about his spidery extra-curriculars. Peter tried so hard back then to prevent her from being upset with him. And he wonders now if he’d never been Spider-Man if he would have succeeded and they would still be living together and still be family.

“Who else knows? Anybody?” Tony asked him. He shook his head and muttered, “nobody.”

“Not even your unusually attractive aunt?”

“No. No. No no. No. If she knew, she would freak out, and when she freaks out, I freak out.”

Peter had felt like an emotional sponge for May for quite some time after Ben died. It stemmed from a murky concoction of protectiveness, responsibility, fear, and repentance. One thing Peter is certain of, even now, is that Iron Man offering him a chance to fight like an Avenger in Germany was the only scenario in which he would have blatantly lied to May instead of just omitting the truth as had become his mode of operation.

Right now, on his third set of parents - the count was messy and filled with asterisks, so he didn’t dwell on its accuracy - Peter was grounded, and for the first time, his grounding was harsh, strict, and he would say, unfair.

Tony hadn’t liked him storming out during dinner after their argument. He’d liked it even less when Peter had spat nasty sentiments about being the Stark family’s live-in babysitter, chef, and house cleaner.

“What’s next? Are you going to assign me some ridiculous acronym so that when you tell me to do something, I’ll have to say “Yes, boss.””

That had earned him the grounding, though Peter had kept digging himself deeper, hurling sarcastic accusations of Tony wishing he could program Peter to bend to his every whim and request. One particularly nasty barb had been antagonizing Tony by asking if he was going to make another serum, this time to take away Peter’s free will.

Tony’s nostrils had flared, the tendons in his neck protruded, and his eyes darkened - all in some twist of emotions that didn’t quite fit anger or hurt - before he told Peter that he was grounded until he fixed his shitty attitude and stopped throwing tantrums.

Later that evening, he’d texted Ned about having to cancel their plans because he needed to watch Morgan and Miles. When Ned had responded about what a bummer it was and then suggested that he could go over to Peter’s place instead, Peter hadn’t even considered asking Tony. He wasn’t in the mood to put himself in another situation for Tony to deny him something and throw the grounding in his face.

In his restless frustration, he’d typed out a text to Rhodey. “I miss you. Come get me?” - before flushing with hot shame and deleting it, scolding himself for even considering it as a possibility. The situation he'd found himself in, he'd chosen entirely for himself.

Chapter Text

Pepper’s cell phone buzzed against the countertop, ringtone silenced to minimize the risk of waking Miles up from the nap that he needed just as much as she needed the downtime.
Her mouth went dry the moment the caller ID popped up as the same social worker who had visited in the weeks before Tony’s heart attack.

Everything inside of her itched to ignore the call, let it go to voicemail, or do anything but answer it. Pepper had fully expected to never hear from Miss whatever-her-name-was ever again after the highly convincing show she’d put on about Peter’s happiness and wellbeing with the Stark family.

However, Pepper Potts hadn’t been one of the most successful business professionals globally because she was intimidated by conflict. Conflict was typically intimidated by her, and she was steeled by that confidence enough to answer the call.

Preventing the hard edge of aggravation from bleeding into her voice was a challenge, but one she quickly realized she didn’t need to bother with as the woman sounded just as star-struck as she had in person.

Apparently, Miss Bishop was so, so incredibly sorry to call and bother her, but she got an alert on Peter’s case and she needed to check in to make sure everything was okay. Peter’s grades had been in a bit of a free-fall lately, according to academic warnings issued by his teachers. And this wasn’t typically a situation where they would intervene, but she needed to do her due diligence, and she was sure that Pepper understood that, being as successful as she was, right?

Pepper was silent and stricken at the unwelcome news. Because how could something so simple like Peter’s grade threaten to spill her secrets? Before she could even consider responding, she considered that if Peter was inside the house, that he would hear everything she said. But then she remembered that he was out in the garage, where he’d been spending more time when he wasn’t helping around the house.

With as much sincerity and compassion as she could muster, Pepper expressed how concerned she was for Peter, and how things were so hard for him after coming to live with him, helping with his little sister, the birth of his little brother; the list could go on and on.

Emphatically, she wove together a pity-inspiring story about how Peter was so shy and had a hard time letting them know when he was having trouble, and that he tried to be such a responsible big brother and that she’d been worried about him falling behind in school because of how much he was trying to do to help them.

Miss Bishop was sold on the story, and why shouldn’t she be, Pepper asked herself. The woman sounded so empathetic and understanding about what poor Peter was going through.

“Peter sounds like such a kind, responsible young man. You and your husband must be so grateful to have him in your home. It isn’t often that the older teenagers are so willing to help out with little ones.”

Pepper had to swallow back a lurch of revulsion at herself when she agreed with Miss Bishop’s observation. Not because it wasn’t true. Peter was kind. He was responsible. And yes, they were grateful to have him.

But because her words were such a gross misrepresentation of everything Peter has been through. She and Tony hadn’t exchanged a single word about Peter’s school work after he informed them upon moving in that he’d be taking his Midtown classes online.

She continued listening with pursed lips and painful politeness as Miss Bishop explained programs and resources for kids like Peter who need a little extra help academically. She said “yes, of course” at all the right times, assured her that they would speak with Peter and encourage him to ask for help, offered to hire tutors and work with his teachers. Across the board, Pepper recited her lines perfectly, performing the part of the concerned, attentive mom seamlessly.

It wasn’t any different from how she secured multi-billion-dollar deals with global corporations. Okay, there was one vital difference, she conceded.

In those stern and exacting business negotiations, Pepper’s cool, steely demeanor wasn’t hiding anything other than how high or low they were willing to go on a deal. But when she was on the phone with this woman who just wouldn’t end the damn conversation, Pepper was suppressing an icy, creaking fear about what could happen if Miss Bishop caught her in her lies, along with agitation toward Peter for putting her in this situation by not doing his work.

Briefly, she was grateful that the woman couldn’t see her, because Pepper was sure her stiff demeanor and white knuckled grip on her phone told a different story than her words.

Finally, once Miss Bishop said that she would check back in with them in a few weeks (a notion Pepper wanted to squash indefinitely), they said their cordial goodbyes and then Pepper’s phone collided with the countertop hard enough to send echoes reverberating off the kitchen’s high ceilings.

Her hands were trembling like she was freezing and nerves and self-control were fraying. The phone call felt like an attack, though she knew that rationally, that was blowing it far out of proportion. She was trying to keep her family intact here. No questions. No investigations. Nothing to reveal even a splinter of evidence about the convoluted situation with Peter that could possibly threaten her family.

The irony of the situation made her laugh mirthlessly. All that time she’d considered Peter a threat to her family because of his powers, followed by the genuine effort to change her views and get rid of that notion, only to end up back to square one, where Peter Parker presented a threat to her family. She loathed that her knee-jerk reaction was to cast him back in that role, but she didn’t know how to stop.

For what was far from the first time, Pepper thought about therapy. She wasn’t delusional and she knew that she desperately needed help with everything from the paralyzing postpartum depression symptoms that hung around like a sticky residue to how to handle the fact that her husband has nearly died twice in the past year and she’s been faced with raising their children by herself. And what if the heart attack had taken Tony from her? Would she still have the heart to keep Peter?

The issue was moot, but the fact that it had been a possibility for even a moment haunted her, and she knew the answer but wouldn’t let her mind consider it because it only made her feel worse.

No matter her good intentions, whenever she considered therapy, Pepper always ended up stuck inside the dizzying spiral of complicating factors. She was married to Tony Stark, who had evolved from a superhero to a savior to the world. They had custody of Peter Parker, who was an enhanced teenager with a secret identity. How could she describe her fears of Peter hurting her babies without talking about Spider-Man? Then there was the fragile infrastructure of her lies. Lies, that she was well-aware, would have legal consequences if they came to light.

Every single time, the spiral pulled her a little bit deeper before spitting her out, soaked in the bleak reality that therapy was not a viable option.

When she heard Miles begin to cry upstairs, Pepper hugged herself firmly, trying not to be swallowed how lonely and disconnected she felt.

In reality, it only took five minutes, but for Pepper, it felt like a lifetime before she was composed enough to go to her child.

_____

It all became clear to Peter on Thursday after dinner. It was unexpected, out-of-the-blue. He was tired from the day and still had more to get done before he felt he could sleep.

It was confounding, how something so small could influence so much. And how, time after time, he could be blind to the cannonball hurtling in his direction to take him apart and force him to rebuild again.

It was just such a small thing. But somehow, it was the straw that broke the camel's back. The deciding factor. The lightbulb moment that illuminated his reality. The shove that pushed him from the precipice. The wind that cleared the dense fog from his vision.

Peter never expected to attach those trite metaphors to a simple quiz in physics that he’d forgotten to take, and had subsequently failed. It was one assignment.

It was always just one assignment - forgotten because Miles threw up after his bath and immediately needed another, and he needed to change his clothes too, which threw the entire evening out of whack.

It was always just one essay - hastily written and full of typos because the time he’d intended to do it was replaced by accidentally falling asleep because Miles was teething and up on and off all night, and his senses wouldn’t let him sleep.

It was always just one test - that if he had studied for at all, he considered himself lucky, because studying was always the first thing to be pushed to the backburner amidst the tasks he performed (by now, almost automatically) because they helped him feel like he had a reason to be there. Priority was given to assignments that would actually be for a grade when Peter did his schoolwork. Miscellaneous studying was just impossible to fit in.

But Peter wasn’t able to put these thoughts into words. It wasn’t that he felt stuck or frozen. It was just that he didn’t think any of it would matter to Tony if he told him.

More concerning than the forgotten quiz, however, was how in the hell Tony had found out.

Peter had managed to nearly fail out of Midtown a few months ago without even a bored glance his way from Tony. Things had improved drastically while he was with Rhodey, but now he failed one quiz and Tony is acting like he’s a drop-out without a future?

The incident went like this:

After dinner, Tony asked him to stay back so they could talk instead of Peter going upstairs to help get Morgan and Miles cleaned up and ready for bed. His spider sense flared, but it did that so constantly lately that most of the time, Peter disregarded it, choosing to believe that he was faulty and uncalibrated when it came to sensing the danger around him.

Tony asked Peter why he had failed a quiz in physics, and Peter ignored the accusatory tone and tried to downplay it.

It’s one quiz. I can make it up. It’s not that bad. I can do extra credit to make up the points.

All the same tactics he’d once placated May with when his grades took an abrupt plunge after Spider-Man became a thing. He tried to never present his grief over Uncle Ben as an excuse, because no matter his suffering, he recognized that May’s suffering was sharper and brighter.

Instead of Tony accepting his excuses, Peter felt like an anvil dropped from his throat to his stomach when the man said, “That’s a charming little excuse there Pete. Sounds like you have it down pat. Let’s hear what you have prepared for why your grades have fallen off a cliff in the past few weeks and why you’re failing almost every class. I’ll wait while you prepare your monologue.”

Every word was nasty and barbed with sarcasm characteristic of an angry Tony Stark.

Peter did take a few moments, but it wasn’t to prepare excuses per the accusation leveled at him. Instead, Peter was trying to absorb the blow that he was back to failing again.

“I didn’t know I was failing,” he murmured, the distasteful tang of self-hatred coating him from the inside out. He wasn’t just failing school. Failing his classes meant failing Rhodey too - and that sliced him far deeper.

It made sense that he was failing again, now that he really considered it. Without Rhodey’s consistent and supportive presence asking about his schoolwork that was never in a way that made Peter feel guilty or down, Peter pushed the work aside bit by bit, cutting it out as it morphed back into a source of stress and self-hatred.

The incident continued like this:

Tony was far from thrilled at hearing that Peter didn’t know that he was failing. He launched into a rant about irresponsibility that had Peter biting his tongue against his self-loathing so hard that the grooves from his teeth started to bleed.

From what Peter gleaned from the barrage of disappointment from his supposed-father, apparently Pepper learned that he was having trouble in school (from what source, Peter didn’t know), and she told Tony. Tony had then called Midtown to see just how bad the situation was, and realized that Peter’s guardianship and contact information had never been updated in their system with all of the confusion of old students coming back after five years.

That was another thing that made sense, Peter considered, wondering why he’d been able to go from an exceptional student to almost flunking out without Tony ever being informed.

For a fragile, glassy moment, Peter wondered if May was the one who had received those calls or emails. And whether or not she’d simply ignored them in her campaign to wipe him clean from her life. Reflexively jerking his shoulders, shook the intrusive and unsettling thought away as though it was a buzzing insect in his ear.

At the start of Tony’s lecture, Peter had felt disconnected. He fully expected to be reined back in, lassoed by something that would make him care. But the verbal hail continued without respite, and Peter realized that he only felt the disconnect growing, as though he was letting himself drift away instead of fighting to remain tethered to Tony.

The ease of loosening his sweaty, sore grip from his hopes about Tony astonished Peter. He’d imagined that letting go and giving up the fight to make Tony his father and himself part of the family would be catastrophic, that it would set him adrift into an ocean of stormy waters that would drown him in seconds.

It was like once Peter stopped fighting that he realized just how hard he’d been struggling. Like how after a long, exhausting night of patrol, once Peter stopped, his muscles turned to lead, the cramps set in, and only then he would realize the extent he’d pushed himself.

For so, so long, Peter had been fighting to win himself a family. Or scratching and clawing to keep whatever semblance of a family he had. Somewhere along the line - it could have been with May, or Tony and Pepper, or even Rhodey - that the fight had just become part of him, as ingrained as blinking and breathing.

And now, without even realizing what was happening, Peter had stopped fighting. HIs stamina was spent. His white-knuckled fists went slack. His fighting stance slumped. Inwardly, Peter imagined folding into himself on the floor and closing his eyes, finally able to give into the fatigue.

The shove that finally set Peter adrift, without anyone reaching out to bring him back to shore, went like this:

“How can you think, for even a split-second, that I’d let you be Spider-Man again when you’re failing your junior year?”

When Peter snapped back into the present, he didn’t realize that Tony’s lecture had never relented. The mention of “Spider-Man” was almost taboo, and if he hadn’t given up on Tony as his father, on being Tony’s son, it would have made him irrevocably angry to have his own identity used against him like that.

The way Tony weaponized Spider-Man - like he had dominion over Spider-Man, rather than Peter, only inspired sadness, rather than anger. And with a forceful clench, Peter realized that Tony felt that way because the man had wrenched control of Spider-Man away from Peter all that time ago at the first mention of an injection.

Or maybe the power-struggle stretched back further, finding its roots in the time that Tony took his suit and believed that by taking his suit, he was taking Spider-Man. Peter had proven that he was Spider-Man, Stark-tech suit or not - and it had felt like proving himself and his worth as a hero to Tony back then.

Now, it only left a sour taste on his tongue. Because Peter knew now that Tony binding his powers was only an escalated and twisted version of taking his suit and leaving him to lift a warehouse off himself, take down a plane, and fight a vulture in his “onesie.”

Peter’s face was stony as Tony snapped his fingers three times successively, demanding his attention sharply.

“Hey, eyes here.” He sharply jabbed two fingers toward Peter’s face and then his own. “If you needed help, you should have asked for it.”

Though his eyes were open and directed at Tony, he wasn’t really seeing him. If Tony himself had bothered to really look at the kid in front of him, he would have seen glassy, glazed eyes and a stony wall shrouding Peter.

If Peter hadn’t freed himself from caring, he would have choked out an ugly laugh. He would have thrown back an acerbic counter and brought up the time that Tony stole the ability to ask for help from him.

“You’d tell me if you needed something, right kid?”

“Pssh, what am I thinking? I don’t need to worry about you. You’re Spider-Man. You’re solid, self-sustaining - like a hearty fern or a dependable sedan. You’re really good at taking care of yourself.”

Peter could hear what Tony was saying about his punishment, but it sounded fuzzy and distorted, like Tony was speaking through several thick panes of glass.

Rhodey didn’t punish you when he found out. Rhodey helped. He helped and he was kind. Rhodey was good to you.

He heard it when Tony told him, with razor-sharp authority, that he was even more grounded now, that he was to stay up in his room and study until he wasn’t failing anymore. That Peter had lost television and game privileges, that he was banned from anything on the internet that didn’t pertain to his schoolwork, that his phone was now limited to communication that was only strictly necessary, and that FRIDAY would be policing all of this and sending updates every day to ensure that Peter was making adequate progress.

Peter heard all of it. He understood it too. And if he cared, he would have fought back and they would have yelled at each other so loudly that it would have disturbed the birds perched in the trees outside. Peter would have asked if he was still allowed to take care of Tony’s children. He would have asked if he was still expected to cook meals for the family or do dishes, because those things weren’t directly related to his schoolwork.

But Peter didn’t care anymore. And somehow, that felt worse than any of the fights they’d ever been in before.

_____

Tony forgot a lot of things over the years. Even geniuses were forgetful people - sometimes even more so than your typical run of the mill smart guy. Genius didn’t automatically mean eidetic memory or give him superior recall abilities.

Even before he had kids, Tony forgot some important details. Such as Pepper’s allergy to strawberries. The few and far between times that Howard had been a decent father. Rhodey’s birthday that one year when Tony had flown to Bali on a whim with a group of attractive women he met at an SI press event.

After kids, he forgot an entirely different set of things. Which size diapers Miles was wearing this week. Whether Morgan was in the advanced beginner or future gymnastics star class. To ask Peter if he could babysit on a Friday night.

The trouble with forgetting was not realizing the things that had slipped through the cracks until it was too late.

Tony forgot that he needed to call May to talk to her, because Rhodey said it was important to do that if he wanted to understand Peter.

Tony forgot that he and Peter had been working on a special robot for the kid and the parts were probably coated in a layer of dust by now.

Tony forgot all of the pretty-sounding promises he made from his hospital bed to make it all better for Peter.

Tony forgot that Peter didn’t know how much he loved the kid, treasured him and never wanted to let him out of his sight. Peter didn’t know that Tony was terrified that the kid would want to leave again, and Tony for that little detail.

In his paralyzing fear of losing Peter Parker from his life once again, Tony forgot a lot of important things.

Chapter Text

The constant cacophony of New York’s streets calmed Peter in a way that quiet cabin life by the lake never could. Born and raised in the city, the discordant car horns and irregular shouts of pedestrians were far more familiar than the never-ending chirping of crickets. And while the rustle of leaves and whistling wind on a breezy night were pleasant, Peter would take the dissonance of city life any day.

As he walked down the sidewalk in Manhattan, Peter considered half-heartedly that he should be grateful for the time outside of the house and away from his jailer’s heavy oversight. Maybe jailer was a harsh term for Tony, but Peter struggled to feel any differently when Tony told him explicitly what he could and could not do, where he could and could not go, every day, even though Peter knew the rules down to the letter.

If anything, Tony’s constant directions made Peter less inclined to obey. He wasn’t stupid. He knew that after he finished breakfast that he needed to put his bowl in the dishwasher and go right back upstairs to do schoolwork. The constant oversight throughout the past two was overbearing and condescending.

Peter hated it, maybe even hated Tony. But dry, crisp apathy was so much easier, so that was how Peter approached his life now. Going through the motions. Following instructions about his every movement like a toddler. Unable to contact Rhodey, Ned, or even MJ, who he saw a text and a missed call from right as Tony had confiscated his phone.

That had led to another argument between them, which had only driven Tony to immerse himself further into the role of prison warden.

Accompanying Pepper on a trip into the city with the kids was presented as something that Peter had no choice in, but inwardly, he had jumped at the chance - just not so much that Tony would see how excited he was and make other arrangements.

Peter pushed the stroller steadily, watching the baby’s wide eyes from under the shade. He pondered how Miles had only grown up in the quiet surroundings of the lakehouse and that the city’s strange and harsh sounds must be entirely foreign for him. It was the exact opposite of how Peter felt.

Pepper strolled next to him, Morgan’s hand clasped in her right hand and her phone in her left. She was looking to see if the family-friendly restaurant she’d chosen for lunch was open yet while answering Morgan’s barrage of questions about what they had (did they have chicken fingers?), and what she didn’t like (I don’t want spaghetti!), and could they go to McDonald’s instead? (Pepper said no.)

“Peter, could you send a message to Tony and let him know that we won’t be able to meet him back at the tower until—”

He didn’t hear the rest of whatever Pepper was trying to tell him. The thunderous clap of his spider-sense deafened him in an instant, sending goosebumps across every follicle of hair on his body.

That resounding roar was the first bit of stimuli to breach the thick, cottony defenses that kept Peter numb and desolate of meaningful emotion. It was so out-of-the-blue, so jarring down to his bones, that in that first, invaluable instant, Peter didn’t know what to do.

He was terrified and unprepared, his mind still numb and fuzzy with pins and needles and he couldn’t hear anything beyond that blaring air horn that sounded like it came from his frontal lobe. Peter wanted to press his hands over his ears and curl into himself to make it all STOP…

Then it all stopped at once. Not just the assaulting sound, but Peter could have sworn that time itself screeched to a halt. Whatever strand of radioactive DNA inside of Peter that controlled his most basic instincts and reflexes took over.

Everything rushed back to life, seemingly sped up even to make up for being idle, and Peter’s body acted, leaving the rest of him in the dust.

_____

The city bus barreled directly toward them. Physics forbid it from stopping, even if the driver wasn’t slumped over the steering wheel, unconscious.

Peter thrust his hand out and grabbed Pepper’s arm brusquely, shoving her and Morgan forcefully away from the bus’s catastrophic path. Then he pivoted, to push Miles’s stroller with a similar vigor, having no idea how much strength he needed to use, just needing to know they were out of harm’s way with an urgency like no other.

That hair's breadth of a second saved Pepper, Morgan and Miles. It also took away any chance Peter had to escape the collision from the runaway bus.

Peter took the full force of several tons of speeding metal and glass, his body tunneling a crater into the vehicle. It wrapped on either side of him in a damningly loud assault on his senses. It was worse than the warehouse collapsing on top of him. The chorus of screaming people was all Peter knew as his body went slack, his defensive huddle crumpling to the pavement.

Black static begged to overtake his vision and his body pleaded desperately to go unconscious before the shock wore off and the full-fledged pain took over. But Peter fought against himself, clambering to stay awake until he knew whether he’d actually saved them.

Whether or not he’d failed once again at using his powers to save his family.

_____

The emergency notifications all rang out in such a synchronized fashion that it could have been a glitch in the system had FRIDAY not instantaneously declared “Not a drill, Boss.” sincerely through his earpiece. The insistent beeps and vibrations from his watch, his phone, and the nanoparticle housing unit installed in his prosthetic arm set him on edge.

Tony didn’t bother excusing himself from the meeting about the Accords. His chest was too tight to even consider speaking. It felt scarily similar to the constriction just before his heart attack, but he couldn’t bring himself to be afraid for his own health. Four emergency, red-alert, level 10 out of 10 alarms meant that his entire family was in peril.

Leaving the conference table as Secretary Ross was mid-sentence would typically be an experience to savor, but Tony didn’t acknowledge the offended protests. He had opened up the 76th story window and climbed onto the ledge before the nanoparticles had even fully-encased his body. The sensation of suiting up sent chills down his spine like raw egg was cracked against the back of his skull. How long had it actually been? Was that time in the lab, when Bruce donned the gauntlet to snap half of the universe back really been the last time?

Jumping from the ledge, Tony let himself drop for a millisecond before firing his repulsors into action.

All the info on his HUD was nonsensical, and he didn’t even know where he was flying until FRIDAY urgently called out an intersection. He amplified the jet power and flew, demanding information from FRIDAY in a scraped, emotionally-charged voice he didn’t recognize.

When he barked for answers that she didn’t have, he didn’t think she’d ever sounded so human and helpless. “I’m trying to locate vitals, Boss. There’s something blocking the connection. I’m doing everything I can!”

How four minutes of flying unfurled itself into what felt like weeks of worry, Tony couldn’t comprehend, but when he finally zoned in on the intersection and could see billowing smoke and could hear yelling and agonized moans of the injured, he snapped back into himself.

Iron Man landed with a metallic thunk and surveyed the disaster zone. Amid the wreckage, which FRIDAY assured him was on the radar of local emergency responders, Tony suppressed feeling selfish as he glanced over everything and everyone until he saw the blinking beacons of the devices that he insisted his family members have at all times.

Three pulsing red lights, bunched together on the sidewalk, were moving incrementally. Moving. They were moving. Tony ran toward them, unsure if he felt augmented or weighed down by his armor, but certain that he wasn’t moving fast enough.

Pepper was on the ground, face blemished with dirt and a bleeding scrape on her forehead. FRIDAY diagnosed a possible concussion. She grimaced and hissed in pain, but she was alive. Alive. Alive. Alive. When Pepper recognized him through her squinted eyes, she asked about Morgan and Miles, her voice drenched in worry between dry coughs.

The blue material of Miles’ stroller caught his eye, and Tony heard his son’s wailing. He didn’t move the stroller, afraid of potential head or neck injuries, but went around until he could see the baby inside. FRIDAY’s relieved tone telling him that all wounds were superficial - just a few bumps and scrapes - and that the crying boy was just horribly alarmed by the accident, was one of the best sounds he could ever recall hearing.

If Miles’ crying was a relief, then Morgan’s silence was the polar opposite. His little girl. Vibrant, vivacious, speaks-a-mile-a-minute Morgan - was sprawled on her side a few feet from her mother, arms askew and eyes closed. He was at her side in a second, retracting the armor that encased his hand as he gently pushed strands of brown hair lightly from her forehead.

He could hear FRIDAY telling him that Morgan was fine. That all her vitals were stable and normal. That she was probably just unconscious temporarily from whatever force was inflicted upon her. But Tony couldn’t believe any of it. Not when his baby girl was scraped, bloodied, and unconscious.

Thankfully, Tony registered that FRIDAY was reassuring Pepper that Morgan and Miles were okay. Because he couldn’t imagine speaking when his heart was lodged in his throat.

“Wake up baby, please Maguna, wake up for Daddy,” he crooned, voice trembling. “I’ll let you have all the juice pops. And Gerald can sleep in your bed. Just show me those big brown eyes,” Tony pleaded, his desperation multiplying with every choked breath.

Then, her eyelids fluttered and Tony froze. “Daddy…” it was just a fraction of a whisper. So quiet that Tony strained to hear more because he didn’t believe his ears. Not through all the armor and chaotic clamor around them.

“Daddy,” Morgan said, her eyes glassy but seeing him. Tony retracted his helmet, not wanting Iron Man’s scowl to be what she saw when she was probably so frightened.

“Morgan, baby… you’re going to be alright. Daddy is here. We’re all okay, I promise. Daddy’s here. Daddy’s here.” Stinging tears pricked at his eyes and in the next instant, Tony’s cheeks were wet with hot tears.

They were safe. The three of them were safe. His life. His heart. His family. They were safe.

So why was FRIDAY shouting so insistently at him as though the danger at hand hadn’t even begun to be uncovered?

Three pulsing beacons. Three of them were here in front of him. Three of them were safe.

But there had been four emergency alerts. Peter.

In his shocked stupor, Tony felt like all the blood in his body froze and thawed in the same second. His brain rebooted, and he scanned the immediate area, augmented with his helmet back over his eyes, but Peter wasn’t there.

Before he could launch himself into action, a hesitation with the strength of a boat anchor trapped him in place. To find Peter, he would have to leave his wife, daughter, and son. Yes, they were out of immediate danger and FRIDAY told him they were okay, but the relief was so fresh and he wasn’t ready to relinquish it and let them out of his sight.

“I can’t leave them, FRI,” Tony tried to express to his AI, almost sounding like he was trying to convince her.

“They are not in immediate danger, Boss! My sensors show that Peter is at the center of the wreckage. I cannot get a read on his vitals; just his location.” He felt stuck, like his suit was powered down and pounds and pounds of titanium alloy, wires, and tech were pressing down on him. “Peter is in danger, Boss! All emergency protocols activated! Ambulances are coming and they will all get help, but Peter needs you!”

FRIDAY was reduced to begging. The lilting Irish inflection he’d coded rising to a crescendo that resonated in his eardrums. Tony fervently told Pepper that help was on the way. That everyone was okay, and he needed to find Peter, because he didn’t know whether or not the kid was still…

Fighting against one final pull of hesitation as he observed Pepper bringing herself closer to Miles’ stroller, Morgan awkwardly cradled in her lap, Tony turned to look for Peter. To find his son, who was lost in the wreckage and could be injured or gone.

Vigorously, Tony shook his head to rid himself of the monstrous guilt and horrible reality that he could very well be losing Peter once more.

FRIDAY pointed him in the direction of the red light that blinked relentlessly, originating from the Stark Tech watch on his wrist. It was hard to see clearly, concealed in a massive pile of crushed metal, broken glass, and hazy fumes hovering over leaking fuel.

When he finally pried away enough sheets of metal, accordioned and scrunched like aluminum foil, Tony found his kid. If it hadn’t been for the steady blinking light from his watch and the heat map overlay in his HUD, the collapsed, furled mass would have been unrecognizable as human.

Like a cannonball, Peter was embedded deeply in the front of the wrecked city bus, which had curled around either side of him as it came to a violent and abrupt stop. With a path cleared, he rushed over to Peter, who laid on his side, curled up (Tony tried not to draw the similarity between a dead spider), and unconscious.

Pale. Bloody. Dirty. Broken. Tony didn’t even know where to start with helping Peter.

FRIDAY reported that she was running diagnostics and ordered him to not touch Peter due to the near-certainty that he’d suffered injuries to his spine and skull. Tony took a cowering step back, helpless. He longed to pull his kid into a hug like he had on the battlefield. Speechless, but just needing to have him close.

“Boss, we need to get him out of here. Now.” FRIDAY’s voice reached down and pulled him out of his helpless fog. “What’s his status, dear?” Crisis mode made him act calmer than he felt.

“I’ll give you the full list on the way to the med bay, but we need to get him airborne before his condition worsens and before the authorities start asking questions about how a teenager smashed through a city bus. His back and neck are stable enough that you can lift him. Go! Now!”

It was hard to believe her intel about Peter being stable enough to move, nevertheless fly, but FRIDAY’s urgency was blindingly clear and he trusted in her protocols. He didn’t really have a choice whether or not to trust her, because she was right, the blaring sirens meant that the first responders were here, assessing the scene and would quickly wonder how Peter survived and why he was healing before their very eyes.

Tony slid his arms under Peter’s knees and shoulders and lifted the kid, preparing to fire up his boot propulsors when he was grounded by hesitation with more force than compounded gravity.

The paralyzing dilemma played out in front of him, unbidden. Rescuing Peter meant leaving behind the rest of his family. And they needed to be rescued too. He was Iron Man; the same hero who had gone toe-to-toe with Thanos and wielded all six infinity stones to make sure that Bruce’s snap hadn’t been in vain. He was the person who stared down the villain and struck down “I am inevitable” with “I am Iron Man.”

And he couldn’t even save his entire family.

FRIDAY echoed in his ear that all systems were a go, that the boy cradled in his arms needed immediate care to protect both his identity and his life. But he ran into a brick wall with thoughts of his crying infant son in his damaged stroller, his wife’s pained and addled voice asking if their kids were okay, and his daughter’s scared brown eyes looking to her daddy to make it all better.

“Boss, the first responders are here to help them! Their injuries are mild. Peter needs you!” Another five seconds ticked by interminably in his indecision, before something happened in his suit that he’d never before witnessed.

“FRIDAY Take The Wheel protocol activated.” The declaration was starkly cold and robotic and Tony felt his suit’s flying commands shift into place and flare to life without his authorization.

FRIDAY had chosen for him, and the moment they lifted from the ground, Tony looked from the pale, bloodied and dust-caked face of his oldest son and knew that she’d made the right choice.

She’d made Tony’s choice in the face of his inability to choose Peter.

_____

Peter thought he was back in the soul stone at first.

There was a certain degree of awareness of himself - his body, his mind - though he had no dominion over either. Existing, but only partially. Like his body and his mind were separate from each other, able to observe, but with no means of communication.

Darkness was the only thing around him that he was certain was real. There was pain too, but only the abstract concept of it, and the sensation was too elusive to pin down so he could decide on whether or not it truly existed. One moment the pain would be fuzzy and muted and the next it would materialize and be all too real, but slip through his fingers like water.

For Peter, the strangest sensation was feeling that there was something that he desperately needed and wanted, but having no idea what that thing was, or even why he wanted it.

It was like hunger, thirst, exhaustion, chills, sweat, fear, and anticipation all rolled into one convoluted concoction of need that had no cure or means of relief.

Lost in the abyss that Peter wasn’t sure meant he was alive, dead, or a wild pendulum swinging between them, he attempted to win back control over his mind, because maybe if he focused hard enough, he could figure out what it was that would ease the unpleasant snarl that discomfort didn’t even begin to describe.

All Peter could comprehend was that his need was deep. Intrinsic. Primal. And the thing he wanted was something that he’d been wanting for a very, very long time. Something he’d never quite learned how to live without, even though it was taken from him time and time again.

Grabbing hold of his mind and being able to slow the torrential whirlpool of his uncontained thoughts felt like a momentous achievement. Physically, he still didn’t know up from down, left from right, or if those directions were just abstract descriptions from a realm that he didn’t belong to any longer. But Peter could ground himself now, at least in his thoughts.

What did he want? What was it that his body and mind were screaming for him to do so that he could relieve himself from this awful fugue?

Harnessing his thoughts, Peter imagined himself squeezing his eyes shut and furrowing his brows in concentration (if he still had a body, that is), digging through himself to locate the source of his deficiency.

Deeper and deeper into himself, Peter excavated a trench - digging past the loamy layer of wants and into the thick crust of his foundational needs.

Peter barely spared a passing glance to the things he wanted - more sleep, a sandwich from Delmar’s, the normalcy of going to school with his friends, things to be different with May - Mary and Richard to have never died when he was a little boy - May to not have removed him from her life calculatingly and with an agonizing surgical precision.

Slamming into the hard layer of Peter’s deepest needs was jarring, but his urgency to find the source of this gushing, gaping loss had him attacking the protective veneer ferociously.

Like the effort it took to raise the warehouse, and the strength he’d once exerted to be part of a group restraining Thanos on Titan, Peter worked and worked to dig deeper, to turn a divot into a crater until he perforated into the miasma below.

Darkness continued to disorient him and the pain that was once fuzzy and bordering on harmless was growing heavier and rougher, from cotton to steel wool. The pain spurred him on further, Peter’s primal instincts telling him that if he could only break through the crust that he would find the answer to heal the colossal pain and immense need.

There was no physical feedback, no stimuli to show him he was making progress, but Peter felt it within himself as he chipped away. A vivid image of bare hands attacking the ground vehemently, fingernails dulled and bloodied, knuckles scraped raw and covered in dirt played like a large cinema screen.

Chunks of crust began to come loose. With each dirt clod came a realization so uncomfortable that Peter wanted to huddle up and quit. And he would have given in if he thought this pain wasn’t worth the whatever mysterious entity that acted like a gaping maw in his chest.

Peter dug - He wanted physical affection from a parent, but Tony had barely glanced against him since the hug on the battlefield.

He scraped - Peter hated how he’d always been dropped on someone’s lap after Mary and Richard died. He needed someone to want him, not to be saddled with him.

Peter clawed - He missed how close he, Ned, and MJ had been and needed to have them back in his life because they grounded him and made him feel normal in a way that he needed as much as oxygen.

He scratched - Peter needed someone to love him, to take care of him unconditionally. To be afforded the privilege of messing up and not being afraid of losing whatever house and family was taking care of him. To mess up and be forgiven. To succeed and not feel like he was making progress toward earning his place.

An enormous chunk of crust dislodged. It hurt terribly, but Peter felt so agonizingly close to his end goal. He focused his attacks on that weak point, every single strike wounding him with jagged truths, but so certain that salvation was imminent.

Love. Support. Stability. Respect. Understanding. Security. Safety. Trust.

Disconnected from him, his breathing was ragged with exertion, arms swinging in time with his thrumming heart. So close. So so painfully close.

Love. Vulnerability. Need you. Need parent. Need dad.

That elusive and mysterious entity that was missing was right there - visible and tangible through a crumbling protective layer that was held up by only fraying roots and tumbling dirt crags.

Gathering the dregs of his strength, Peter struck down with more force than necessary to break through. He felt the thin cover give under his fists, and there was no more resistance.

Peter understood what he needed - like a man dying of thirst knew he needed water or a parent rushing to tend to their crying child.

Dad. Parent. Love. Rhodey.

_____

Tony gaped and jumped from his chair next to Peter’s medbay bed when the kid groaned and gasped, sounding so thin and breathy.

“...Dad…” Peter rasped out, though it was more a bundle of sound rather than an enunciated word.

“I’m right here Underoos, Dad’s here,” Tony replied fervently, so relieved to see Peter coming back to consciousness.

Peter blinked against heavy eyelids and tangled eyelashes, trying to see Tony. He called out desperately for his dad two more times, and Tony’s heart clenched with each plea. Tony leaned over Peter, careful to avoid the mess of wires and tubes, hoping to make himself easier for Peter to see, to help put the struggling, desperate teenager at ease.

“I’m right here, Peter. Dad is right here,” Tony crooned, grabbing one of Peter’s hands with both of his own, wishing that he could feel more through his prosthesis to be closer to Peter.

Peter’s glassy eyes attempted to focus on him before his face crumpled in frustration.

“No…. No… Dad. I need Dad. Get my dad…”

The beeping of the heart rate monitor picked up spectacularly and Tony felt helpless in the face of Peter’s panic and the mystery of why Peter didn’t recognize him.

Dr. Cho swept into the room with more authority than Steve Rogers, immediately making note of every monitor and machine in the room and calling out to Peter in a loud, clear voice to break through his building hysteria.

“Dad. Dad. Dad!”

Peter continued to yell as Tony was pushed to the corner of the room, paralyzed and struck dumb by what was playing out in front of him.

“I want my dad!”

Tony’s knees folded under him, taking him to the floor. Helpless tears fell hot and heavy down his face and chin, drenching his wrinkled white dress shirt.

“I’m here kid,” Tony whispered, knowing that his efforts were moot. Not because he knew Peter couldn’t hear him, but because he achingly suspected that he wasn’t who Peter was calling out for.

Chapter Text

Having one’s worst fears confirmed is an unforgettable experience each and every time it happens. For Rhodey, free falling in his War Machine armor was one of those times. It seemed that ever since Peter Parker became a larger presence in his life that having his worst fears confirmed was a more frequent occurrence.

Too bad that frequency did not deaden the horrific clench in his chest or ease the dismal sadness that came along with learning that his worst fears had come true in the case of the boy he wholeheartedly wished he could claim.

Since his and Peter’s regular correspondence through texts, emails, and phone calls had dropped almost entirely, Rhodey had tried not to let his pestering fears consume him. He continued sending his messages like clockwork, discouraged, but not deterred by the lack of response from Peter.

Last week he had even reached out to Tony to make sure everything was okay with Peter, and Tony had confirmed (with a flimsy, disinterested tone) that everything was fine and that the kid was just grounded from his phone for a few days.

The explanation had done little to sooth the rankling feeling that persisted, like an itch that couldn’t be scratched, but Rhodey had tried to convince himself that things were okay - Peter was okay. The last time he’d tried to convince himself of that, nothing had been okay, and that only served to reinvigorate the vicious cycle that the more he hoped that Peter was fine, the more likely that absolutely nothing was fine.

Taking a large role in the global reunification and reintegration efforts that needed to be addressed following the return of billions of people was a distraction, but Rhodey wasn’t without guilt for taking off when Peter could need him. He tried and tried to tell himself that Peter could always get in contact with him, that there was never a moment when he would be unavailable if the kid needed him, but the respite provided by those reassurances was painfully limited.

Because though Peter Parker had opened up greatly during the time they lived together, Rhodey remembered how jarringly inward that Peter had been at first. Rhodey had felt ridiculous after offering time and time again things for Peter to eat, wear, watch, do - anything that would make him feel welcome and at home. That ridiculous feeling was a pittance to pay compared to Rhodey’s satisfaction when Peter began to actually ask for things and do things without being expressly offered.

The last thing that Rhodey wanted was to put the burden of communication on Peter. Peter was the kid and Rhodey was the adult (parent, he thought wistfully), and if Peter needed him, he wasn’t going to put the onus on him and say “Well you could have asked me.”

Rhodey knew that his work was making a positive impact on the populations who needed it. Food, water, medicine, shelter; Rhodey transported it all at impossible speeds with War Machine armor. It was what was keeping him occupied at the moment, flying over the Indian Ocean because he could make better time than just about any vessel in the world.

The trek was long and monotonous, so having the status feed in his suit suddenly cut out was initially petrifying. He remembered falling. Falling fast. No lights or sounds around him. Just dark, heavy armor plummeting to the ground with the wind whistling around him.

“Colonel Rhodes,” came a familiar lilting voice. “Come in Colonel Rhodes.”

“Colonel Rhodes here,” he replied stiffly, before asking, somewhat skeptically, “FRIDAY?”

“Yes. You are needed back in New York urgently. Peter has sustained critical injuries.” Each word was graver than the last, but Rhodey didn’t waste time with questions before altering his flight path, making a sharp hairpin turn back toward the states.

He was suddenly panting he’d finished a long run, the panic and helplessness taking over his system “I’m on my way, FRI.” But he knew, even with the suit, that he was achingly far away.

“Tell me what happened.”

Rhodey tried to separate himself and listen as though he was retaining the details of a mission as FRIDAY recounted every detail clinically. If she hadn’t started with the fact that he was stable in the med bay at the tower, then he would have interrupted to demand if his son was okay.

“FRIDAY,” he began scathingly, a bottled rage about to burst under pressure. “Did Tony ask you to call me?”

“No.”

Though Peter was alive, according to FRIDAY, Rhodey couldn’t help but focus on the fact that his worst fears had been confirmed. His son was hurt and he wasn’t there.

_____

Logically, Tony knew that the first call he needed to make after the dust began to clear was to Rhodey. After his wife and two of his kids were tucked in beds, a little beaten up, but safe and well, and once Peter's condition was declared stable by the specially trained surgeon, Rhodey should be the first to know.

Like most things recently, however, when it came to his closest friend, (and did Rhodey even consider him his brother at this point?)Tony found himself stuck on a hangup of his own creation.

The last two times that they had spoken sincerely about Peter, Rhodey had asked him the same question.

“Have you talked to May?”

Tony meant to reach out to her, really. His apprehension in going behind Peter’s back was eased by Rhodey’s insistence that he talk to her. And about what? Well, Tony didn’t know.

But he never called, or even sent a “Hey” text message. And Tony didn’t think he could face telling Rhodey that he’d once again failed to do something that would help smooth the rocky terrain of his and Peter’s relationship. Even with this gargantuan information that Rhodey had every right to know - Tony couldn’t bear the disappointment.

Disappointment in himself was already coursing through his veins in too high a dose.

Besides, May was Peter’s family, and she deserved to know what happened too, Tony rationalized as he paced up and down the corridor outside the med bay. And Rhodey did not need to know that he called May first, and Rhodey was the one who demanded that he call May in the first place, so he couldn’t be angry.

Tony couldn’t decide whether his dizziness came from the bone-creaking exhaustion from the day and coming down from crisis mode, or the impressive stunt of mental gymnastics he was playing out to justify his carelessness.

Outside the stretch of glass windows, the sky outside was dark, the lights from the skyline in a poor facsimile of stars in the night. The burden of speaking to May when she had been a figure in the wind since she signed Peter over with less anguish and regret than he would have expected, was intimidating to approach in the face of his drawn out exhaustion. But he tapped on the contact, pausing to take a deep breath before hitting the call button.

“Boss, this number for May Parker has been disconnected. My database has located an updated number for May Reilly, which documents show is Mrs. Parker’s maiden name. Shall I connect to that number?”

Instead of the dreaded ringing, Tony’s sluggish, fatigued mind was confused to hear FRIDAY’s voice.

With a dreadful vexation, he requested that his AI please call the new number and then waited. The implications of what it meant that May had changed her phone number and her last name lingered on the outskirts of his thoughts, but he didn’t have the endurance to consider if Peter knew any of this or not, and what it did to the kid if he was, in fact, aware.

The call went to voicemail. Tony tried not to be flustered. It was late. She was a nurse. And the man she was with had two kids, so she was likely either working a shift or sleeping. He asked FRIDAY to call again instead of leaving a voicemail.

Voicemail again. “FRI, keep dialing for me, would you?” She agreed solemnly, and he didn’t have the bandwidth to miss her charismatic banter.

This time, the phone only rang once before the voice mailbox message repeated its instructions. So his call had been dismissed. FRIDAY called again. And again when the result was identical.

And again until he perked up at the blessed sound of the line connecting.

“Stark, I did not answer your call,” FRIDAY must have pushed the call through, and Tony was immediately met with the aggressive, scolding tone of May Parker. It did not match the strong, warm image of her that he remembered from their first meeting, way back before colorful rocks and purple titans were on his radar.

“Uh, hey May. How’s the unusually attractive aunt slash nurse life?” He cringed at himself before biting his knuckle in sincere wishes to start over or just disappear.

“Tell me what you want now or I’ll hang up the phone.” Before the argument even formed in his head, she cut him off. “You can’t force a call through if I throw my phone in the Hudson.” In another situation, she could have been playing along with his witty banter, but the impatient bite of her words left no room for interpretation. Still, Tony Stark couldn’t help his habit of using sarcasm as a shield in difficult conversations, even when he hated himself for it.

“Oh, you know I’d just find another number for you. Or I could buy a blimp to deliver messages to you. I also have some pretty deep connections in the super hero crowd, so I’m sure I could get someone to track you down.”

The silence of May Parker fuming over the line was deafening roar, and Tony felt like he’d plunged into a dunk tank of self-loathing by his own hand. There were two vastly important reasons for calling her and he’d only managed to give a knockout performance of what an ass he was.

Tony attempted to reset himself entirely. He planted his feet and righted his posture before fully inflating his lungs and blowing all the air out, resolutely ignoring all of the small pains that he swore he didn’t have that morning.

“Listen May, Peter got hurt—”

“What happened? Is he okay? Was it a Spider-Man thing?” Tony closed his eyes in profound shame. He couldn’t pinpoint why he felt solely responsible for Peter’s condition, but he wasn’t able to shake it, and more importantly, Tony didn’t want to rid himself of that responsibility.

“No, it was a Peter Parker thing.” They were both silent, and Tony liked to imagine that they were two parents, mutually speechless and worried sick about their son. If only the situation were that simple.

“Pepper said that he saved her and the kids. That without him, they… well…” He was unable to continue at the briefest ghost of a thought of losing all of them. “This bus driver had a stroke, and Peter pushed them out of the way. The kid just can’t drop the whole savior schtick,” Tony’s throat made a hollow, miserable sound.

“Tony Stark, if you’re making a joke while trying to tell me that Peter is… that he-” May’s low, grave threat melted into choked anguish, and that’s when Tony realized that if being an ass was a career, that he’d have job security for life.

All this dancing around hard conversations and he hadn’t even told her that Peter was going to be okay. Pepper really needed to be his voice, because clearly, even as a parent and a literal savior of the universe, he wasn’t equipped. He was talented at saying a lot and nothing in the same breath.

“He’s fine! I should have said that first. Peter is okay. He’s, well, he’s pretty beaten up, but that’s what happens when you use your shoulder to crush a bus like a tin can.”

Sensing May’s strangled concern, he listed off Peter’s injuries, being sure to downplay all of the details. Somehow, he was still terrified that May Parker would hand him his ass on a platter for putting Peter in harm’s way.

If she only knew the full story.

“But he’s going to be okay?” She asked hesitantly.

“Yep, once that Spider-Man DNA does its thing, our itsy bitsy spider will be ready to climb up the spout again in no time.” Her breath catching in her throat confused Tony. She should be relieved, right? And then he would have tackled one horrendously tough conversation and would be primed and ready for the next.

“The last time I spoke with Peter, he said that he wasn’t Spider-Man anymore. He told me that he gave up his powers for you.”

Ah, so she wanted to lead the way into the next round in the boxing ring. He didn’t know if it put him at an advantage or a disadvantage. More than anything, he wanted to just hang up the phone and toss it out the window, but that wasn’t much of an option if he intended to keep his friendship/brotherhood with Rhodey.

“Uh, yeah,” Tony sighed, preparing to plunge himself into the frigid depths. “That’s one of the things I called about actually. Could you... would you mind telling me what happened the last time you saw Pete?” The uncertainty in his words was maddening for someone so accustomed to leading conversations in the exact direction he wanted them to go.

May seemed taken aback by the question, probably in a tangle of not expecting the question and not wanting to talk about it, he assumed.

In a shaky voice that reminded him of something rigid and ready to snap and splinter, she told him how Peter showed up at her door, completely out of the blue. How he looked different, smaller, like he had in his awkward early teen years with the glasses and the posture that suggested that he didn’t want to take up any undue space.

May explained how surprised she’d been when Peter told her that he wasn’t Spider-Man anymore, and that he’d given up his powers. And when she mentioned how Peter had asked to come back and live with her again, Tony bent forward at the waist to fight against the earth-moving clench in his stomach.

It nauseated him to consider that he had never looked closely enough to see that the situation was so unbearable for Peter. If he and Peter hadn’t argued, and if Peter hadn’t punched him and then run to Rhodey for refuge, how long would it have taken for him to notice? What, aside from a fist to the face, would have opened his eyes to Peter’s intense misery?

As May told him how their conversation ended - with a frigid and clipped farewell on her part - Tony suspected that she was glancing over the finer details, perhaps reacting to her cutting regrets. But at that point, he really didn’t care about May Parker any longer. Now that he knew what happened immediately preceding his and Peter’s horrific, demolishing argument, he could hardly bear to consider the exponential gravity of what he’d done to the kid that day.

Pressure built and built in his chest, bursting into other parts of his body until his bones felt pressed for space and his muscles felt like they were disintegrating. A distantly familiar buzzing claimed his senses and he couldn’t decide if he was having a panic attack or a heart attack.

May’s voice calling his name, asking if he was still there, sounded so distant that she could be calling to him from a dying walkie talkie.

Hurriedly, he ended the call and dropped his phone like it was unbearably hot. It clattered to the bland medbay floors and Tony stared down at it as though it would detonate at any moment.

It was easier for him to wish that he’d never called May. The burden of the knowledge she dumped on him was dense and backbreaking, and it was oh so tempting to dump the blame of what he felt back on her. If he hadn’t called, she wouldn’t have told him that, and he wouldn’t be feeling like this.

That shallow scenario still stung, but it was a mere glancing papercut compared to the dull axehead that repeatedly cracked against him, drawing out his agony interminably and making it that much worse. If the blade was sharp, at least his misery would end quickly.

But the truth, as he now knew it, didn’t place the lion’s share of the blame on May (though she was a far, distant cry from innocence), or Rhodey, Bruce, Pepper, or any other scapegoat that his imagination could conjure. And sure, the situation was more intricately complicated than he could ever hope to properly explain, but no matter how he worked through the gnarled knots, Tony could only find himself to blame.

Tony said the awful words that caused Peter to punch him. Tony asked Peter to give up his powers (and he was playing fast and loose with the word “asked”). Tony took a thick-gauged needle and punctured the skin in Peter’s lower back, pushing deeper despite the kid’s pained hisses and small twitches that betrayed just how much agony he was enduring.

Tony lied to Bruce to make the serum. Tony didn’t bother to check on the kid’s medical history. Tony let his wife alienate Peter. Tony turned a blind eye when Morgan treated Peter like he was broccoli, the dentist, and cough syrup all rolled into one.

The list could go on indefinitely, and Tony was paralyzed by the incredible depth of his crimes against Peter Parker.

_____

Waking up after his enhanced healing had been working overtime to fix whatever hideous injury he’d sustained while fighting crime and protecting Queens was never pleasant. While he was unconscious, all of his body’s resources were put toward healing, suturing together gaping gashes, mending gashes, and washing away bruises until they could be mistaken for shadows in the right light. Typically, there was nothing left to allocate toward actual rest and recovery, leaving him feeling like a puppet without a master upon awakening.

This time felt worse. Maybe even as bad as waking up after the battle at the compound, when his energy was completely tapped and he didn’t know whether or not Mt. Stark had survived.

“Hey there kiddo,” the voice comforted him before he even opened his eyes. Peter still felt tethered to the bed, but the tension melted away somewhat.

Seeing Rhodey perched next to his hospital bed, Peter couldn’t fathom whether he was immersed in a fever dream or if the man was actually there, in the flesh, worry radiating from him thickly.

Peter’s lips moved, but his throat failed to make a sound beyond breathy rasps. He wasn’t even sure what he wanted to say - his heart wanted to say Dad, but his mind told him to play it safe and say Rhodey. Rhodey shushed him gently, telling him not to talk yet, that he should still be asleep.

If Peter could have moved, he would have leaned his head into Rhodey’s hand when the man pushed the hair back from his forehead. The warmth and softness of the bed and the stable and reassuring presence of his dad-slash-Rhodey next to him, Peter couldn’t help his eyelids from fluttering shut.

Among the fringes of his mind, questions pawed at him for attention. How was Rhodey even here? Were Pepper and the kids okay? Had Peter once again hurt someone he was trying to save? But he didn’t have the energy nor the desire to pay them any mind.

Enveloping himself in his dad’s tender shushing and fingers stroking the soft hair on his temple, just above his ear, Peter didn’t fight against the tantalizing tug of sleep.

_____

When Peter finally awoke with a degree of lucidity, the first thing he noticed was that both Rhodey and Tony were in the medbay room with him, though they stood in opposite corners like rival boxers between rounds. Even through the drugged fog, Peter picked up on the contentious atmosphere that hung thicker than the sterile antiseptic.

As his mind surfaced, burrowing out from under the damp sand of liberal anesthetic and all-encompassing pain, the thought that he’d hyper-fixated on before succumbing to unconsciousness emerged like a lightning strike. Peter gasped, heart thundering as his eyes swiveled around the room, searching for any evidence about the outcome - one way, or the other.

“Are they okay?” Peter didn’t recognize his voice, but he was familiar with the desperation. He’d lost too many people not to be. “Did I hurt them?”

The way that Tony lunged forward frightened Peter, his disorientation interpreting an attack. But retreating pulled at the IV in the crook of his arm and his entire back seized in pained protest.

“Whoa, take it easy there Underoos,” Tony slowed his approach cautiously and though Peter wasn’t put at ease, he stopped actively moving away. “You saved them all, Pete. My family is safe because of you.”

The words “saved” and “family” and “safe” registered with Peter on a surface level, relaying general information, but he couldn’t comprehend what any of it meant. He was unable to look away from Tony’s wide, sincere stare; one that elevated him on a pedestal. Confusion buzzed through all of his senses like static.

“They’ve got some bumps and bruises. Morgan has another bright purple cast that she wants her big brother to sign. Pepper is a little shaken up and she’s going to take a few weeks off work. And Miles, well he’s a baby and the resiliency on those things is astounding. I swear, you could slam dunk the kid and he’d be no worse for the wear.”

Peter choked against the impossibly large and dry lump that lodged in his throat. The knowledge that once again he’d hurt his family in his efforts to keep them safe was profoundly upsetting. He was only marginally aware as his jaw started to tremble like he was shivering and a deep tremble, like two tectonic plates scraping against each other along a fault line, rocked through his core.

Awareness about his surroundings waned. He could still see Tony in front of him - too close - with tired and confused eyes. And he could hear a voice that could only be Rhodey’s urging someone to do something. But he was caught in the wild vortex of realizing that despite everything he’d done and tried to do to prevent it from happening again, Peter, with his enhanced powers, had hurt the people he loved and tried to keep safe.

“No Pete, no no no kiddo,” Tony protested against his shuddering breaths that were rapidly devolving into hiccups and heaving sobs. “You saved them! You’re a hero, bud.”

That declaration landed in his chest with the explosive power of a molotov cocktail. Hero?

Cognitive dissonance between the last time he’d used his powers to save Morgan and this instance clashed violently for Peter. When Morgan had fallen from the tree and in his efforts to catch her, had broken her arm, Peter recalled viscerally how he’d felt villainized. How when they even deigned to look at him, it had been with the acknowledgement that - no matter how unintentionally - he’d harmed their daughter. How Pepper’s cordial demeanor toward him took a frigid plunge. How Morgan had been downright mean to him.

Now he was being hailed as a hero?

Peter’s breathing was tightening into wheezing, and though he didn’t think it was possible to have an asthma attack with his powers, the suffocation and urge to scratch at his neck to get any air through was proving him wrong.

What was the difference between the tree and the bus? Peter could only determine one.

Peter had risked his own life when he pushed the three Starks out of the way of the bus. Was that what it took? For them to love him and for them to not see him as an untamed super-powered freak? The goalposts kept moving just out of his reach each and every time Peter thought he had cracked the code.

The constricting vines that prevented him from breathing eased, but in its absence a torrential rapid of emotion obliterated Peter’s remaining restraint.

“I want my dad.” Hoarse, pleading, still panting from exertion, Peter repeated his mantra. He curled in on himself, disregarding the hideous discomfort from his budged IV and injuries. Hiccups interrupted his begging at irregular intervals, and Peter was starting to tumble toward dizziness when warm, heavy hands enveloped his own.

It was instantly grounding, like finding shelter in the middle of a downpour. Rhodey’s sincere, certain face appeared out of thin air in front of his own, and Peter didn’t want to blink for fear of him disappearing.

Peter’s sobs didn’t recede. If anything, the comfort and solidity he gleaned from his Dad only made him further surrender to his upset.

Now he repeated, “Dad,” while not daring to take his swimming, stinging eyes off of his Dad for even a moment. He wasn’t sure what magic or higher power had replaced Tony with Rhodey when he so desperately needed it, but Peter was grateful all the same.

“I’m here Pete. Dad’s here. I’ve got you.”

In the midst of his torrent of emotions, Peter recognized that in some of his sobs, he felt relief.

Chapter Text

Consoling Peter and calming him enough to fall back asleep only took a handful of minutes, but Rhodey held onto the kid for longer. He wasn’t sure if his comforting touch would continue to soothe Peter, but he couldn’t bear the thought of Peter feeling abandoned or left behind, even in his dreams.

Maybe he was holding on for himself a bit too. The paralyzing worry that turned his insides to slush during the seemingly endless flight to New York had finally dissipated, and being able to hold Peter and to see him breathing, was reassuring beyond measure.

Sometime after Peter called out for him with the title of dad, his teary, red eyes searching frantically around the room, Rhodey had situated himself on the bed partially, gleaning his own comfort from soothing Peter.

Once Peter was sleeping soundly, it was only blatantly non-subtle throat clearing from Tony, paired with a head jerk in the direction of the door that prompted him to give up his spot. Before he left, he brushed the hair back from Peter’s forehead and reassured himself when the kid’s features remained slack with sleep.

There was a laundry list of issues that he and Tony needed to discuss and he suspected that it could turn contentious. So he followed Tony because he didn’t want to disturb Peter’s sleep, and because he didn’t want Peter to possibly overhear or absorb any of the unpleasantness that might come up with this come-to-Jesus talk that was bearing down on them.

Tony led them to the old lab in the tower, though “old” felt like a misnomer when looking at the sleek technological mecca. In terms of SI innovation, Rhodey knew if he commented on the lab that Tony would launch into a spiel about how every piece of junk in the lab was defunct.

That was a conversation for a different era of their relationship.

Inside the lab, he watched some of the screens illuminate and various other machines whirr in response to nonsensical hand waves from Tony. The atmosphere came to life around Rhodey, but he was conscious to keep his attention directly on Tony.

“Were you planning on calling me to let me know what happened?” He crossed his arms over his chest, conveying a low accusational edge. But Tony wasn’t in the mood for a lecture of any sort, as he took a quick aggressive step toward him. Rhodey had been friends with Tony Stark for too long to flinch.

“What was that in there?” Rhodey kept calm and stoic at the acidic outburst, not rising to the haphazardly thrown bait.

For a solid minute, they were rooted in a silent impasse, neither rising to the other. Characteristically, Tony was the first to break as Rhodey was sure the man was physically incapable of enduring long stretches of silence.

“Of course I was planning on calling you, Platypus. Don’t accuse me of things that aren’t real. My overbearing AI got to it first,” Tony spouted, and Rhodey was careful of the potential snare that Tony so naturally wove into confrontations. “It’s crazy. Almost like I programmed her to handle things in a crisis while I was busy making sure my family was in one piece,” the sarcasm flowed with Tony’s innate talent for it.

Rhodey shook his head and looked away from Tony. Mentally, he sorted through his list of rebuttals before abandoning the task entirely. Arguing with Tony Stark tended to be an exercise in futility. Engaging in an ugly charade wasn’t necessary, because he was here for one thing.

This time, he faced Tony head on.

“I want custody of Peter. I want him to come live with me. For good.” The entire lab went silent, even the machines sounded as though they paused their functions in respect for the occasion. “You and I both know that it’s for the best, Tony.”

At that, Tony set off pacing around the lab wavering disconcertingly between distraught and fatigued. The man looked ready to topple, and the fraternal worry ingrained in Rhodey nearly drove him to leave the conversation until later. Rhodey’s paternal instincts were roaring louder, and he reminded himself that Peter needed him more than Tony.

“Do we both know that, Rhodes?”

Tony was baiting him again, but this time, desperation leaked through and Rhodey saw him as a cornered animal preparing to flail against capture.

Rhodey was calculating in his approach as he laid out his case, bullet point by bullet point, for him to be Peter’s legal guardian. Peter’s grades, his rapport with Rhodes, how well they got along during those weeks that Peter hunkered down at his home; it was a difficult line to tread. He tried to remain neutral, speaking in the same way he would when reporting mission details to a superior in the military, but he struggled. Most of his reasons for wanting to be Peter’s parent were contentious by their very nature. And Tony was never the neutral type.

“Just say I’m a shitty dad, Rhodes. Quit performing your little song and dance and tell me exactly why I’m unfit to be Peter’s dad.” Tony lashed out, and it hurt to witness how his best friend was aware of the truth, but wouldn’t admit it aloud.

Rhodey selected his words with cautious precision. “I think that, at one point, you were what was best for Peter. But I think it’s been a long time since that was true. Too much has happened and it would be best if I took over so that Peter can get what he needs.”

“What the hell do you think he needs that I’m not giving him?” Again, Rhodey absorbed the antagonistic vitriol hurled at him recklessly.

“Tones,” he treaded lightly. “Peter needs to feel safe. I’m not implying that you or anyone else in that house would ever hurt him intentionally, but... after everything that has happened, I don’t think it’s the healthiest environment for him.”

A great sigh left Tony, deflating his entire posture as he leaned against a lab surface for support. Rhodey felt a swoop of guilt for the satisfaction of breaking down Tony’s resolve, but Peter’s welfare remained his top priority.

“What if this isn’t what the kid wants?” In an environment with any sort of ancillary noise, Rhodey wouldn’t have heard the question. He softened his sharp manner, as Tony had asked with vulnerable sincerity.

“I plan on asking Peter first, and I won’t take him if he wants to stay. But if this is what Peter wants, then I want to be his guardian.” Rhodey deliberately omitted “dad” or “parent” to avoid further sparking an already inflammatory situation.

There was so much he wanted to yell at Tony, and if Tony was still squared up defensively, he didn’t think he’d be able to help himself.

I’m taking Peter and you’re going to sign the papers without a fight because we both know you’re incapable of doing what’s best for him. You loved Peter most when he was gone. I don’t know why you can’t love him the same now, but you’ve had all the chances I’m willing to offer. In your house, Peter is a second-class citizen. You and Pepper have had every opportunity to prove differently to the kid, and I’m tired of you disappointing him. Why don’t you act like you’re lucky to have Peter as your son? Every moment I get to spend with him, I feel like the most astoundingly lucky guy in the world - maybe even the luckiest dad. I’ve sat back and watched for too long, offering you advice and hoping that you would pull your head out of your ass and see the amazing kid that’s right in front of you. Now I can see the damage I’ve done to Peter by waiting too long. And no, I’m not just talking about those bullshit injections you forced on him, or the bus he jumped in front of to save a family he doesn’t even see himself as part of. You aren’t what’s best for him. You know it. I know it. And even though Peter won’t ever admit it, he knows it too. I’m doing what’s right for Peter and living as a conditional half-member of your family is hurting him more and more every day.

Rhodey wasn’t worried about forgetting what he wanted to say to Tony. Every word and its intended wallop was etched into him, and had been carved deeper with every instance that it crossed his mind. One day, he might fully express how he felt, but this wasn’t the occasion, nor the stage.

As much as the reality made him ache with helplessness, Tony was still the one in power right now when it came to Peter Parker.

Any relief or flicker of hope that Tony would make this simple and agree was doused when Tony went rigid and rose to what appeared taller than his unimpressive full height. Visibly, it was as though he’d donned a somehow unseen variation of Iron Man. If it weren’t for the wild glint in his eyes that reminded Rhodey of a fighter swinging with abandon when all hope was lost, he might have been intimidated.

“I need one last chance with him, Rhodes. You can’t deny me that. I’m still his legal guardian. I just…” Tony faltered momentarily. Anyone who didn’t know him as thoroughly wouldn’t have picked up on it, but Rhodey knew Tony better than most anyone. “I just want to talk to him and tell him I know how much I’ve fucked up. That I know he deserves better.”

Rhodey inwardly withered, resigned to the inevitability of dealing with Tony Stark’s grade-A stubbornness and unwillingness to accept a truth that he found unpleasant.

“I don’t think that’s such a good idea, Tones.”

“I need him to know this stuff, Rhodes!” Tony’s slide back to contentiousness snapped Rhodey’s tenuous grip on his candid opinions. His white-knuckled grip gave in spectacularly.

“This, right here, is the exact problem! It’s always about what you need Tony. Never about what Peter needs, or what’s best for him. Right now, that kid is emotionally tapped out. He’s been trying to be part of your family for too goddamned long and whether or not he’ll say it, he’s tired of playing Sisyphus and pushing that boulder up a hill. Peter shouldn’t have to keep working for something that should be given to him without a second thought. The last thing he needs right now is another manipulative, last-ditch attempt from you to promise him something we both know you’re incapable of providing.”

The crumbling remains of their brotherhood and their friendship disintegrated, the bridge between breaking into a thousand pieces tumbling into a dark abyss below. The physical space between them hadn’t changed, but Rhodey had never felt further from Tony.

“Fuck you, Rhodes. I still have custody. You can’t keep me from talking to my kid.” It sent agonizing pains through Rhodey to acknowledge that he didn’t recognize anything about the man in front of him.

“I never wanted to lose you as a brother or a friend, Tony. But if that’s what’s necessary for me to do right by Peter, then you can bet your sorry ass that I won’t hesitate to cut you out like you deserve.”

Rhodey didn’t wait for a response before departing from the lab, apathetic to whatever threat or ruin that Tony felt in his wake.

_____

The healing process was arduous and boring on Peter’s good days, and crushingly painful and unrelenting on his bad days. Adding to his frustration was the fact that he could never predict what type of day he was going to have when he woke up. Even on his good days, his spine felt like it was squeezed in a vise after statically remaining in one position for hours while he slept.

The one day his pain felt like less of a factor, a bothersome twinge instead of a four-alarm fire in the morning, Peter had been so engulfed by his suffering by mid-afternoon that he’d thrown up from the agony.

Rhodey’s hovering presence had provided Peter several degrees of comfort and reassurance, but only after he’d gotten over the initial embarrassment of having called the man “dad” in his fugue state induced by experimental pain medications. When he’d tried to apologize, Rhodey had only smiled and said he was honored by the title before they’d been interrupted by Tony and Pepper bringing the kids in to visit Peter.

During that visit, Peter had tried to focus on the blossoming warmth from Rhodey’s words instead of the pummeling guilt that hit him harder than the bus when he saw every single bump, scrape, and bruise that marred their little faces and limbs. Morgan’s bright purple cast made Peter want to throw up once more.

Peter had fought to quell the worst of his nausea and pain, unwilling to show anyone in the family just how damaged he felt. Playing along with the charade was more trying than he’d expected, and even through everyone’s smiling faces and warm affection, Peter felt a gigantic divide between him and the Starks. And it boggled his mind that they either couldn’t see how cast off he felt, or that they were consciously turning the other cheek.

It had Peter questioning himself with anxious frustration.

Signing Morgan’s cast as both Petey and Spider-Man at Morgan’s insistence was probably the worst part of the entire visit. Pepper and Tony’s faces gleaming down at them almost felt like too much to bear, and he wondered if he would capsize under the vivid recollections of being treated like a feral beast that needed a muzzle. Adding to his destructive turmoil was a spike in anger at Morgan while she giggled at him signing the cast and drawing a spider emblem and a few web designs for flare.

She was so afraid of him last time. She was so mean to him last time. And yeah, she is just a little kid, and he couldn’t lay the blame entirely on her, but it hurt to remember how she’d fled, yelled, and refused to be left alone with him.

When Tony reached down and plucked Morgan off of his hospital bed, setting off a fit of giggles, Peter was able to piece together that the grudge he held against Morgan was really for Tony and Pepper. Because they’d witnessed just about everything that Morgan hurled at him and had turned a blind eye and allowed their young daughter to be unnecessarily cruel to him.

Which had only secured Peter’s self-blame and self-loathing back then, persuading him without even a sliver of doubt that everyone thought he’d done terrible harm and deserved the consequences.

And now? They were just going to pretend like Peter’s misery and sadness from the first incident didn’t exist? Or that it was too faded and deep in the past to be relevant? Was there a statute of limitations on how long Peter was permitted to feel anguished by the injustice?

By the time the family had left, heeding Miles’s need for a bottle and against Morgan’s wishes to stay with her big brother - her hero - Peter felt like a dirty mop that had been wrung out and forgotten in the back of a dark closet. He was stock-still in the hospital bed, glazed eyes staring at nothing for an indeterminable amount of time before Dr. Cho came in with Dr. Banner, asking how he felt and describing a newly formulated drug that might help with his pain, respectively.

Peter nodded at all the right times and kept up the facade of politeness, but inside, he felt scooped out and hollow as he considered what lay ahead for him family-wise. The obvious option was horrendously hard to stomach, and the desirable option was so far out of reach that it made him even sicker.

It was hard to think about going home when he didn’t have a roadmap of where that even was.

_____

Peter’s text message inbox was a mostly predictable pattern consisting heavily of Ned, a steady stream of Rhodey, and the barely occasional text from Tony and Pepper. Infrequently, he’d get a text from a number outside his contacts, but it was never May, so it was never important.

On Peter’s sixth day in the hospital, when he was far beyond restless and bewildered by how his body was failing to heal the worst of his injuries, a text bubble popped up that broke the pattern.

“Hey loser. I know it’s been a long time, and I’m not sure if you and the other loser even consider me a friend anymore. I’ve been a pretty shitty friend, but I’m hoping that maybe it’s not too late to fix stuff?

“When it got messy with my mom, it just got hard to talk, because I’m really bad at pretending things are fine, and you and Ned always bug me about what’s wrong until I get mad and yell at you. I didn’t even want to talk to myself about what was going on when she started to act like she used to again.

“So I just stopped talking to you. And to Ned. And I know how much I suck for that. I’m bad at apologies too, but I’m sorry and I hope that can be a start?

“If it’s too late or you don’t want to be friends, just know that it’s okay. I understand and won’t hold a grudge. I abandoned the whole Friends of Spider-Man thing. I abandoned my friends. So you definitely don’t owe me another chance.

“If you haven’t just deleted this wall of text, that’s cool of you.”

One after another, the texts populated on Peter’s phone screen, and he had to scroll back up each time another came through. He skimmed initially, needing to know everything immediately, before starting back at the top and absorbing what MJ had written.

MJ - the missing link in the FOS. Early in their reconciliation, Peter and Ned had asked each other if the other had heard from MJ lately. When neither had, the topic was dropped as both of them realized just how acutely they felt her absence.

To hear from her now soothed something in Peter that he’d gotten accustomed to enduring. Again, he read her messages from the beginning, suddenly pulled in two by the urge to reply back to her immediately and to ask Ned whether he’d gotten the same extended arm.

Powerful pangs of empathy reverberated in his chest, and Peter recalled how he’d felt almost identically when he’d run into Ned all those months ago. The doubts, insecurities, guilt were thick that day, but even more evocatively, he recalled the peace and relief of picking up where he and Ned left off, their handshake, and catching up with each other’s lives.

It hurt to think that MJ felt the same isolation he had before the rekindled friendship.

Opting to reply to MJ, to relieve her of the agony of suspense, Peter furrowed his brow and considered what he wanted to write, how to let her know with certainty that she was always welcome in his life, and that he understood what it was like to isolate yourself when life was going to shit, and that the courage it took to reach out again was immense.

"Hey yourself MJ :)"

Just as Peter hit send, two text messages came in, one after the other. First, Peter read the message from Ned, which explained in his on-brand over-the-top excitement that MJ texted him and that they all needed to get together immediately, and did Peter have some sort of Spider-signal he could send out to get the Friends of Spider-Man back together?

Warm familiarity pooled in his stomach, deeper than he’d felt in a very, very long time. Quickly, he shot off a message to both of his friends (his friends - it felt so euphoric to say after believing for so long that he’d been left behind) asking if they wanted to video chat.

It felt like the most normal thing he’d done, once more, in a very, very long time.

Peter almost forgot about the second message, suddenly distracted by how he would look on camera considering his hair was unwashed and some of the more severe bruising had not yet faded, but remembered when he went to open the camera app on his phone to see what filter would make him look less sickly.

The message was from Rhodey, and Peter unfurled a tension he didn’t even know he’d been harboring.

On my way back to medbay. Hope you haven’t been too lonely without me, but you know how my fans get.

Peter chuckled at the accompanying gif of a pop star being led from a massive crowd of adoring fans, since they both knew that the defense meeting he’d been asked to attend was as exciting as dental surgery.

He was awash in the newly filled pool of comfort and familiarity.

Peter had his friends. And if he squinted enough to blur out the Starks, then he had his family too.

Chapter Text

Tony Stark had never been a big proponent of the whole “not doing something because someone warned him not to” thing. Maybe it was the contrarian in him. Or maybe it was the satisfaction of achieving something to overcome odds stacked against his favor.

That was quite a romanticized lens in which to view his self-governance, he conceded. But that wasn’t going to stop him. Rhodey wasn’t going to stop him.

So he didn’t exactly take it as a challenge when Rhodey expressly forbade him from asking Peter for one last chance.

Wasn’t that what it was last time, when you had just experienced the rush of escaping your death bed? One last chance to make things right with Peter?

The conversation he needed to have with Peter - his kid, his son, his mentee, his Underoos, his spiderling - needed to happen with just the two of them. It definitely didn’t need the judgemental, condescending, truth-baring commentary of James Rhodes.

Mostly, Tony just needed a stage so that he could explain everything to Peter. Which is what he failed to do last time. Last time, he apologized and promised Peter that he would make everything better, but he’d never offered up an explanation about why things had gone so wrong in the first place.

Letting Peter go, no matter how inevitable it seemed (and god how he hated that word), without the kid knowing that none of it was his fault, was a pain that rivaled harnessing those dumb colorful pebbles. At heart, Tony was an idealist, but he would be kidding himself and everyone involved if he said that Rhodey had no right to Peter.

You don’t even know if that’s what Peter wants. What if Peter wants to stay and keep trying after you tell him everything?

Even in his convoluted, coffee-fueled psyche, Tony acknowledged that it was a stretch. Still, he harbored a burgeoning obligation just to attempt to lead Peter through the mental American Ninja Warrior course that led from Tony knowing without a shadow of a doubt that Peter was his kid, to the kid calling Rhodey “dad.”

And how could he let Peter go without making sure he knew just how much Tony loved him and regretted not choosing him when it mattered?

There were a million different iterations of what he wanted to say to Peter, and he wished that he could ask the kid to sit through all of them. But when he stood in the entry of Peter’s medbay room, seeing the kid by himself, immersed in his phone, Tony understood that this was the last chance that he’d done nothing to deserve.

_____

Then the sudden, unexpected and undetected appearance of Tony Stark in his hospital room, startled Peter fiercely enough to relinquish the stickiness of his fingertips and send his phone clattering to the ground.

Peter hadn’t even thought to arm himself with his spidey-sense, and the needling in his nerves had him regretting his vulnerability and lack of preparation.

“Hey there Pete, can I talk to you for a minute?” Tony sounded distracted, peeking his head out the door like he was checking if the coast was clear before turning back to Peter, piercing sincerity and urgency rendering him dumbstruck.

Peter nodded, not feeling like he had any other options. His messy collage of complicated thoughts and feelings about Tony Stark, Pepper Potts, and just - all of it - gave a foreboding gurgle deep within him, like plumbing that was right on the edge of catastrophic failure.

“Are you going to get deja vu if I tell you that I’m sorry?”

Panic and paralysis fueled and fed off each other, leaving a slithering, pulsating parasite that he was powerless to fight. Peter eyed his phone, looking miles away on the floor, and wondered when his dad had sent the message about being back, and fervently willing him to return now to rescue him.

Tony plowed on, even though Peter remained strickenly mute.

“There’s a couple shipping containers full of things I’m sorry for, Pete. So many that I can’t pick a place to start. I could go alphabetically, chronologically, best to worst…”

Any humor Tony was trying to inject fell flat, but as Tony Stark is wont to do, he plugged away with whatever shitty, futile explanation that he was trying to piece together. Peter glowered at the man, unable to decide who he hated more; Tony, for dangling the promise of family in front of his face, or himself for believing it wouldn’t be yanked out of his grasp the moment he dared reach for it.

It was tempting to just scream. To drown out the meaningless platitudes with the depth and breadth of his sorrow. To be heard for once, instead of yet again being another face in the crowd of the Tony Stark Apology Tour. To show Tony the black storm that thundered from his bones instead of feebly trying to assign words to how angry, hurt, rejected, and stupid he felt. The struggle manifested as a trembling in his clenched jaw, sending his grinding teeth chattering destructively.

“...I guess what I’m trying to say, Underoos…” Peter’s head snapped up at the nickname that now sounded more akin to a taunt. He’d forgotten that Tony was still speaking at all. “I’m trying to tell you that I understand that I’ve been a coward, and that I didn’t choose you when it mattered, or protect you, despite my best intentions—”

The ugly scoff-slash-bark that wrenched free from Peter was so unfamiliar, he hardly recognized it as his own. It was like he physically couldn’t bear to listen any longer to the thin, tedious reasons why he was never, and could never be, a real Stark.

To hear Tony have the outrageous audacity to claim that his “best intentions” were to protect Peter, when Peter was constantly the figure to be protected from, snapped something deep and foundational inside Peter. Something he hadn’t recognized was in danger of failing.

“I can’t. Don’t. How can you?” Outrage bottlenecked what he wanted to say before his bleary eyes focused on Tony’s struck, helpless expression, mouth agape and unsure what further damage to brace for. It was a pose that Peter was intimately familiar with, and seeing it mimicked by Tony sent a loud shatter of clarity reverberating down to his bones.

Tony Stark does what he wants to do. If he wanted to protect you, he would. He’s shown the lengths he’s willing to go, the mountains he’s willing to move, the accepted laws and knowledge of TIME that he’s willing to break. And yes, at one point, those were the measures he would go to for you. But it’s been a long time since he’s chosen you, and why should you hold onto one gesture - no matter how laws of time and space shattering it was - when he’s proven unfailingly that when push comes to shove, you are a threat to be neutralized. Not family. Never family.

“I don’t give a fuck about your best intentions!” Peter wasn’t sure if he would be able to contain this destructive force. And he wasn’t sure if he wanted to. How many times had he bent himself to a new breaking point to meet the elusive terms and conditions Tony set?

“Please, don’t try to convince either of us, even for a second, that your so-called “best intentions” were to protect me. I’ve tried really, really hard to figure out what you want from me, this whole time.” Peter gesticulated wildly, uncaring of the stitches that pulled uncomfortably taut on his back. “Even back when I met you the first time. I’ve just been trying to figure out what you wanted. And… and. To. Be. That.”

A mirthless laugh fell from him, symptomatic of Peter’s helpless resignation. His efforts to avoid crying were to no avail, and the pain he felt from trying to hold back his tears was too great.

“I gave up who I was. For you. Because you asked me to. I thought that I could make myself into what you needed me to be, but I can’t seem to figure out what that is! You either treat me like a child or an adult to fit whatever narrative you need on any given day. Am I too dangerous to be around your kids or am I not ready to be Spider-Man again yet? Am I your kid or am I an Avenger? You’ve made it clear that I can’t be both. Do you actually trust me or do you just need me to take care of your kids? Am I your kid or your babysitter? I can’t do this anymore! I’m sick and tired of trying to figure out what you want.”

It was probably the most he’d ever managed to yell at someone, which corresponded exactingly with the grip he’d lost on himself. And Tony’s wide-eyed, frozen posture in the face of his outburst, gave him a swell of satisfaction. Peter, by nature, was not the type of person who thrived in having power over others, but his complete and utter lack of control in his life had him savoring this first scrap of authority. Even if that authority came hand-in-hand with the complete emotional fracture that split him in two.

“I get it, I really do. May dumped me on you, just like my parents dumped me on her. I just thought… I’d hoped… I wanted to be your kid. Because I saw you as my dad, completely. But you’re not, and you don’t want me to be your kid. At least not on the same level as Morgan and Miles. And I get that too. I’m turning 17 this year. I don’t need the same kind of attention as your real kids, but…” Peter trailed off, embarrassed heat making his already wet face an even deeper shade of red, he was sure. Even in the torrential storm of his worst agonies, he couldn’t bring himself to express how much he needed Tony to be his dad, and how profoundly let down he’d been.

“What’s going on here?” Rhodey burst into the room, briskly assessing the situation. Peter was sure it was a sight to behold. Himself, panting through his steady stream of tears, black resentment carved on his face. Tony, who looked as though he’d witnessed an explosion up close and then had been frozen in time.

At seeing Rhodey, a piece of Peter clicked into place and he felt cloaked in protection. How long had he seen Rhodey as a buffer between himself and Tony Stark?

Vaguely through his upset, Peter heard Rhodey ask Tony sharply what he’d said to Peter before launching into a vicious admonishment for “doing the exact opposite of what I asked.” Tony shook from his frozen cocoon to defend himself, replying that he hadn’t said anything, and that Peter had done all the talking.

Peter flinched back, feeling small and humiliated in the hospital bed. The implications of his outburst collided head-on with the reality of his situation, living and family-wise, and he wanted nothing more than to curl into a ball under the sheets to shield himself.

When it became apparent that Tony was raring for an argument, his sniping comments at Rhodey shot steadily, and Peter was immensely grateful when Rhodey grabbed Tony by his prosthetic arm and yanked him out of the room, and that gratitude strengthened when, through the static of a threatened sensory overload, Rhodey snapped at Tony to shut up until they were somewhere they could talk freely.

Rhodey’s appearance and rescue left Peter feeling acutely relieved, in the same way he felt relief after narrowly escaping a gunshot. Pinpricks of adrenaline let him know that he wasn’t quite numb and as he began to calm, the aching pains in his body returned in full force.

How could he have been so stupid to yell at Tony like that when living with the man was his only option? Sure, it was wonderful, warm and even therapeutic to think about Rhodey being his dad and going back with him, that headcanon only existed within him. It was not rooted in reality. Aside from Rhodey’s response that he was honored by the title (which Peter took as a jest at best), he couldn’t imagine that Rhodey wanted to be saddled with the responsibility of a whole-ass teenager.

So while he was busy actively mashing the self-destruct button with no contingency plan for himself, Peter was also putting Rhodey in the impossible position to let him down gently. Once Rhodey realized how attached Peter had actually gotten, and just how much Peter wanted him to be his parent, the inevitable, politely-worded rejection would come, delivered deftly with regretful eyes and an unbearable amount of pity.

And then what would Peter be left with? Living as a cast-off of the Stark family? Still present in their home, but only taking up space there. Not belonging, not part of what made up their family. Two happy parents with two energetic, smiling kids. With some ill-fitting, enhanced teenager in the fringes because they were not the type of people to get rid of him, despite the dark clouds he brought to their doorstep.

Any of the positivity Peter had gleaned previously from having MJ back in his life suddenly, and the animated conversations with Ned about the increasingly complex plans for things they needed to do as a group, was twisted and wrung from him by the altercation with Tony.

His phone remained where it had fallen to the floor. Previously, Peter recalled desperately wishing for its return, needing to know when Rhodey would be back, but being so paralyzed by Tony’s sudden appearance that he didn’t even think of retrieving it.

Now, he just stared absently at it, unable to conjure enough of a reason to need it back. What was the point when he kept self-destructing?

_____

In the aftermath of dragging Tony away from Peter, unbridled fury fueled Rhodey like a flame on high. Finally, when they were in a suitably obscure area, where Rhodey could say everything he needed, he turned on Tony and let loose.

Gloves had been shucked. Rules and courtesies had been left in the dust. Ugly things had been said.

“So you want me to just scribble my name on some papers and get rid of him? Just like May did? Yeah, great idea there Colonel Rhodes. Best idea I’ve heard since Banner used Lang to screw around with time travel.”

“Don’t twist my words and definitely count me out from your pity extravaganza. I’m not the bad guy here Stark.”

“No, that’s me, right? I know I’m not perfect, but that doesn’t give you the right to take my child. Why would you take another father figure away from Pete, huh?"

“You did that all on your own Tony. Just like the old days, I’m coming back to fix the disaster you’ve left behind. I really should have taken Peter a long time ago. Back when he could have died because you didn’t know “your child” had severe asthma.”

“The kid has superpowers, Rhodes! Was I supposed to handle him with little kid gloves like Miles and rush to the doctor when he sneezes?”

“Kid. Tony. You just said it yourself. Peter is a kid. And that kid needed a parent. And those superpowers you’re using for your sorry-ass defense? You stole those from him, so your argument? It’s shit.”

“How many times are we going to rehash my biggest mistake? Do you want me to get the Iron Legion out there to spell it out in the sky? I’m sure I can hack into some major networks and broadcast my crimes and my apologies. I know that I fucked up, and that it was risky, and that it could have been a disaster, and that I broke Banner’s trust, and that it hurt Peter.”

“You deserve to have your nose shoved in this shit as long as it takes you to see how much damage you caused by being a coward. You’re lucky Tony. So goddamned lucky that Peter’s powers came back at all. You’re lucky he had them when he saved your family, because you and I both know he would have thrown himself between them and that bus, powers or no powers. Peter would protect you and everyone else from danger, and he wouldn’t care about how much it cost him, because that’s the kind of kid he is. You’ve been lucky to have Peter Parker in your life, but I don’t think you notice how lucky you are. Every second I get to spend with that kid, I count my lucky stars.”

“Congratulations on the high horse there, Rhodes. What’s her name?”

“Can you take anything serious? For once in your life, can you act like an adult and do the right thing? Don’t keep Peter from me because you’re pissed that you screwed up and I called you on it. Don’t deny Peter what he deserves because you can’t accept the fact that you aren’t what’s best for him. I’m fed up with waiting for you to open your eyes and see the amazing kid sitting right in front of you.”

Rhodey seethed and Tony bristled. The atmosphere between them fizzed and popped electrically, charged with the overloaded tension of two men who were unwilling to yield in the face of the other.

If Bruce hadn’t shown up, white coat billowing and a tablet that looked like a smartphone in his hand, Rhodey wasn’t sure how far they would have gone with the blows they were dealing to one another. Which one would have dealt the killing blow.

They’d fought before, with armor and suits, not words. But none of those strikes had contained even a fraction of the viciousness of this discussion - if he could even call it a discussion, with all the hostility and ill-will.

But Bruce had shown up, and while he didn’t exactly look alarmed, the furrowed creases on his face indicated deep worry. And then Pepper appeared too, her usual strong presence looking almost comically small next to the new Bruce Banner.

“Pep, Brucey, what happened?” He heard Tony croak.

_____

In terms of life’s turning points, there were more than a couple that Tony Stark could point to as groundbreaking or pivotal. He would go as far as to hazard a guess that he had more than most people on this planet and the universe.

Only a handful of those moments altered his very foundation, and even fewer left him as angry and distrustful of himself as he was of another. The closest comparison he could draw was learning that his parents’ deaths had been at the cold metal hand of the Winter Soldier - Bucky - and that Steve had known, choosing to protect his old war buddy and plunge a rusty dagger in Tony's back in the same swift motion.

Anger at people he loved (yeah yeah, he did love Steve Rogers and consider him family)? Check.

Anger at himself for putting himself in the position to be horribly betrayed? Check.

This, however. Sitting in a nondescript conference room with his wife, the man he’d once considered closer than a brother, and the leading (only) candidate for biggest and greenest gamma radiation scholar, listening to the gruesome consequences of his illicit idea, and witnessing secrets and betrayals crawl out from some dark underbelly. This was somehow worse than that Siberian bunker, suit reduced to junk metal, cold from the weather and freezing from the betrayal.

“I wanted to talk about Pete’s recovery.”

Still aggravated from his venomous tête-à-tête with Rhodey, he immediately protested and tried to argue that Rhodey had no place there since this was a conversation for Peter’s family. The radioactive green flash from Bruce’s eyes and veins had shut him up in a hurry. Pepper played mediator and said that Rhodey cared about Peter too, so he should be here, and Tony wasn’t eager to argue with her cool, deceptively sharp tone. Momentarily, he pondered who he would be more terrified of in a head-to-head - angry science Hulk or angry Pepper Potts. Either match up was a KO lost battle for him, so he guessed the scenario was moot.

“Dr. Cho and I have been tracking Peter’s condition incredibly closely, because, as you know, most of his treatment is guesswork. Despite the recent research we’ve done on his mutations, there’s more that we don’t know than what we do know about Peter’s DNA and how it affects his system.”

Tony noticed how Bruce also tensed at the “recent research,” and another tendril of guilt crept along his veins.

“You may have noticed that Peter isn’t healing from his injuries at the same rate we observed back when we ran some initial tests in 2016. While his healing is still marginally accelerated compared to someone unenhanced, it isn’t anywhere near what we’ve witnessed previously. I’m talking gashes sealing up as he explained what happened. Scratches that disappear in the time it takes to wipe away the blood.”

Was it odd to feel nostalgic over remembering Peter explaining away the seriousness of being “lightly stabbed” when he dropped by the tower to see if he could get his suit mended before going back on patrol the next night? It would have been nice to reminisce with Rhodey about the time he’d called to loudly vent his frustrations about a reckless spider-boy who said things like “lightly stabbed.” But that was from a different time, and they were different people now.

“There’s no doubt that Pete’s DNA shielded him from the worst of the bus collision, but his injuries, even those less severe, are lingering far longer than we would have anticipated from our previous data. Now, I’ve tested some of his other enhancements to see if they were lagging as well, but his strength, hearing, sight, and stickiness seem to be running on all cylinders.”

Tony swallowed back a sickly tang as he recalled putting Peter through tests, treating him like a lab rat in a maze, a science experiment reduced to numbers and measurements.

“While it’s impossible for Dr. Cho and I to be certain, we do have some theories about what’s going on. It could be that the impact from the bus was much greater than we thought, so he’s taking longer to recover from injuries that are more severe. It could be that as Peter is growing and maturing into an adult that his enhancements are changing along with him, just not at a steady rate. He could have some sort of spider-power growth spurt, or lose some powers and others could emerge. We just have to wait and see.”

Then Bruce hesitated, looking down at his tablet ruefully before catching Tony’s eye. Tony shriveled under the knowing, despaired look. Tony wished he could just plug his ears and yell at the top of his lungs. Or maybe FRIDAY could sound a fire alarm just in this conference room so that he didn’t have to hear what was to come.

“I ran some blood tests and found traces of the substance that was used to suppress Peter’s mutated DNA. While it’s been a few months since he’s received an injection, and the efficacy of the substance was determined to be around 15-20 days, it is possible for Peter to still have some in his system. The substance, everything from its creation to its purpose, was highly experimental. My theory, which Dr. Cho also said was likely, is that since we had to administer the injection into Peter’s iliac crest to ensure maximum effectiveness, that it is just taking longer for some components of the substance to run their course and exit his system.”

Even when he’d announced to a room full of reporters and news cameras that he was Iron Man, Tony hadn’t felt this scrutinized. It was becoming difficult to breathe and if there was still an arc reactor embedded in his chest, he would have thought it was malfunctioning. The sensations mirrored each other.

Guilt slammed into him like a massive tree trunk. Regret strung him up and dangled him over a mountain ledge. Self-loathing boiled him alive from the inside out.

Rhodey’s desire to pounce and sink his claws into him was no secret, but Bruce murmured that he wasn’t done talking and Rhodey tersely sat back, his murderous face directed anywhere but at Tony, but meant for him all the same.

“The plan is to retest his blood at regular intervals, so we can determine whether the toxicity levels are going down and at what rate. With that information, we can have a better idea of whether his stunted healing is from the substance, or from another causal factor. It is our hope that once Peter’s system is clear, that his healing will ramp back up. But, as I’m sure you’re aware, there aren’t any guarantees when we are dealing with this many unknowns.”

With a worryingly stern grip, Bruce lowered his tablet, indicating that he’d said everything he needed to say.

To distract himself from his own little corner of the universe folding in on itself like a scrap of newspaper on a rainy day, Tony considered how off-putting it was to hear him speak so clinically about a topic that was so personal and controversial.

Maybe there was a degree of that undiscerning “Hulk smash” preserved in Bruce after all.

Whatever spiteful anger flared inwardly for Tony appeared to pale in comparison with Rhodey’s animosity. When Rhodey stood up sharply, the leg braces clicked in protest, clearly being pushed beyond their capabilities. Another problem he’d caused, Tony lamented. He restlessly sat his forehead in his fingers and waited for the well-deserved lambasting.

“Quick question, Tones, Were you so short-sighted about stripping Peter’s powers that you didn’t consider long-term physical effects of illegal human experimentation? Or did you anticipate something like this happening and just not bother caring about Peter’s health?”

Tony didn’t bother to brace himself against the barbed toxic accusations, nor did he have the will to argue against them. The loaded term “illegal human experimentation” sounded like a dramatic over exaggeration, but he couldn’t spot any inaccuracies to bolster his defense.

“I just can’t even begin to see what possessed you to go to such extremes. At any point, did you stop and think that you were going too far? When you had to literally stab him in the back, what about then? Was that worth whatever “greater good” you had in mind? How about when the kid’s muscles atrophied or when he needed glasses again? That wasn’t alarming to you? Just another pesky inconvenience Peter would have to live with as a result of your warped sense of protection?”

Pepper and Bruce were silent bystanders in Rhodey’s condemnation. It seemed fitting that he was the only one standing, as his outrage for Peter was making Tony feel shrunken and shriveled. Too weak to protest and beg Rhodey to give him a break because he understood the extent of his fuck-up. Unable to protect himself from the incoming attack, because Rhodey’s ammunition was stocked.

“Or what about the time that Peter could have suffocated and died from an asthma attack because you were too self-centered to consider that maybe the kid had some health conditions before being bitten by a radioactive spider? I could go on, really, but all the evidence points to you being an asshole or a coward. I’m not sure which is worse.”

“All Tony wanted was to protect his family,” Pepper pitched in, voice soft in tone but strong in conviction. “After he accidentally hurt Morgan, we both decided it was reasonable to bind Peter’s powers for a time while the risk was higher. Peter would never hurt them on purpose, but the consequences of him making a mistake weren’t nearly as bad if he didn’t have powers.” She didn’t rise to meet Rhodey’s aggressive stance, but Pepper had donned the airs that made her a formidable woman.

“Peter was part of that family, or at least he wanted to be.” Rhodey lowered his volume to match hers, but danger still lurked with each enunciation. “Tony dangled the prospect of being part of the family in front of Peter to convince him to go through with it. Did he tell you that? Probably not, because even after Peter sacrificed his health and wellbeing, he told me he still didn’t feel good enough to be part of your family.”

Pepper was silent for a beat, and Tony recognized the signs of her gathering and steeling herself, much the way she did when she made a final offer to a billion-dollar corporation.

But whatever lethal response she was preparing to deploy was lost when FRIDAY sounded, startling them all from their cloistered discussion.

“Boss, there is a visitor in Peter’s medbay quarters. Miss Bishop from Essex County Child Protective Services.”

“What the hell is she doing here?” Tony demanded incredulously, pulling out his phone to see who had allowed an unauthorized presence on the medbay floor. Peter’s identity could be at stake, along with a whole dumpster fire of additional implications - Illegal human experimentation, being one.

He tried to convince himself that there was no reasonable way this strange person could know anything about that, but Rhodey’s words were haunting. Much the way a child might fear the police and prison after mistakenly taking something without paying.

“About damn time they follow up on my call.” Rhodey said. Both Tony and Pepper turned sharply to face him in the same instant. Just as he prepared to launch an angry attack, backed by all the anger and resentment pumping through his veins, he was stopped in his tracks, Pepper having spoken first.

“You were the one who called them?”

Whatever remained of Tony’s crumbling footing disintegrated, sending him into a freefall at terminal velocity without hope for rescue.

_____

“Hi Peter,” the unfamiliar voice caused him to bristle. He knew every single voice on this floor by now. And this voice didn’t belong.

“My name is Carry Bishop, and I’m a representative from the Child Protective Services Department in Essex County.” Fine hairs rose from the nape of his neck. She looked like the very opposite of a threat, but his body was physically reacting like she was the return of the Vulture.

“It’s so nice to meet you finally,” she said sweetly, setting down her leather briefcase and sitting down in the chair next to his bed without invitation. His phone still lay on the floor, and he wished achingly for his web shooters so he could save himself.

“I’ve spoken to your mom a couple of times now and she’s told me so many wonderful things about you.”

Chapter Text

“I’ve spoken to your mom a couple of times now and she’s told me so many wonderful things about you.”

Alarm and confusion warred for dominance and Peter felt too depleted to form a single coherent thought. Mom?

What was social services even doing here? Was this about the guardianship transfer from May to Tony? That was so long ago, it felt even further in the past than a ferry splitting in two. Maybe he’d just gotten that adept at burying the slithering discomforts of how she said they weren’t going to be family anymore.

“I’ve been hoping to hear from you, but I understand that calling a social worker can fall pretty far down the list of fun things to do for teenagers,” Carry continued, appearing either unaware or unbothered by his silent panic. She expressed her regret about his accident and relief that he was okay, and Peter’s inward panic swarmed away from the f-word (family), and made a beeline toward his powers and identity.

The draining adrenaline of having yelled at Tony and familiar fears of what this woman knew, how much she knew, whether or not she could be trusted, among others, had every cell in his body buzzing.

“If you don’t mind, Peter, I’d like to ask you a couple of questions. Just so I can close out my case and you can get back to resting,” she said smoothly. He was sure that her warm, honeyed tone was almost irresistible to younger children in the foster system.

Back when he’d been a newly orphaned child, a very similar iteration of the woman in front of him had come to May and Ben’s apartment, and she’d been just as sweet and comforting to him, providing something of a beacon in the whirlwind confusion of his parents never coming back and the supposed-to-be-secret arguments between Uncle Ben and May about keeping him or not.

“Why are you here?” Peter asked, guarded and suspicious despite her disarming demeanor. “Miss Bishop,” he appended, bending to his deeply ingrained manners. The fight with Tony left him gunshy and raw. Tony had come in spouting “best intentions,” so how could he be sure that Carry Bishop from Child Protective Services was here in his best interest?

“You can call me Carry.” And Carry didn’t look offended at his apprehension, and if anything, only made herself a safer and more approachable figure.

“I’m here to make sure that your living situation with the Starks is safe, supportive, and healthy.” Peter wanted to blurt out “zero for three,” bitterly, but thought better of it. Saying something like that would require far too much follow up.

“How have things been for you while living with Mr. and Mrs. Stark?”

“Ms. Potts,” this knee-jerk response, Peter did say aloud. Carry looked at him quizzically, and Peter wondered if he’d already said the wrong thing.

“Is that what you refer to them as when you’re at home? Mr. Stark and Ms. Potts?” She asked sweetly, as though it wasn’t a loaded question.

“Um, no… I,” Peter stammered, trying to sort out the complexities of the whole Mr. Stark - Tony - Dad - slash Ms. Potts - Pepper - never Mom - situation while not waiting too long to respond, because wasn’t that damning? But the words refuse to come. At least not in a language he can communicate.

Thankfully, Carry relieved him from his struggle. “It’s okay, Peter. You don’t have to answer anything you’re not comfortable with.” She put down the leather portfolio that she’d had ready, poised to take notes within. “It’s just a conversation between you and me, okay?”

Peter nodded, some of the massive weight removed from his chest. Though he was aware that it was still going to be the same questions, the same interrogation, despite her reassurances, it helped to not witness her scribbling down notes about every potentially revealing word he said and what he revealed with his hesitance.

“Can you tell me a bit about living with the Starks? Is your home with them safe and supportive? Do you feel comfortable expressing yourself around them?”

Peter winced, hating the physical reaction, but unable to suppress it. Another complex question with a tangled snarl or a complex answer. Well, the answer was actually simple: no. But the reasoning was far from what Carry would probably expect from a child who didn’t feel safe and supported in their home. He gave a noncommittal shrug before settling on a nod. He had a sneaking suspicion that if she had her pen and paper at hand, that she would be scribbling furiously.

“How have your guardians been helping you catch back up to speed with your schoolwork?”

At this question, Peter nearly groaned in exasperation. Why did every question have to be so damn hard? And how did she know about his dumpster-fire GPA? It felt invasive, but Peter guessed that her job was to ask the invasive questions, no matter how “conversational” she claimed it would be.

What could he even say? Tony had screamed, punished, and belittled him for his academic failures. Rhodey had supported him and worked right by his side to help him do better. The memories of him and Rhodey having their “homework hangouts” (lamely coined by Rhodey), were too comforting to dismiss.

Even though it wasn’t the direct question Carry asked, Peter found himself fondly recounting how Rhodey worked with him diligently to make sure he had the resources to reach his potential. The support, rather than judgement. The company while he worked on a long set of lab notes or an assignment of 10 math problems that each had 10 sub-questions, and how they would always celebrate after he finished a big assignment or ace a test.

Peter was helpless against the authentic smile that graced his face. It was relieving when the social worker was smiling right back at him, instead of asking him why he was talking about anyone but his legal guardians.

“Your Uncle Rhodey sounds like a wonderful person to have in your life.”

“I wish he was my dad—”

Peter blanched, feeling the blood drain downward as though someone had pulled a plug. How had he said that out loud? Frenzied panic rebounded inside his skull, and Peter instantly started backtracking, wondering how he could twist and sculpt that admission into something palatable.

Carry raised both of her hands in a calming gesture, interrupting him with words he was sure were meant to placate, but nothing that he could hear over his frantic, stilted explanations.

“Peter, it’s okay,” she finally broke through. “You don’t have to apologize or defend anything. It is always great to have additional father figures in your life to love and support you.”

Peter wilted at what was supposed to be a comforting statement. Desperately, he ached to correct her that he wished Rhodey was his dad instead of Tony, not in addition to him.

Swiftly, she pivoted to the next question, and Peter wasn’t sure if he was relieved to move on, or disappointed that she didn’t push further and tell him that Rhodey should be his dad.

“How are things with your younger siblings? Do you get along with them?”

This question was something that Peter could answer with little-to-no difficulty. Finally. He talked about playing with Morgan, feeding Miles and doing tummy time when he was just a newborn. How he loved watching Miles learn new things and teaching Morgan some of his favorite rites of passage from childhood. Peter barely glanced over their “rough patch,” mentioning off-handedly that all siblings had disagreements (though declining to mention how it started with him breaking her arm and her being afraid of him - and how Tony and Pepper hadn’t done a thing to come to his defense.)

“We get along really well when I’m babysitting,” he concluded, feeling confident and accomplished in his answer.

After a beat, Carry asked him if he babysat a lot, and the confident accomplishment deserted him. It nearly always came back to an argument with Tony, Peter lamented, swallowing an unpleasant tang at the memory of their blowout argument at the dinner table.

He was almost defensive when he said that Tony and Pepper were exceptionally busy and important people, and that it was easier for them to trust him, especially on short notice. Peter didn’t know why he felt the knee-jerk reaction to defend them, especially when he’d been so bitter about their complete reliance on him just days before taking the impact of a bus.

“I’m sure you do an excellent job, Peter.” Carry said, and Peter was beginning to resent her constant reassurances, or rather, that she thought he needed constant reassurances. “I just want to make sure that you have a chance to be a kid too. A lot of older siblings help take care of the younger children, but you deserve to do the things you like as well.”

Peter hated how cleanly she’d hit the bullseye, how he’d argued the same points essentially to Tony when he’d fought to go to Ned’s house. Carry Bishop had been talking to him for maybe fifteen minutes and she saw directly through to his bitter resentment.

Before he could dredge up the beginnings of a defense for Tony and Pepper, the two barged into the room ungracefully, followed closely by a calmer Rhodey.

When Carry turned to look at Tony and Pepper’s intrusion, Peter felt his insides turn to concrete and hid his face behind his hands, remembering his lukewarm answers and wondering what the consequences would be.

The adults all circulated through perfunctory introductions, Pepper and Carry saying how it was nice to meet face-to-face after their conversations, and Carry brightening significantly when Rhodey shook her hand. She said that Peter has had wonderful things to say about him.

Peter’s comfort at Rhodey’s presence was squandered under the implications of having only said great things about Rhodey, and nothing distinctly positive about his actual legal guardians. If there was any celebrity-worship or idolization for meeting Tony Stark, Iron Man, savior-of-the-universe, it had cooled, as she regarded Tony and Pepper formally from what Peter could see through the cage of his fingers.

Carry then explained, in a tone that belied only professionalism, that she was in the middle of asking Peter some questions, before requesting that they wait outside until they were done. When she turned back to him, Peter dropped his hands from his face, worrying that the defensive posture was somehow conveying a message that he didn’t intend.

“Peter, are you doing okay? Do you need a break?” The sweet inflection that reminded him of warm syrup on a cold day was back in an instant. Even though he did want a break, and he was tired beyond comprehension, and his damned phone was still forgotten on the floor, Peter muttered that he was okay.

Rhodey, Pepper, and Tony all turned to leave the room, each showing different degrees of reluctance. But before Rhodey left, Peter caught his eye and mutely pleaded for comfort. As if he’d spoken his request explicitly, Rhodey gave him the reassuring nod, eyes filled to the brim with support and belief. And then Rhodey noticed what no other adult had, that Peter’s phone was abandoned on the floor, far out of reach.

Rhodey retrieved the phone and returned it to Peter, and Peter was almost embarrassed by how relieved he was to have it back in his possession.

Peter focused on Rhodey’s comfort instead of the twitchy, nervous manner in which Tony left the hospital room, sputtering about how he’d be close if Peter needed him, and that he still wasn’t sure who even let Carry Bishop into the tower, nevertheless the medbay floor.

Rhodey guided Tony out of the room with a hand planted between his shoulder blades before closing the door behind them and leaving Peter along with the social worker once more.

_____

Tony had been eerily silent as he, Pepper, Bruce, and Rhodey all rushed to the medbay floor in the tower after FRIDAY’s announcement of a surprise social worker.

Rhodey had been certain after Pepper’s pointed accusation that he’d placed the initial call in with Child Protective Services that Tony would have at least something to say to either himself or Pepper, but the man had opted for haste instead of verbal jabs (highly uncharacteristic, Rhodey considered).

As Rhodey followed, with all the speed and none of the frenetic energy, he considered how blindsided that Tony looked, confusion etched deeply into the lines of his face that differed from the anxious, dread-filled expression that Pepper wore. It was definitely worth noting that Pepper had been the first to react to the news, not Tony.

The call he’d placed to Child Protective Services was months in the past now, and while he’d never forgotten it, he had tried to take matters of Peter’s well-being into his own hands. Rhodey couldn’t place his full trust in the system when it came to dealing with the fame, money, and influence of the Stark name. Still, it gave him a reviving breath to see concrete proof that someone outside of their influence was looking into Peter’s welfare.

By the time the woman, politely, yet curtly introduced herself and requested (read; ordered) them out of Peter’s room, Rhodey was so concerned about Peter - how fraught, distraught, and confused he looked - that he’d all but forgotten his simmering conflict with Tony and Pepper.

Simmering didn’t even begin to cover Tony’s demeanor though, and he thought if Bruce hadn’t forcefully guided them away from Peter’s quarters with his sheer size and strength, that the man would have started yelling right then and there.

Rhodey was accustomed to Tony’s belligerence, but not when the man was sober, and not when the vitriol was aimed so pointedly at him. Tony yelled and refused to go back to his personal quarters in the tower at Bruce’s request, emphasizing his refusal to leave Peter all by himself. Tony must have caught Rhodey’s incidental sneer, because he hooked onto Rhodey’s presence and turned up the heat on his fury.

It was easy to dodge the haphazardly thrown fist, but it was only the start of Tony’s eruption.

“This was your plan, the whole time! You lying, scheming son of a bitch!” Bruce inserted himself between Rhodey and Tony, placing a buffer to prevent the obvious intent of physical violence.

Rhodey stayed stoic, taking in the accusation, but not showing any reaction. He didn’t quite understand what he was being accused of, but Tony was quick to let him in on the secret.

“You never wanted me to have Peter. You waited until last week to tell me that you wanted custody, but you called fucking CPS months ago to take him away from me! How could you be so selfish to take one of my kids? You know all I did to get Peter back. What I went through when he was gone. And you still try to steal him away from me? You were right Rhodes, we aren’t brothers and we aren’t friends. I can’t be around someone who tries to take my son from me.”

Every jagged allegation rankled him, sliding under his skin with ease. But while it was gloriously tempting to strike back with equal or greater venom, Rhodey’s oculus was actually cleared for the first time in a long while. Tony’s claims couldn’t hurt him, because he was lashing out in response to his own actions and insecurities.

“You’re right, I did call CPS a few months ago.” He replied, as smooth and solid as marble. “I called because I thought you were being reckless with Peter’s health and wellbeing and wanted to make sure someone was looking out for the kid since you kicked me out of your life for calling you on your bullshit.”

The temptation to escalate things bubbled just under the surface. It was an itch he couldn’t scratch, because unlike Tony at the moment, Rhodey was anything but shortsighted.

“What I don’t get, Tones, is why you’re attacking me when it’s your wife who knew about CPS, but clearly never told you anything. I made that call,” he pondered outwardly, “four months ago? Before Peter came to live with me. I don’t know when they followed up, but how long do you think she’s been hiding this from you?”

Like an angry bull, Rhodey saw Tony double down on his rage.

“I always looked out for that kid.” Tony grumbled, low and dangerous, appearing to disregard his comment about Pepper in favor of the attack on his parenting. “I may not have been perfect, but you know I’ve always loved Peter. How could you do this to me? Go behind my back? Put my family in danger? Put Peter in danger! Whatever grudge you have against me could blow his identity.”

Tony’s upset was building in strength, threatening to turn into an all-encompassing force. Rhodey thought back to all of the arguments and disagreements they’ve had about Peter, all of the insults hurled, unpleasant truths bared, and familial bonds severed. He didn’t want this to end in that exact same scenario.

Not for himself, and not for Tony or Pepper; but for Peter. Peter deserved peace after the convoluted rollercoaster he’d been trapped on (and to think, that didn’t include the trip to space). Manipulation, gaslighting, neglect, emotional abandonment, and what - in its very definition - was physical abuse, all from the man who Rhodey knew that Peter had placed every ounce of his remaining trust and love when May transferred guardianship. Well, from the man and his wife, who, the more Rhodey analyzed the situation, pulled more strings than he’d anticipated.

Making a conscious decision to push down the hissing swarm of allegations, blame, and attacks in his chest, Rhodey thought only of Peter, evened his keel, and tried to talk Tony down.

“Tony, I don’t doubt how much you love Peter. At one point, you two were great for each other.” Tony’s fraught eyes widened, as though he’d forgotten about that bit of his and Peter’s history. “But too much has happened, and I don’t think it’s possible for you two to ever recover and get back the relationship that you’re envisioning. And pushing for it is unfair to both of you.”

Those fraught eyes turned red and glassy, and it had been several years since Rhodey had seen Tony Stark look so helpless. When he got off that ship, the first thing he said was that he lost the kid. It wasn’t a stretch to imagine the same thought repeating in Tony’s head in this situation.

“I never wanted to hurt him.” The admission was small, but dense. For a moment, Rhodey dared to hope that he could be making headway. He didn’t want to break whatever momentum Tony may have, so he only nodded, encouraging him to continue.

“He was always good, but you know that. This whole time, we kept telling ourselves - telling Peter - that he made a mistake, and that was why he… why I needed him to give up his powers. I told him it was to protect him, just as much as it was to protect the family. But Pete never made a mistake. He saved Morgan from falling and all we could focus on was her broken arm.”

Tony was staring intently at Rhodey while he spoke, but Rhodey wasn’t sure if he was speaking to anyone specifically. He may have started out talking to Rhodey, but by the end his voice had taken on a wispy quality, like perhaps he was speaking directly from his heart instead of filtering through his sarcastic bravado.

“When I told Pete it was to protect him; I wasn’t lying about that.” Tony twitched under an invisible agitation. His previous belligerence was gone without a trace now. Rhodey wondered if Bruce was still in the vicinity, along with Pepper, but he couldn’t risk looking away from Tony, not in the state of vulnerable candor.

“Pepper, she… She was afraid for our children, and I didn’t comfort her or get her the help she needed. She didn’t want Peter to be enhanced around Morgan and Miles, and I- I didn’t argue it. How could I? I’d already chosen to leave her, our daughter, and our unborn child behind to save Peter, and justified it by saying that it was for the entire universe. I couldn’t lose Peter and I couldn’t lose my family. I just wanted to protect Peter from how Pepper felt - how scared she was. He didn’t deserve it, but Pepper needed to feel safe.”

As Tony’s glossy eyes wandered out of focus, and Rhodey heard the sharp intake of breath from somewhere in his peripherals, it became clear that Tony had been overcome by whatever wrought demons he wrestled with, and this was him laying the truth bare, not an argument any longer.

“You did it for your family,” Pepper supplemented, rather unhelpfully. Tony wasn’t sold, though she did break through his fugue state.

“I wanted Peter to be my family too. But you never wanted that.” Tony snapped back to awareness, pivoting to address his wife. Rhodey acknowledged the leaden knot of regret in his gut, recognizing how severe the brewing conflict was between the pair.

“Did you even want to take Peter in after May came to us?” Tony asked with sour suspicion.

And Pepper was silent for a beat too long.

“Peter is not a bad kid, I know that.” Pepper said, but everything on Tony’s face screamed “too little, too late.”

“Pep, can you give us some space?” Rhodey interjected himself, physically stepping in front of Tony and placing his hand directly over the spot where his arc reactor used to sit. It wasn’t that he feared that Tony would react physically to Pepper, but rather, based on how Tony looked as though a bomb had dropped at the very center of his beliefs, Rhodey grasped for his opportunity.

Pepper complied without protest, her shoes echoing a rushed cadence down the warmly lit corridor.

“Tony… Hey Tones,” Rhodey kept his hand in place, attempting to ground the man. The wild thrum of Tony’s heart beat a rut into his palm and he was growing concerned in light of the man’s recent heart attack. It took another three times of calling his name, but Tony’s anger and panic did eventually yield.

What was left behind of Tony Stark looked hollow and withered, a jack o’ lantern the last week of November. It pained Rhodey to see him so utterly destroyed, and years of being Tony’s keeper nearly spurred him to action to try and fix the man, the habit so deeply ingrained in him.

But, as Rhodey had stated so blatantly, in this same conversation somehow, things were different. They were different. Too much had happened. And now, Rhodey was looking out for someone else.

His actions reeked of selfishness, Rhodey thought with a twinge of guilt. He was taking advantage of a collapse of trust between Tony and Pepper, swooping in when Tony was shell shocked and vulnerable to request (for the last time before he demanded) that Tony willingly sign over custody.

Right now, Peter needed someone to be selfish with his best intentions in mind. Too many adults had let Peter down by being selfish and seeing the kid’s best intentions as an unfortunate-yet-necessary casualty. May, Tony, Pepper - the foundation of trust that Peter was supposed to feel safe falling back on, was nothing more than shredded segments of a net, ends frayed and weather-worn.

Once the worst of Tony’s panic attack had receded, Rhodey sat on the decorative coffee table situated directly facing the couch where he’d helped his friend take a stilted fall when he could no longer hold him upright.

“Tony, I know you want what’s best for Peter,” he started, navigating a tightrope between caution and authority. “And I can guarantee you that I want the same. This,” Rhodey gestured between them, “is you and me, working together to give the best kid we know the best life possible. Rhodey and Tony. War Machine and Iron Man.”

Through his devastation, Tony muttered how no one ever listed War Machine before Iron Man. That was when Rhodey knew he was so achingly close. The last hundred meters of a marathon.

“Come on, Tony. I need you to do this with me. Help me give Pete what he deserves. Can you do that?” The desperation was lapping at his ankles, threatening to knock him off his feet with force. “Can you let me be Peter’s parent?”

Tony’s breath hitched for so long that if Dr. Strange had been near, Rhodey would have accused him of tampering with time. Unconsciously, Rhodey held his own breath in time with Tony, and only the tight burning in his chest indicated how long it had been.

He almost gave in, almost asked again, when Tony nodded. It was too surreal to believe at first, so Rhodey confirmed, so hurried in asking again because he was certain the moment would dissolve back into any one of the previous nightmarish clashes they’d had.

Again, Tony nodded, a choked bark wrenching from his throat that Rhodey translated as a yes. And then, Tony’s posture crumpled as he collapsed into body-wracking sobs. The kind of sobs Rhodey witnessed after Tony finally recognized the horrible reality of Thanos’s victory in Wakanda. The same sobs he remembered after Morgan’s complicated birth, wherein he’d been certain he would lose his wife and daughter.

His cries were the sound of great loss, and so Rhodey stayed by his side just a little bit longer to comfort his brother through his heartbreak. He knew that once he got ahold of Peter, that not even a full team of Avengers could pry him away.

Just for now, he would mourn Tony’s loss alongside him.

Chapter Text

“Peter, are you okay? Do you need a minute?”

Peter had no idea how long he’d been lost in his thoughts, silent in response to the one simple question that Carry Bishop had asked him following the departure of Rhodey, Pepper, and Tony. He looked up at the social worker and blinked the dry blurriness out of his eyes.

She didn’t look irritated at his lack of a response. In fact, though he might be imagining it, her presence appeared more inviting and trustworthy now than it did when they first began speaking. However long ago that was.

Peter shook his head, unsure which of her questions he was responding to, as he was still focused on her last query, which he envisioned as a lit stick of dynamite clasped in his hand.

“Peter, are you happy living with the Starks?”

It was a simple yes or no question, not even something that she was immediately demanding a step-by-step proof to explain. No “show your work” prompt or essay question. Just a one question pop-quiz. And Peter feared that the longer he took to answer, the less of a chance he had to give the correct answer.

Yes felt like a dishonest answer, like he would be closing himself in a cell and tossing away the key of his own volition. Yes came with a permanence that he was terrified to consider.

No felt disingenuous too, but damningly so, as he was sure it came with such a messy tangle of complications that he wasn’t sure he could face.

Was he happy? No. Peter could admit that to himself, at least. Was he unhappy though? Sometimes. But the answer grew infinitely more complicated when he considered the things that he was unhappy about, and whether they were worth mentioning to Carry or if they were simply par for the course when it came to issues between guardians and teenagers.

The root causes of his unhappiness may just be normal occurrences that he lacked the knowledge to recognize because of his warped knowledge of family. He could express these things to Carry, and she could look at him incredulously and tell him that all teenagers went through that with their parents.

What would he even complain about?

That Tony told him he couldn’t go to Ned’s because he needed to babysit? It sounded immature and selfish, even in his head. Carry would see what Tony asked of him as reasonable, certainly.

That Tony didn’t want him to go out gallivanting through New York City, meting out his own spidery brand of justice? How could he explain that to Carry? Without Spider-Man, it sounded like Peter just wanted to go out whenever he wanted. With Spider-Man, well, that would certainly open up an unpleasant can of worms. Again, Tony’s skepticism and decision sounded perfectly rational; even the responsible parenting choice. Peter’s argument didn’t hold any water, especially when taking into account his current hospital-bound condition.

Or that time Tony was angry at him for lying about where he was and what he was doing, and their fight culminated in Peter punching his guardian? That was sure to go over like a lead balloon, Peter thought. Parents and teenagers argued all the time. And if anyone sounded like the villain in that story, it was the party who’d thrown the punch, for sure.

Peter scolded himself for even contemplating giving these examples to Carry. They were so banal, so commonplace, that he had no doubt that she would dismiss them without further thought.

You could tell her about how Tony essentially forced you to accept painful, invasive injections of an untested substance that in its very purpose, harmed your health. That sounds like a pretty legitimate complaint there, Parker.

But how was he supposed to explain that to her without revealing Spider-Man and outing himself as enhanced? Not to mention that the allegation he was leveling against Tony - no matter how true - was also severe. Peter didn’t know enough about the law to predict the outcome if he did make that accusation, but his imagination ran wild with possibilities. The most damning possibility involving Morgan and Miles being removed from their home and their parents.

And it was a complicated situation, to boot - why the injections had even come into the picture. How could Peter explain the intricacies to a stranger?

“Peter?” His head snapped up again as he became aware of having withdrawn into his thoughts once more.

But instead of repeating the answer, warning him of the imminent explosion of the dynamite that was impossible to drop, Carry softened.

“It’s okay Peter. I know that it is a very difficult thing to answer.” Peter’s brows furrowed, perplexed because a big chunk of his turmoil was tethered to how simple the question should be. “You don’t have to answer, especially if it makes you uncomfortable. I’ve asked you some hard things today, and you’ve done so well in answering them.”

Unable to bear what he identified as pity, Peter tucked his chin into his chest abashedly. Clearly she thought he needed to be handled with kid-gloves, which Peter found brutally embarrassing. Hard questions? She’d asked him the basics and he’d tripped and stammered through most of his answers, the words falling out in a heap that Carry could never be expected to make sense of.

Hot shame doused Peter and he brought his arms up and linked his fingers behind his head, the urge to hide too powerful to deny. Once his eyes were closed in an additional protective measure, Peter was hit with just how exhausted and wrung out he truly felt.

Had he really yelled at Tony during this same day? Was this the same day that MJ had texted him out of the blue? All of this happened that same afternoon? The sky had gone from a warm orange to the pale glow that enveloped the city at night, but Peter had difficulty connecting the dots in his mind.

When Carry spoke next - placating words that let him off the hook - and excused herself from the room, Peter thought he should feel relieved. But he could only focus on the oily puddle of dread that started in his stomach and was spreading like a sickness.

Peter hadn’t told Carry Bishop with Child Protective Services whether or not he was happy living with the Starks. But it was this lack of an answer that revealed the most, he feared.

_____

After Tony had retreated, muttering lowly about being tired and needing to check if his kids had killed Happy yet, Rhodey launched an intense internal debate about whether he should race to Peter’s room and ask the kid if he could be his dad right that very moment, or if the clock indicating half-past-nine in the evening meant that he should let it lie until the next day and let Peter rest. And, in addition, to let the reality sink in for himself.

Though he felt like he had something to celebrate as he fought the reflex to share with everyone that one gets when given good news, it was hard to shake the sensation of wrongness. Tony’s breakdown had deeply impacted him, but the part of himself that understood the necessity and inevitability of it blunted the fallout,

Rhodey’s heart thudded as though all the obstacles toward his long-fought goal had been surmounted and he made the split-second decision to go see Peter. With adrenaline pumping, Rhodey took the often abandoned stairwell to race back up to the medbay level. With technologically advanced elevators that dazzled, who in their right mind would opt for a dull, never-ending stairwell?

A father who couldn’t imagine waiting even one second inside an elevator to see his son.

Taking the concrete steps two at a time, Rhodey was thankful for the seemingly superhuman boost that came from his leg braces. He dismissed the mournful pang that struck. Nothing could be done about that situation right now. Peter was all that mattered right now.

Barely panting by the time he emerged on the medbay level, Rhodey burst into the corridor. Jerking his head left and right to gain his bearings, he had the ridiculous notion that he probably looked like he was part of a heist.

Outside of Peter’s room, Rhodey paused at the closed door. The windows on either side of the entrance were fortified to prevent him from seeing inside, but a warm glow on the other side let him know that the lights were on. Cautiously, he pressed his ear against the door, straining to hear the conversation between Peter and the social worker.

“Colonel Rhodes,” a hesitant voice nearly made him jump. One of the nurses who was recognizable by face but not name stood before him. “Mr. Parker doesn’t have any visitors at the moment…” she paused nervously, wringing her fingers. “The woman who was in there before left around 20 minutes ago and he hasn’t paged us for anything.”

He wanted to hug the slight nurse for reading his mind, but was overcome by his tunnel vision.

It took all the self-control Rhodey could muster to open the door slowly, so as to not alarm Peter or hint that anything larger was going on. Sure, Peter’s powers probably let the kid know he was coming, but it was also a valuable few moments to collect himself.

Rhodey didn’t know what he expected to see. The high-stakes, far-off reality of his dream coming true had prevented him from trying to picture the moment that he told Peter that he wanted to be the kid’s dad. But Rhodey hadn’t considered seeing Peter curled in on himself in the bed, looking like a small, wispy shadow of himself.

Peter’s head was nestled between his knees, his hands grasping the hair on the back of his scalp and disheveled brown hair was all that he could see of him. If Peter detected his entrance, he didn’t show it. The protective cocoon that Peter had erected around himself seemed all-encompassing.

“Pete?” He rasped, and even his whisper was a deafening roar in the room’s demand for silence.

The kid’s head snapped up with the swiftness of an alerted animal in a forest, and Rhodey withered at the distraught, stricken expression. Peter’s eyes were glassy and blown wide, his brow furrowed, and his lips were pursed inward, as though he didn’t know the language to ask for the help he so greatly needed.

Rhodey covered the space to Peter’s bed in big strides, sitting halfway on the mattress to give the kid closeness, but not contact if that wasn’t what he needed.

“What’s wrong kiddo?” He asked, not pushing or demanding. Next to him, Peter’s posture crumpled, much as Tony’s had earlier, and great shuddering sobs wracked him.

Rhodey didn’t hesitate to reach out a comforting hand to Peter’s back, the ridges of his spine and sharp ledges of his shoulder blades jumping with upheaval.

His heart being wrung out by Peter’s inconsolable state, Rhodey nudged Peter over and situated himself on the bed beside him, bringing the hysterical teenager close with both arms embracing him and nestling his chin over the boy’s tousled hair.

“I’m here Pete,” he crooned in a last-ditch effort to ground him.

“Shh… Dad’s here.”

_____

Frozen solitude frosted over Peter after Carry Bishop left his room. Ice crystalized every part of him, from his bones to his skin. Once he furled into himself in a childish and literal attempt to keep himself together, Peter settled into the numb cold, accepting it as a direct consequence of what he’d done.

It wasn’t like he hadn’t been alone in his medbay room before. Not in this visit or his serial visits after patrols in those far-off pre-Thanos days. But this loneliness had a sinister quality to it, because it felt entirely self-imposed and there was no foreseeable reprieve.

The kind of loneliness that the physical proximity of people cannot fix.

Part of the desolation was brought on by the profound sense of failure he felt after speaking with the social worker. She asked him a simple question with a simple answer, and he couldn’t bring himself to just say yes, that he was happy living with the Stark family.

What would Tony think once he found out that after all he’d done, that Peter couldn’t utter “yes, I’m happy” that would ward off the social worker?

And then there was the tiny detail wherein the last time he spoke to Tony, he’d let loose on the man and yelled all of the simmering grievances from the past several months. Even without the Miss Bishop’s visit and his spectacular failure, he and Tony weren’t in a good place.

It had been a long time since they had been, Peter reflected, the sad thought further eroding his fraught and disposition.

You ruined everything. Again. Now you have to live with it.

The intrusive thought delivered such a devastating blow to Peter emotionally that he felt it physically with a sharp sting in his chest up to his jaw, even making his teeth ache.

Tony and Pepper were his last chance, he knew that. He’d known that since he arrived on their front step, freshly disclaimed legally by May. They were a last chance, but they had also been a promising chance. One that, despite his deep-seated issues with parents, he didn’t have doubts or misgivings about.

And somehow, in some bewildering, inextricable knot of Parker Luck, his own ineptitude, and a series of cascading failures that couldn’t be reconciled, Peter had destroyed that last chance too.

He had - knowing full and well that Tony was his last shot at a parent and a home - ripped into the man, blaming him for all of the pain, physically and otherwise, that he’d endured since time travel had been solved in his honor.

The situation was unfixable, and Peter was resigned to the eventuality of Tony finding out what he’d said, and been unable to say, and having to live with the consequences. He was fully prepared for an icy reception and the glacial, distant regard that they would hold him in after they went back home. Their home. Not his.

Some days, Peter felt like his home had died with Uncle Ben, and he’d just been too blind to recognize it.

Maybe home died with his mother and father.

And if Peter hadn’t had a proper home since he was six years old, then it wasn’t like he knew anything about homes, families, parents, and all that.

The closest he’d felt to being home in recent memory was with Rhodey, but a far-flung hope and misleading gut-feeling on his part didn’t translate into reality. Peter had no inkling that Rhodey reciprocated that feeling, and even if he had said he was honored that one time Peter called him dad, then surely, that was out of pity.

Apathetic against the lingering deep aches in his back and his limbs, Peter tried to wind tighter into himself. Nonsensically, he felt as though his joints would separate and his muscles and veins would leave his bones if he didn’t keep himself together.

Peter’s entire life was being pulled apart at seams that were already frayed and strained. All that he’d lost descended on him in one fell swoop, and Peter fought to identify the bright spots in the raging murkiness. Rhodey, Ned, Mj, Morgan, Miles.

None of which had any obligation toward him. None of which needed him for anything that they couldn’t get somewhere else. Inconsequential, Peter thought of himself. The type of thing that, when lost, would be missed acutely for a short span before the wound healed and they would move on.

Black oily pessimism weighed Peter down.

A tentative sound came from the threshold of his room, but Peter was too far sunk into his misery to discern or care whether it was real or imagined.

What would Mr. Stark think when Carry Bishop told him that you couldn’t just say that you were happy living with his family? How audacious. How ungrateful. How insolent. What is the matter with you? You weren’t supposed to be a problem, Peter. You weren’t supposed to be a problem, but do you know how to be anything else?

“Pete?”

Whiplash dizzied him as his neck snapped up. Though the voice was whispered and comfortingly familiar, it was foreign and jarring against the backdrop of his bleak, despaired fog,

Rhodey, appearing more a comforting and reassuring presence than Iron Man arriving to fix whatever mess he’d gotten himself into, came to sit on Peter’s bedside without him having to voice his wants. Peter didn’t even know if he could have said that was what he needed. He was just too blocked.

“What’s wrong kiddo?”

Peter took in a sharp inhale, the concern hitting him like a cool balm on a burn, shocking and with a jump of pain before his brain registered the immense relief. And as that relief shattered what remained of his composure, Peter gave way to tears and choked sobs.

The warm, grounding sensation of Rhodey’s hand landed softly on his back, touching the area where he was in so much pain, but not causing any more of it. It was the comforting touch that Peter had grown so attached to during the weeks he lived with Rhodey, and what he’d subconsciously come to see as the reassuring touch of a father.

Peter succumbed further to his upset, unable to comprehend the depth or even the root cause of why he was crying in that instance. He let himself be guided by Rhodey’s gentle movements, and melted into the embrace as though he was a child being consoled after a scraped knee. With his head nuzzled into the crook of Rhodey’s neck, Peter allowed himself the childish fantasy that he was, in fact, just a kid being soothed and loved by his parent.

“I’m here Pete.” It was as much the upset as the heart-rending relief of Rhodey’s tender care that perpetuated his shuddering wails. He wished he could communicate to Rhodey how much love and comfort he gleaned from the gestures, but breathing through the next arresting sobs was all he could manage.

“Shh… Dad’s here.”

For that suspended moment, untethered from time and life outside of their embrace, Peter let himself sink into the fabricated reality of Rhodey being his dad, and himself being Rhodey’s son.

_____

Eventually, Peter did calm. As much from being emotionally wrung out as he was physically fatigued. The impossibly deep twinge from his back told him that he would pay for the upheaval in the coming hours, but it was impossible to care as Rhodey had not relinquished his warm hold.

The pair settled into a quiet cocoon, and Peter thought he may fall asleep with the secure warmth. Even though he was distantly aware of the reality that lay in wait outside the room, Peter wanted to seek refuge just a little while longer.

Just on the cusp of sleep, Peter couldn’t be sure whether or not Rhodey whispered his name. The warm breath against his hair and slight movement convinced him. He gave a sleepy hmm in response.

“I want to ask you,” Peter heard the hesitant hitch, but was still swinging toward sleep, so it didn’t alarm him. “Would you let me be your dad, Peter?”

Surely, he’d fallen asleep without realizing and was dreaming out his deepest subconscious yearnings, Peter thought. Instead of stiffening, he sank further into Rhodey’s arms, pressing flush against the grounding presence.

“My dad?” He whispered, the scrape of his throat hinting that he wasn’t dreaming. Rhodey’s chin rocked against his temple, reassuring.

“Yeah, I’ve wanted to be your dad for a while now. Is that something you’d want?” Though he was all cried out from earlier, the tell-tale tightness and stinging returned. He wanted to exclaim that yes, it was something he wanted so deeply and fundamentally that it rocked him to his very core. But still, he didn’t want to break their safe embrace.

So he nodded, hoping Rhodey - dad - could read into the vehemence.

“Yeah? I can be your dad?” Rhodey asked, tinged with a vulnerability Peter was unfamiliar with. Again, Peter nodded vigorously, this time also able to rasp a mumble “yeah.”

“And you’ll be my son? That’s something you want? You want to come live with me, and we can watch laugh-track sitcoms and argue about what cereals to get?”

By that point, Peter’s head was continually nodding, unable to formulate the words that expressed just how much he wanted it all, but knowing that Rhodey would understand. His dad understood him like that.

“I want to be your dad and I want you to be my son more than anything. I love you so much, Pete.”

As Peter responded with his own “I love you, dad” he was sure that his dad felt the rumble against his chest more than he heard it. But still, he was unable and unwilling to unstick himself, even as the relieved tears that he hadn’t known he was holding back emerged.

Something, somewhere Peter hadn’t acknowledged in a long, long time, loosened and unwound. It unjumbled, releasing a tension he hadn’t known he’d been holding onto.

Someone wanted him. Truly, actually, wanted him. Wanted to be his parent and wanted him to be a son.To take care of him and saw him as a kid to be taken care of.

It wasn’t a role that Peter, or circumstance, or legalities was pushing on James Rhodes. It was something that Peter, in his deepest desires, hadn't had the courage to hope for, but was being offered to him unconditionally.

Floating surreality suspended him, and only the strong arms of his father kept him anchored.

Unconsciously, Peter kept nodding, as though the moment he stopped, his dad might doubt that he wanted it and rescind his offer.

“I’ll stay with you and protect you, no matter what, Pete. I promise you that. You mean everything to me, and being your dad is the best honor I could ever hope for. You’ll be safe with me.”

The still strange sensation of being wanted, no strings attached, nudged against Peter. Kindly, gently, like a therapy dog whose only job was to soothe and comfort. Peter let it in a little bit more, still afraid to embrace it after he’d forced it into dormancy so long ago.

“I’ll be your dad, no matter what. You’re my son, no matter what. It’s you and me and I love you, no matter what, Pete.”

Chapter Text

Tony still wasn’t sure what possessed him to make his way back to Peter’s room. Guilt and his own ravaged conscience, perhaps; or maybe it was a stalling tactic because he still had no idea how to deal with the information that Pepper had been in contact with Child Protective Services on more than one occasion concerning Peter and she’d never told him.

Either way, the air in their old penthouse was stiff and everything down to the collar of his shirt felt constricting.

It was an absurd thought, believing that outside his penthouse, where he and Pepper had once lived before they were engaged, married, and had children, that he had nowhere else to go in the building. In his building. A skyscraper he owned that at one point donned his name.

But nowhere felt right. His old laboratory was haunted with the memory of Rhodey asking him to do what was best for Peter by giving him up. Bruce’s workspace was tainted with the knowledge that the instruments inside had been used to create the substance that had wrought so much sorrow and destruction.

No, that wasn’t quite right though, was it?

Yes, the substance that Tony had duped Bruce into developing was what bonded to the enhanced strands of Peter’s DNA, suppressing them and taking his powers from him.

Like a dog with a muzzle. Or an eagle with clipped wings. A tiger with its claws removed. He was just a kid who wanted to be part of your family, and you made him into the bear in the cave, or the dragon in the castle. You knew just how much he wanted a family - your family. You remember him telling you about his mom and dad, about Ben. You recall vividly that Peter was there when May asked you to take over custody. Either she was so certain that you would agree, or she used Peter’s presence as a guilt trip that would ensure your yes.

Bruce may have developed the science behind it, under false pretenses and lies that Tony still wasn’t sure he could fully live with. But Tony was the one who went to Bruce and played off the man’s insecurities to get him to make it. And Tony was the one who issued a kindly-worded ultimatum, threatening Peter’s flimsy, tenuous sense of family and home if he didn’t comply. Tony was the one who stuck a needle so deep in Peter’s back that he could have sworn the kid would be run through.

The temptation to put all of the blame onto Pepper was near undeniable. Pepper was afraid of Peter’s powers and she had told him that he either had to take care of the kid’s powers or give him up.

Like he was a temperamental dog that nipped at his owner. Not like he was just a kid who was freshly abandoned. Who’d gone through too much and just wanted to belong somewhere.

Time and time again, Pepper would claim that it was all to protect their family.

Why had he never opened his eyes to the harsh, blinding reality that Peter was the one who needed protected; from both Tony and Pepper?

So even though he felt out of bounds and distinctly intrusive on the medbay floor, standing in front of Peter’s closed door, with his temple and hand pressed flush against it, Tony couldn’t peel himself away.

He heard the sobbing, and Rhodey’s crooning comforts. Recalling how he and Peter had left off, hours and hours before, something inside him felt knocked off kilter.

Then, Tony eavesdropped on the heart-rending exchange of Rhodey asking and Peter accepting their new roles of father and son. Listening in felt illicit and criminal, and the pain that blossomed rivaled that of wielding the power of every infinity stone.

It also felt deserved. Though he didn’t deserve to hear the tender, loving moment that created a father and son, Tony conceded that he more than deserved the pain of witnessing what he’d lost. The self-flagellation threatened to steal his breath, while at the same time, Tony was terrified of breathing because he couldn’t bear to be found out.

After silence loomed for several minutes, according to the aggressive ticking that came from the wall mounted clock behind him, Tony saw the band of light under the door diminish.

Peter must have fallen asleep.

If Rhodey wasn’t in there, Tony wasn’t sure he would have been able to restrain himself from sitting in front of a sleeping Peter and confessing everything, just to alleviate some of the oppressive weight that settled over him.

But that wasn’t reality. In that room, between his former brother and former son, he wouldn’t just be unexpected. Tony would be aggressively unwelcome.

His ego begged to differ, but Tony understood, pulling himself from the door and taking cinder block steps away, that he no longer had any claim or right over Peter.

_____

“Can Ned and MJ come over on Saturday? We, uh, haven’t all seen each other since, well, I guess it’s been like over five years since it’s been the three of us. If it’s cool with you, we think it’d work best if they came here? Ned’s little sister has a cold, so we don’t want to upset her schedule, and MJ… MJ’s still up in the air with her living situation, because her dad is in the studio apartment and she doesn’t know if he has space for her to even sleep, nevertheless have friends over. And I promise we’ll try not to be too disruptive… Ned can be kind of loud, but if you’re working or something, I can try to shut him up if he gets too excited—”

“Peter.” Rhodey cut him off suddenly, and Peter didn’t know whether he should feel relieved because he didn’t have to keep stumbling through his question and making his face, or disappointed because Rhodey might be interrupting him to tell him that it was a no.

It had been two months since Rhodey had taken him home from Stark Tower. Rhodey’s home. Also Peter’s home. Now, their home. Two months of uncharted territory that Peter was tentatively learning to navigate. It would have felt far more treacherous had Rhodey not assured him on their second day home, when Peter’s arm was still in a sling, that he was learning right alongside Peter. That all this (being a parent, Peter suspected, but Rhodey left it unspoken) was new to him too. They would get through it together, Rhodey guaranteed him.

Peter thought he was getting better and recovering from damage he hadn’t known had been done to him by living with Tony and Pepper. The lack of confidence in himself and the lack of trust in his caretakers was a jarring wake-up call, that much was certain. But Rhodey had been generous, even a smidge overbearing with the encouragement and reassurances, heaping them on during whatever instance Peter faltered and revealed just how on-edge he’d felt at the lake house.

Correction: Peter knew he was getting better. He felt it when he woke up without the sensation of being under the warehouse debris. He felt it when Rhodey sat down next to him at the table with his laptop and worked alongside him for more than two hours while Peter dug into the avalanche of work ahead of him. Peter felt it most keenly when he called Rhodey “dad” and the man’s face brightened every single time.

But he also knew that “better” was not “healed” and that the road to healing was certainly not linear, smooth, or reliably lit.

When it came to asking his dad for something that he wanted, Peter ran into a brick wall of uncertainty and insecurity. It reminded him too much of asking Tony about going to Ned’s, or his inability to say no to just about anything that Tony asked of him. It threw him back into the memory of letting May know that he would be studying with Ned that evening, and her stopping him to effectively announce that she was done with him.

Suddenly, calling Rhodey “dad” felt risky and unearned. His rebuilding self-confidence plummeted into a pile of dust. Peter didn’t trust that he would be heard, or that he even had a right to ask Rhodey if he could bring his friends into the man’s home.

Which led to his rambling, far-too-in-depth combination of asking permission and presenting his case in the same breath.

Nervously, Peter folded his arms behind his back at the elbow, grasping his forearms and squeezing at the skin. The ache between his shoulder blades was old now, but he couldn’t help but notice and remember. He waited for Rhodey’s answer, imagining he stood at the precipice of a cliff, preparing for the plunge and hoping it wouldn’t come.

“Pete, of course your friends can come over.” Rhodey said, and Peter was stunned into speechlessness. “This is your home too, and I want you to be comfortable having your friends over, even if there isn’t a bulletproof reason. I appreciate you asking, but you don’t need to plead your case to the jury.”

Disbelief squirmed uncomfortably in Peter’s gut. It was just that easy?

Then, just as suddenly as Peter’s security in his new life had abandoned him, it enveloped him and reminded him of all the lessons he was both trying to unlearn and learn.

Rhodey wanted to be his dad. The house was their home. Peter was allowed and encouraged to ask for things that he wanted and needed. His dad acted more like a parent to him than May and Tony had combined since the Snap’s reversal.

That last revelation came with a backhanded sting when he recalled the scraps of attention and affection he’d hoped to collect and the toxic circumstances he’d come to see as normal.

“Really?” Peter croaked out, trying to shake the disbelief and replace it with excitement.

“Yeah, I haven’t seen Ned since you were in the hospital, and I’d love to meet MJ in-person. I’m both terrified and in awe of her.” Rhodey reassured with a smile, and Peter couldn’t help but laugh at how MJ had grilled the man about treating Peter the way he deserved to be treated.

His dad had tried to interrupt her to guarantee that he had Peter’s best interests at heart, but she cut him off menacingly to relay the finer points of May’s neglect and how after things with her own mother, she refused to watch Peter endure more sub-par parenting.

Rhodey had looked both admonished and relieved, if the combination even made sense, before promising solemnly that Peter was safe and loved with him.

It had taken hours for the embarrassed blush to fade from his cheeks and ears after that, but Peter felt more secure than he had since… well, since Uncle Ben - and that meant a great deal.

“Awesome,” he exhaled all of the tension and intrusive nerves. “I’ll let them know it’s cool,” Peter pulled out his phone to relay the message before pausing. “I’ll ask MJ to take it easy on you.”

His dad’s laugh effectively dissolved all the knots that tangled within him. “Don’t do that. I want her to be herself and call me out on every social and ethical slight that I’m committing. Any tips are appreciated, though.”

Peter could tell that his dad wanted to further dissect the tentative and frightened way he’d approached him, but instead he opened his arms to embrace Peter.

Unclenching his hands from his forearms behind his back, Peter hadn’t realized just how hard he’d been gripping himself in anticipation of facing negativity. He took stilted steps forward, embarrassed by his overwrought, irrational dread when his dad hadn’t given him any reason to be afraid.

The familiar, warm arms wrapped around him, both heavy with security and light with care, and the residual tension and abashedness fell away. He relaxed into the hug, returning it tentatively at first before surrendering fully.

“I’m so glad that you’re my kid, Pete.” Rhodey said earnestly and Peter didn’t doubt the expression in the slightest.

“Thanks for being my dad,” he muttered, an unexpected moment of candor that he typically would have thought and left unsaid.

Rhodey hugged him tighter with an exaggerated grunt to release some of the emotional heft.

“You make it too easy to be your dad. I’m just lucky that I have you and not Morgan right now.” They released each other from the embrace, and Peter savored the warm security that lingered.

“Yeah, no kidding. She’s driving everyone crazy this week with the whole “explain the Snap” thing, and asking if every single person she knows or can think of was snapped,” Peter replied, nearly overcome with an uncomplicated happiness that didn’t come at a cost or with strings attached.

“Happy told me that on the drive back last week, she asked if Santa was snapped, and which of his reindeer were snapped, and if kids who weren’t snapped got double the presents because supply outweighed demand.” Peter guffawed, imagining how red and flustered Happy must have been.

“I guess she learned something while Ned and I studied for our economics test.”

Peter landed on the couch next to his dad, who was searching for the remote. Both of their computers sat on the kitchen island, disregarded for the moment as they agreed to watch one episode of the comedy they both loved.

Bonelessly, Peter settled into the comfortable routine and let his subconscious unwind. He hadn’t realized how much energy he’d expended with nervousness and self-doubt, but was so, so grateful that he could let his exhaustion wash over him and feel protected by his dad.

_____)

“Dear Aunt May,”

“Dear May, I went to see Uncle Ben’s headstone last week on his birthday. Sorry I didn’t call you.”

“May, I still don’t understand why you felt you needed to get rid of me. I’m sorry if I did something to make you-”

“I’m really mad at you May. Why did you abandon me? Why did you change your number and ignore my messages? Why did you say no when I wanted to come back? I didn’t know family was a temporary thing until you told me, and it really hurt. I’m so pissed that I didn’t see it coming.”

“Fuck you and fuck your new family, May.”

“May, I don’t even know what I’m hoping to accomplish by writing this. My therapist said that I could try to get closure on us by writing to you, whether I sent it or not. Every time I try to write a letter to you, I get sad or really mad, and I can’t stop thinking about how much it hurt when you said we weren’t going to be a family anymore. MJ said that even before the Thanos stuff that you might not have been the best parent, but back then I had all sorts of excuses to justify why I wouldn’t see you for days at a time. I know you were really busy at the hospital and that you had to support us, but I didn’t like it when you wouldn’t check in on me. It was lonely. So maybe I should have seen it coming when I came back and you had moved on. I don’t know. I don’t think I expected my family to fall apart for the third time. Or the fourth. But that’s a different topic entirely. As much as I tried to understand where you were coming from when you gave me up, I never found a reason that made me feel any better. My therapist said that it isn’t something I can solve like an equation, and that moving on might be the best thing for me to heal from everything. When she brought up moving on, I pushed back at first. I think somewhere I still hoped that things could be fixed and that we could be the family that we used to be with Ben, but hoping that was doing more harm than good. You haven’t called, written, reached out or anything since I last saw you that day outside your apartment. That tells me all that I need to know. So I don’t think I’ll end up sending this. Because if I send it, I’m just going to set myself up to hope for a response. There’s one last thing I want to say. And I know I’ll never have the courage to say it to you. I think Uncle Ben would have been really mad that you gave me up. You split up the last of his family and I don’t think he would ever forgive you if he knew. Goodbye May. Sincerely, Peter Benjamin Parker.”

_____

Dealing with Tony was a different beast. One that was more complicated, harder to face, and more prominent because of Tony’s determination to be a fixer. Conveying that he needed time to heal both physically and mentally, space to decompress from months of unyielding tension whenever he was around Tony, and understanding that, no, things weren’t okay, but they might be in the future, was as frustrating as teaching Gerald table manners.

Peter had only been home with his dad for a day and a half before Tony tried checking in. Maybe it wouldn’t have been as unwelcome and invasive if he hadn’t shown up at the front door, red-eyed, scruffy, and distraught, full of tired apologies and fresh off a fight with his wife.

Too tired from healing and from the medicine Bruce made that finally worked on his pain, Peter’s listening had been fuzzy and sporadic, but he understood the gist of his dad’s conversation, starting with the insistence that no, it wasn’t okay for Tony to come inside to just say hi to Peter.

“Pepper left. She left after I confronted her about the social worker thing. We fought about it, and it just… it got out of control. She said that she was tired of being made the villain for protecting her family.” Tony’s voice wavered. “I asked her if she ever considered Peter as part of her family, and she just left.”

Rhodey attempted some damage control of the situation, asking for specifics, but still not yielding to let Tony in.

“She’s only been gone a few hours, and Happy has the kids. FRI said that she hasn’t turned off her phone or anything, so we can track her. I just don’t… Please Honeybear, I just want to see Peter, tell him what’s going on.”

“No.” Rhodey was stern and adamant. It wasn’t something Peter could remember witnessing often. “You don’t get to come here to put your marriage problems on Peter. He’s recovering, Tones. From a lot. You signed the papers. I’m his dad now, and he comes first. I’m sorry for what Pepper did - lying to you, leaving - but I can’t let you put the weight of that on Peter.”

Peter had fallen asleep soon after that, succumbing to the drugged daze, so he didn’t know anymore about the debacle for hours and hours after. What he’d heard, he could only comprehend on a surface level, not understanding the full implications of what was happening. That was probably for the best, he considered later.

Pepper came back after a few days, Rhodey told him. From the scraps of conversations he pieced together, Peter figured that Pepper and Tony were back in the lake house with Morgan and Miles. They were struggling, arguing, and some crucial tie between them had been severed. But they were trying to move forward.

Peter tried not to consider that they were happy before him and would be happy after him. That he was the factor that broke them.

_____

It would be several months before Peter was ready to see Tony again, to speak through more than the occasional text message. He figured that the texts would be more overbearing if Rhodey hadn’t put strict boundaries on Tony’s contact with him. Peter was relieved to not need to establish the boundaries himself, as he still didn’t know if he had the courage to say no to the man.

Tony invited him over to his lab in Stark Tower, and Peter said no. The setting was too far in Tony’s favor. And still, he could not overcome the memory of being invited down to the lab and having it be a heartbreaking ruse.

So they met somewhere Peter chose. A chemistry lab at Midtown on a weekend where Peter continually made incremental adjustments to his web formula, trying to improve it in ways he couldn’t pinpoint. The task was more of a comfort, and less a necessity, and Peter hoped it would keep his mind and hands occupied during the terrifying prospect of seeing Tony again.

Tony met him and Peter remained staunchly focused on his formulas, only briefly saying hello to not betray the swirling storm inside of him. Thankfully, Tony did not push. He asked if he could try his hand at mixing some things, and Peter nodded, pushing the worn sheet of scribbled notebook paper so they could both see the original formula and the notes made about what did and did not work.

They worked in silence, Peter focused on making viable batches and Tony experimenting with each vial less usable and departing more from the original formula than the last. Small interactions, such as asking for chemicals or beakers, became asking opinions about possible alterations, which then dissolved into uncontrollable belly laughter when Tony’s last batch ejected itself from the vial and bounced onto the table and then the floor with a jello-like schlorp. They watched, near tears as the concoction roamed aimlessly around the linoleum floor, propelled by whatever chemical reaction was occurring inside.

Between them, things felt lighter, but they were not fixed. They were just closer to being in the formation to begin the healing process.

Peter had a strict list of topics he wasn’t ready to talk about, such as the injections, Pepper, May, or apologies. And he was proud of himself for holding his ground when Tony tried to broach these subjects. “No, I don’t want to talk about that right now.” And Tony, to his surprise and relief, was receptive.

That day, they ended up talking about nothing of any substance or consequence, and after, Peter declined his invitation for pizza because he had plans with Ned and MJ, but when Tony asked if he would want to meet again, Peter was surprised to find himself agreeing to the idea.

They would never be what they once were. Father and son. Mentor and mentee. Avenger Senior and Avenger Junior. Iron Man and Underoos.

But, with time, sincerity, and hard word, they might just be able to be okay again.

______

Family was something that always sounded so simple to Peter growing up. His family was his mom, his dad, and him. And he was lucky enough to have an Uncle Ben and an Aunt May.

The simplicity soon fled in a hurry, and as he grew older, family became more and more a concept that Peter thought only existed positively for other people,, in movies, or books. The tragic and violent loss of Uncle Ben had Peter thinking that family was just not for someone like him. Meant for others, sure. But not him.

May’s swift and cruel abandonment, taking great care only of the legal side of things, left him weathered and jaded to the idea, even though he had the prospect of a family in front of him. A happy one that he might be part of. With a mom and a dad again, a little sister, and even another baby on the way.

When things went sour, inevitably, it felt like at that point, Peter was only disappointed in himself for fostering such hopes that family could actually be for him. Family was for the books about happy unicorn puppies that Morgan liked to read. Family existed only for those few who luck was bestowed upon. And his Parker Luck never granted him much good.

After he came to be Rhodey’s son, it took Peter awhile to shake off his learned definitions of family. Family didn’t need to be his biological mother and father, his beloved Uncle Ben, or Ben’s wife that decided that he wasn’t family. Family didn’t need to have symmetry, or blood, or even legal bonds (though that detail was greatly reassuring to Peter).

Family was being with the people who want you and love you, and who want and love you the same or even more. Family was feeling safe and protected when he was vulnerable, and knowing that he would do anything to return that safety and protection when he was able. Because he loved his dad. He felt a love so full to bursting that he’d forgotten it existed, or feared that it had bled out alongside Ben on that cold, dark sidewalk.

And his dad loved him back. He had his friends, Morgan and Miles (who he, Ned, and MJ enjoyed offering to babysit at Rhodey’s house, alongside Ned’s little sister).

Peter had a family that meant more to him than he could ever imagine, and the fact that it looked so different from the so-called “traditional” family, only made it that much more special to him.

______

In a phone conversation that he was not meant to hear, Peter had heard his dad speaking to the familiar voice of Carry Bishop. She asked all the appropriate questions about Peter’s physical and mental wellbeing, going down a list of details about Rhodey’s care of him and his new home environment.

If possible, Peter tried to avoid listening in on Rhodey’s phone conversations, hoping to extend respect and to not be a rude or invasive presence. But when listening to two adults have an important conversation that probed into all areas of his life, not listening was an exercise in futility.

Even though he could hear every word in crystal clarity, down to the varied patterns of their breathing, Peter still held his breath when Rhodey asked about the status of his complaint against the Stark family.

“Given that Peter is no longer in their care, and that the children in their care show signs of a happy and healthy upbringing, we have no cause to continue the case and it is being closed. Now, Peter’s case will remain active, as he has been moved into your custody and we will want to continue monitoring his progress and welfare, but we have no reason to pursue any investigation into Mr. Stark and Ms. Potts.”

Miss Bishop’s words were a lot to stomach in a short time. There was an investigation into the Starks - that much he’d been able to extrapolate from the interrogation he underwent. But that the complaint had been instigated by a complaint on his behalf from his dad, before the man was his dad?

A bubble of emotion rapidly expanded in his chest, threatening to burst, but Peter couldn’t identify what those emotions were.

Rhodey - his parent - the man who he’d wanted to be his parent since the time he’d gently comforted Peter through an asthma attack, had seen his pain and had been so concerned that he involved Child Protective Services. Rhodey had seen him as a child, back when Tony was treating him like an unmuzzled threat.

Outrage and concern. On his behalf. He didn’t even know where to start on what it meant to him. And then there was the notion that, this entire time, Rhodey had wanted to be his dad, just as much as Peter had wanted to be his son. Emotionally, Peter didn’t possess the bandwidth to process it all at once.

When Rhodey had come in to check on him a few minutes later, with more snacks and drinks even though he’d already given him snacks and drinks 30 minutes before, Peter was overcome with the complex tapestry of emotions, and he couldn’t help but cry and say thank you. His dad was quick to comfort, holding him and asking what was wrong.

Peter only shook his head against his dad’s chest and repeated his thanks.

“Thanks for being my dad. Thanks for protecting me. Thanks for being there.”

And Rhodey’s response was everything Peter never knew he needed.

“I got news for you kid. You’re absolutely stuck with me. You might be the sticky one, but you’re bound to me forever. The papers may say until you’re 18, but it’s actually for the rest of your life. I’m always going to be there. I’m always going to protect you. Even when you’re a big superhero or a big astrophysicist, you’ll always have your dad. No matter what.”

FIN