Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The thing about life is, although it can be unpredictable at times, it can easily fall into a predictable pattern. Routines are so easily maintained, especially when a big part of your day-to-day life is repetitive. A lot of times weeks get by without a ripple on the surface of a well-practiced flow of tasks. That naturally, days start to blend into one another, then weeks, and then you blink and it’s suddenly June when you could’ve sworn it was just new years yesterday. And it can be dull, for time to lose its shape and measure, but mostly, it’s easy to find comfort in the known.

Peter misses that comfort.

He misses the way the dishwasher hummed faintly in the background as he scribbled homework, the rhythmic clatter of May's spoon against her mug, the quiet certainty that nothing unexpected was coming.

As of late, his days feel cramped with life-changing events. Every moment is an earth-shattering, ground breaking, erupting transformation of himself. Each day is different, each day is a challenge. He’s shed more skin than his body is capable of forming. In a single day, he's been reborn at least ten times. 

If he’s not learning something new at school, he’s learning something new about his abilities through experience. He’s discovering new sides of New York every time he goes out to patrol, the good and the bad, the pretty and the ugly, and most importantly the horrors some humans are capable of committing. 

Every day is a lesson, every day is proof that the world is lacking humanity and why it’s so important for him to not lose his. People are jaded, concerned only about themselves and their gains. Stuck in an unfair world, they become unfair themselves.

It’s overwhelming trying to keep up with all these constant changes, constant realizations. He’s a student at daytime, struggling to maintain his previous levels of enthusiasm and eagerness to learn when his fairly sheltered life was brutally shattered the day he became a not so “normal” teenage boy. 

He’s a loving nephew for an hour or two after that, coming home to get some chores done, desperate to be of use to aunt May in any way. He tidies up a little, does the dishes if there are some left, and does his homework because apparently being a student doesn’t stop the moment you leave school. 

Then he’s off swinging across the city memorizing it building by building, street by street, brick by brick until Queens feels like an extension of himself. He feels it in his bones: the danger that lurks in the streets, the calm that falls on quiet days, and all that is sinister, brewing beneath the ground. 

It’s draining living all these lives, maintaining these lies for three different versions of him throughout a single day.

There are times his almost predictable unpredictable days stumble off the routine that’s not quite a routine he desperately crafted for himself. Those happen to be the days he’s scheduled to be at the tower with Mr Stark learning how to take care of his spider suite, coming up with new formulas for his web fluid, or on rare days, working on Mr Stark’s nano Iron suite.

Days like these are at peak unpredictability. 

Dodging bullets and swerving daggers, although not a situation he’d been in previously to the spider bite, are arguably expected challenges of his vigilante gig. If he’s off fighting criminals and stopping robberies, it is kind of inevitable for him to be shot at. 

What’s unpredictable, truly, truly unpredictable, the kind that is so out of the question impossible that it didn’t cross his mind, is his weekly visits to Stark Tower. Which actually started off as a monthly check up and maintenance for his suite that accidently turned into a weekly thing and is no doubt on the way of becoming a biweekly meeting.

Who would’ve ever thought that him, Peter Parker, orphaned nobody Parker, with his hand me down clothes and knock off shoes, his childlike excitement and enthusiasm over almost everything, and terribly nerdy jokes that match his terribly nerdy shirts could ever be in the presence of someone as brilliant, and intelligent and charismatic, and important as Tony Stark? 

It never crossed his mind, not even in dreams where the impossible is certainly possible. 

Yet now he has a working desk right next to Mr. Stark’s, just as messy and chaotic as the mechanic’s. His unreadable handwriting cramped in the margins of Mr. Stark’s notes, adding his own insight— his insight! Now, when Mr. Stark gets stumped he turns to Peter and asks “What do you think, underoos? Want to give it a go?” As if it’s not far off for him to be able to solve something he couldn’t crack himself. 

Now, polite inquiries about his day turn into genuine curiosity and continuations of previous conversations. Now there are snack breaks and dinner times, tables to set and old— timeless, in Mr. Stark’s words— movies to watch because “you haven’t lived if you haven’t watched it kid.” Now Stark Tower feels as close as a home could ever feel like and it’s the most terrifying thing in the world.

When did he start calling Mr Stark with the certainty that his calls would be answered? When did he start ranting to him with the expectancy of being heard? When did it fall onto Mr Stark’s duties to help him study during his exams weeks, make sure he’s consuming his healthy calorie intake per day, or taking attendance every night to make sure he’s actually at home, preferably in bed, and not breaking curfew?

These quiet almost undetectable changes that happen so painstakingly slowly are the most dangerous ones. Because you never realize they’ve happened unless you get slapped in the face with their consequences. Unsurprisingly, that’s exactly how Peter realizes how rooted Mr. Stark is in his day-to-day life. With a very straight to the point short text only two hours before school is out.

Can’t make it today

See you Friday

His stomach drops at being cancelled on. Then drops some more once he notices just how much he looks forward to their scheduled lab sessions. His thumb lingers over the message, rereading it, like a bruise he can’t stop pressing. 

To be fair, after the whole Vulture fiasco, Mr Stark hadn’t really done anything to prompt his next line of thought. On the contrary, other than slight awkwardness and a rather sloppy start, he’d done a good job at being more involved and present in Peter’s life. Granted, all the while keeping him at an arms length. But nevertheless, present. And yet still, like some kind of default reaction, he can’t help but think that he sat himself up for heartbreak.

The default trajectory of a human life, from the moment they take their first breath to their last, is a rhythmic flow of ups and downs that map out a fairly balanced existence. It’s a well-planned recipe for the good and the bad mixed in with all the right kicks of miracles and curses. 

Yet when Peter compares this formula to that of his own life and its crazy events he finds that once again, he’s the odd one out—the exception. If he is to put into words the logic behind the way his life operates, he’ll ironically use Newton’s laws of motion to explain it. The third, to be more accurate. 

There is no rhythm to his life, no scale to balance. He’s either soaring through cloud nine living the ups or plummeting full force living the downs. It’s a constant motion towards one of the two directions until a matching or greater force than his collides with him, sending him into the opposite direction.

So when Mr. Stark cancels on him, the programming of his brain expects nothing but a series of other cancellations until he’s out of the billionaire's life just as quietly as he’d warmed his way into it. The thought alone is enough to send him spiraling and whether true or not, it unfolds a sequence of sloppy and stupid mistakes that starts with him flunking his Spanish test.

He groans when Mrs. Alonso hands him his graded paper with a giant C- and a frowny face drawn in red in the corner.

“Come talk to me after class, Mr. Parker” she says, more sympathetic than disappointed and for the first time, Peter reaps the privilege of being embarrassingly underprivileged in a rich kids' school.

He nods at her in agreement, too embarrassed to form words. He’s not worried about his grade. He knows that a C- is out of the ordinary for him enough to warrant attention. Paired with his family situation, which is for some reason widely known amongst students and staff alike, will most certainly grant him a merciful retake of the test. One he’ll hopefully ace and erase the shame of the C- blinking tauntingly at him. But the comfort of knowing that doesn’t even register to him. Not when alarm bells are blaring in his mind signaling the grade as a bad omen and preparing for hitting rock bottom.

“Dude,” it was a hiss disguised as a whisper, sharp with urgency. Peter glances to his side, meeting Ned’s accusing eyes. “What happened?” he asks. A hint of disbelief shadows his words. He can’t fathom Peter getting anything below a B+, at worst. And that’s only because of his tendencies to skip school to fight crime and nothing to do with his intelligence.

“Later,” he replies, the disbelief he is feeling is for an entirely different reason. What Peter can’t fathom is how he’s supposed to focus on anything when he has a more pressing matter at hand.

Ned doesn’t seem satisfied with his answer and frankly, Peter doesn’t care. He drops it though, sensing that now is not the time to nag him about his terrible grade or simply realizing it’s none of his business. Whichever one of the two it is, Peter is just grateful for being left alone to stare into the abyss. Reminiscing on all his happy memories with Mr. Stark as if they were his last. 

His brain plays a sad montage paired with an equally sad song— the notorious dead character video. It’s all made up of course, an eternal torture session. Nothing but teenage hormones intensifying normal healthy emotions. Turning a pang of disappointment into a monstrous feeling of abandonment.

The heart truly wants what it wants, no amount of intelligence can ever convince a heart to think or believe anything other than what it already does. It’s a hopeless cause, an impossible task. All the logical conclusions are there, he knows. Deep in the folds of his brains, carved on each brain cell— he knows. 

He realizes he’s being dramatic, that he took a small tiny feeling and ran with it all the way onto monstrous lands. It’s all just happening in his head, in his heart. Yet none of that stops his pulse from quickening or squishes down the funny feeling in his heart— the one he long ago associated with anxiety.

Time passes differently when you’re wallowing in self pity. Mrs. Alonso talks, Peter hears none of it, only sees her lips moving. MJ glances at him a couple of times, shifting her attention between him and her notebook, no doubt making him the subject of her next masterpiece. Ned tries to get his attention at some point, too impatient to wait for later and ends up getting increasingly more frustrated by being ignored. 

Peter, in his own little world, reacts to nothing and thinks of nothing. There are little fires starting in his mind and alarms blaring in his ears. Chaos comes alive inside of him and the singular shining light within all this madness is a single thought. 

Get back onto Mr.Stark’s good grace.

Happy is waiting for him once school is over.

The moment he steps out of the door, his eyes land on the familiar sleek black car making itself at home amongst the other expensive looking cars lined up to pick up privileged spoiled kids. It glistens under the sunlight, streaks of pure reflective white appear on its black surface where the sun hits just right.

It looks almost angelic– holy.

Peter stares at it in disbelief, mortified that his grief had manifested itself into the first stage– denial.

Or, in his case, actual delusion.

But Ned is looking at the car too, just as confused as Peter feels. So it must be real and that must be Happy here to pick him up and take him to the Tower where Mr.Stark must be waiting for him.

The relief he feels almost crushes him. The urge to laugh-cry is almost too overwhelming to resist. However, his newfound joy manages to tone it down to a choked up chuckle.

“Wait,” Ned says, frowning at the Audie. “I thought he cancelled.”

Next to him, Peter shrieks, clumsily trying to cover his friend's mouth and failing a few times. “Don’t jinx it!” he hisses then winces when he accidentally shoves his pinky up Ned’s nostril.

“Ahhh,” he yelps, his face scrunching up in disgust as Ned's contracts in pain. He blindlessly wipes his fingers on the other’s shirt, unable to tear his eyes away from the Audi. 

He doesn't say anything as he steps forward, stumbling over his own two feet in his haste. As he does so, he hears Ned’s groaning voice saying something along the lines of: “I’ve been violated.” 

Peter doesn't look back— he doesn't look at all.

He's practically sprinting across the street to the parked car. The urgency he feels overpowers any sense of logic he once had. Like a wild animal, he claws his way through the crowd. Peter pushes past students and gets nasty looks in return along with echoing yells of ‘ watch it ’ — nothing registers to him. Not the shoulders he shoves as he rushes through, not the cries of protest that follow him. 

And neither do the cars.

It's almost comical how his spider senses don't pick up on the car heading his way. Considering he once felt a storm brewing two days before it hit, felt the impending rain deep within his bones. But his senses are not to be blamed. In the face of the threatening danger of being cast out of Mr. Stark's life as easily as he's warmed his way in it, getting hit by a car is insignificant. 

He’s halfway across the road when the sound of tires screeching and the smell of burnt rubber snap him out of his drunken haze. Peter freezes, everything in him halts. The breath he was taking lodges in his throat as his heart all but stops beating. His entire body stings, adrenaline lighting a fire under his skin.

He watches, wide-eyed as the smoke clears to reveal a car brought to an angry abrupt stop mere inches from his frozen body.

There is a split second where the entire world feels like it’s collectively holding its breath.

Nobody moves or brinks.

Then…

The driver, a father of a girl on the volleyball team, presses on the horn even well after the moment passes. His shock seemingly delaying his reaction. His lips move, forming words drowned out by the loud beep. Peter winces, having no doubt what's being said is not appropriate enough to be spoken within a ten mile radius of a school.

“Sorry,” he says, shoulders up to his ears and face burning. “Sorry,” Peter repeats, to the poor man then the crowd whispering around them. 

“Watch where you're going,” a voice yells, gruff and angry. 

As Peter repeats ‘ Sorry ’ again like a prayer he realizes that this isn’t directed at him.

“This is a school area,” Happy barks, giving the driver a dirty look. He yanks Peter out of the way, albeit a bit roughly, and continues to glare at the car as it drives away. He mutters a series of rants under his breath, his grip tight on Peter's wrist.

Most of what Happy says goes unheard by Peter, who's deafened by his own heartbeat pulsing loudly in his ears.

Once satisfied with glaring unblinkingly at the disappearing car, Happy turns to him. “And you,” he hisses, pointing an accusing finger at the teen. “What the hell were you thinking?” he asks, redirecting the force of his glare at Peter who shrinks under the weight of it.

He's too out of breath to answer. His legs feel like jelly underneath him. As if one step forward is enough to send him tumbling to the hard gravel. He swallows, blinking up at Happy wordlessly. 

Peter feels the gaze of a thousand eyes on him. 

Curious kids linger to catch a glimpse of what happened, no doubt weaving exaggerated tales to add a bit of excitement to their day tomorrow. Worried teachers follow him with their eyes, waiting for him to leave before he gets hurt under their watch. And helicopter parents saving the incident deep in their memory, planning to use it to set new safety rules. 

But the one gaze that burns the biggest hole in his skin is Ned’s

Peter can see him in the corner of his eyes. He's still standing where Peter had left him by the door. Ned is squinting worriedly in his direction, brows furrowed together into a tight line. His eyes glance from Peter to Happy, then right back to Peter. The gears in his brain are turning, calculating the situation, debating whether or not to intervene.

He doesn't.

Happy, growing impatient, opens the car door for him. He lets go of Peter's wrist in favor of gesturing for him to get in. He watches him expectedly, his annoyance with Peter increasing with each car that passes them by. The hustle and bustle of students filtering out of the school first, then the street, starts to die out, leaving nothing but silence to fill the air between them. 

When Peter makes no move to get in, Happy finally takes a second to look at the boy.

Really look at him. 

There is a wild frantic look in his eyes, that of a cornered wolf. His grip on the strap of his backpack, casually hooked to one shoulder, is tight. To the point that his entire hand is ghost white, cutting off blood circulation. The breath that he lets out is shallow and every time he inhales, a wheezing sound follows.

Something is amiss.

“Are you okay, kid?” Happy questions, his glare softening into a concerned look. He, not so subtly, makes a silent check over Peter. His eyes seek out each limb, as if taking count in case he's missing any. 

Peter opens his mouth to reassure him but what comes out is something entirely different. 

“What are you doing here?”

Happy’s brows rise, pulled back by his surprise. “I always pick you up on Wednesdays.” He says with a hint of confused hesitance lingering in his voice. He eyes Peter suspiciously, his looks bordering between genuine concern and fond annoyance. Happy gestures for him to get into the car once more. He’s been glancing around every other beat, uncomfortable with their position out in the open dangerously close to each passing car.

He wants to get off the street.

Peter feels rooted in his place.

“I thought Mr. Stark couldn't make it today,” his voice is tentative when he speaks, low and slow. A glimmer of hope raises amidst all the little fires burning his insides. Peter grabs it with a vice-like grip, refusing to let it go. A part of his brain feeds this newfound hope. Coming up with possible reasons as to why Happy is actually here. And all of them end up with Peter spending his day with Mr. Stark, like he always does on Wednesdays.

“That's right,” Happy confirms, shattering Peter's fragile hope into tiny irreversible pieces. “But he wanted me to drive you home. Pick up lunch for you on the way.”

“Oh,” is all that comes out of his mouth. His voice is small, disappointed. He looks down to his sneakers, dirty and well worn out. His face burns with shame and his eyes sting a little.

And oh god, he feels so stupid.

If Happy catches the hurt in his voice he doesn't comment on it. “Yeah,” he says instead, back to being impatient. “Get in.” 

Peter finally does as he's told, thankful for the opportunity to wallow in self-pity in relative privacy instead of giving New York’s subway riders a front row seat to his pity party. He pulls the door closed with slightly trembling fingers.

For the first time since their new arrangement of Happy picking up and driving him to the tower, Peter is the one to shut the partition separating them. Happy’s grunt of surprise is the last thing he hears before engulfing himself in his own miserable bubble.

At first, Peter tries to reason with himself. The voice that argues back is that of his 6-year-old self—timid, wide-eyed, still waiting at the door for someone who isn’t coming. They go back and forth. Peter presenting facts and using logic to prove that Mr. Stark is not cutting him off. His younger self, that scared little boy he carries with him, uses his history as hard evidence. In comparison to a string of gut-wrenching losses—his parents, Ben—lab time and movie nights seem almost laughable.

He loses the debate.

Thus resurfacing his hypothesis of being cursed.

Happy allows him ten minutes to sort out his teenage angst before pulling the partition open and glancing at him curiously through the rearview mirror.

“So,” he starts, feigning the casualness in his voice. “What are we thinking for lunch?”

Peter sighs. It sounds dramatic even to his own ears. “Just take me home, Happy. I don’t have much of an appetite,” he says, watching the city blur past the window, the reflections slipping over his face like rain.

“I do,” Happy responds, “and I’m feeling like pizza.”

Peter doesn’t argue with him, drained from arguing with himself.

The rest of the car drive is silent. Neither one of them speaks, but Happy steals worried glances at Peter.

It’s only when he’s standing outside his apartment with three boxes of pizza and a family-sized Pepsi does Peter realize Happy hadn’t gotten himself any.

And suddenly, that matters.

Chapter Text

Leading up to Friday, Peter and his younger self reach a truce on the edge of a fifth-life crisis. They both hold their breath, suspended in quiet anticipation, each silently wagering on which one of them Mr. Stark will prove right. Neither speaks now, but both are listening. One believes. The other braces.

The spiraling doesn’t stop. But the soft, nervous commentary that used to narrate it—the voice of the boy still waiting at the door—falls silent. In its absence, doubt bleeds in like ink dropped into water. At first, a thread. Then a cloud. Then everything.

Newton would’ve said something about inertia. About motion persisting unless interrupted. But no force comes, and Peter keeps spinning.

The ink stains his world in shades of gray.

He becomes sloppier, distracted. His movements lose their sharpness, his rhythm frays at the edges. A misplaced step on the staircase. A lab partner’s question answered a beat too late. A dropped beaker that cracks—not enough to shatter, just enough to be noticed. Small things. Forgettable things. But they stack like unstable scaffolding, and he feels each one sway.

When Ned brings up Mr. Stark in passing, Peter approaches the topic with quiet caution. He tiptoes through the conversation with the care of a soldier crossing a minefield. He nods, smiles in the right places, but doesn’t offer anything in return. No complaints, no updates. Nothing that might betray the tension in his chest.

He shoves the fear and shame deep down, where no one can see it.

So when Friday comes, and Happy pulls up outside Midtown just like always, Peter crushes the hope rising in his throat before it can take shape.

Happy is already leaning across the sleek black car, arms crossed over his chest like a silent barrier. He tracks Peter with sharp, unreadable eyes as the boy approaches—more slowly this time, more measured, as if walking into judgment.

Once Peter is safely in front of him, Happy moves to open the car door for him. But like last time he makes no move to get in. Instead he looks up at Happy through his lashes, wide innocent eyes looking up at him expectantly. Peter stands with his hands at his sides, motionless.

A defendant awaiting his verdict.

Happy doesn’t catch on immediately. There’s a flicker of irritation first—just a flash of it. He’s close to fed up with Peter’s irksome hormonal behaviour, silently wondering if he had ever been this bad in his youth. But then his shoulders shift and something akin to understanding settles in him.

Something gentle.

“He’s waiting for you at the Tower,” he says, his gruff voice warm in the quiet way it always is around the people he cares about.

Peter feels like he can breathe again.

It occurs to Peter, as the tower grows larger in the distance, that his thoughts haven’t slowed—they’ve just gone quiet.

And somehow, that’s worse.

The car rolls forward, smooth and silent in a way that makes his chest ache. The usual noise of the city—honking, shouting, music bleeding from open windows—is muffled by the luxury insulation of the Stark Industries vehicle, yet Peter still hears it. Not with his ears, with his body. The world is ever loud, but his thoughts are louder—and meaner— inside his head.

He doesn’t know what Happy told Mr. Stark. Or if he told him anything at all.

He doesn’t ask.

The man hasn’t said a word since Peter got in, and Peter didn’t push. It was easier to sit in silence than risk tipping the fragile truce he'd reached with himself—the quiet, heavy kind of silence that follows a storm, a lingering promise for more.

Outside, the light is fading. Not gone yet, but slipping. Late afternoon creeping into early evening, casting the buildings in long shadows and syrupy gold. It makes the city look older somehow, like it’s holding its breath.

Peter rests his forehead lightly against the window. The glass is cool and aching contrast to his warmer skin. It’s not cold enough to sting, but enough to keep him grounded— tethered to the world.

His thoughts spiral, carefully.

With the younger voice inside him finally silent—no frantic commentary, no childish fear narrating every moment—he has room to think. Really think. And what fills that space isn’t clarity.

It’s recognition.

The way he reacted to a single canceled session. The way it flattened him, crushed him. It hadn’t been reasonable. It hadn’t even been proportional. It had been... something else. Something he doesn’t want to name.

A dependency, maybe. Or worse.

A need.

His fingers curl in his lap.

He tries to rationalize it. Enhanced hormones. Anxiety. The spider bite. All those things make him weird, sure, but they don’t explain the way his entire body felt like it was shutting down. They don’t explain why he hadn’t eaten. Why he couldn’t sleep. They don’t explain the way his brain short-circuits at the idea of being left. How his body reacts like it’s bracing for an impact that hasn’t come yet.

It’s not the first time he’s felt this way.

Not even close.

He was young when he lost his parents—so young the memories feel like borrowed stories instead of his own. And yet he remembers the aftermath perfectly. The ache in his chest. The hollow space in every room. The grown-ups with too many questions and not enough answers.

That was the first time he made the promise.

He never spoke it out loud, but it was carved deep within his soul: Never again. Never get attached to someone like that again. Never need anyone that much. Never depend on anyone else.

Naturally, May and Ben hadn’t been included in that rule. They were already a part of him, permanent fixtures. But when Ben died... God, when Ben died—it cracked something open in him that never fully closed. A gaping wound that never fully healed.

That pain had been different. Worse, somehow. Losing his parents was confusion. Losing Ben was devastation.

Because Ben had been his anchor. His map. His proof that love didn’t always leave. That it was unconditional and permanent— given and not earned.

And yet, it did leave anyway.

So now, every time someone starts to matter, really matter, there’s a part of Peter—small, shaking, ancient—that starts calculating the odds of loss, anticipating the damage and bracing for the destruction.

It doesn’t matter how smart he is, or how many times he ties to logicize the situation. Somewhere deep down, that promise still whispers:

Don’t get too close.

It never lasts.

Which is why this thing with Mr. Stark—this closeness, this rhythm, this impossible gravity—it terrifies him. Because it feels like everything. And that’s exactly how you lose it. It’s a slippery thing and the moment you acknowledge it, it slides right off your fingers.

He keeps thinking about that session. The one that never happened. About how his mind immediately jumped to the worst possible conclusion. About how the absence of a simple meeting spiraled into a full-blown collapse.

That isn’t normal.

He knows that.

But it makes sense, in a twisted kind of way. Because when Mr. Stark shows up, it flips a switch in Peter that says safe. And when he doesn’t… he stays adrift, waiting for the man to come back, pull him into existence.

His chest tightens, just slightly. He tries to take a breath, but it’s the kind that sticks halfway down, like his lungs are resisting it.

What scares him isn’t that he fell apart. It’s how easily he put himself back together the moment he thought Mr. Stark might still care. Like his presence flipped the setting in his brain from collapse to stabilize.

That’s not good. That’s not safe. That’s—

You’re too attached.

You need him more than he needs you.

The thought lands heavy in his chest. Not sharp. Just deep. Like someone dropped a stone into a well and he’s still waiting for the sound of it hitting the bottom.

Happy changes lanes. The city turns a different angle through the window, and for a second, Peter sees their reflection—two figures cut into the dark interior of a car neither of them really belong in.

He looks tired. Not just under his eyes, but in the way his mouth sits, in the slump of his shoulders. He hasn’t spoken in twenty minutes and he’s still exhausted. There is a heaviness inside of him, set deep in his bones, and he’s so tired of caring it.

The Tower rises ahead of them now, sharp against the skyline. Silver and glass. A monument to progress. A beacon for gods and geniuses and soldiers who never lose.

Peter wonders where that leaves him.

He wonders—quietly, always quietly—if he was only allowed in because Mr. Stark had the room to spare. Because helping him felt like a second chance at something Mr. Stark couldn’t fix the first time. And maybe, just maybe, Peter let himself believe it was something it wasn’t because the alternative would destroy him.

The car rolls into the private garage beneath the Tower. Security scanners sweep over the frame in a slow, soft pulse. The elevator light glows green.

Peter doesn’t move right away. He takes one last look at his reflection in the window. His face looks too pale in the golden light. Too quiet. Like a photo that hasn’t finished developing.

Then, he opens the door.

The elevator doors sigh open, ushering Peter into the golden hush of the penthouse. Everything is still. Not abandoned—just paused. The kind of quiet that belongs to someone who was just here a moment ago.

It smells faintly like espresso and ozone. A used mug rests on the kitchen counter, tiny rings of light on the marble from where condensation dried. A half-folded jacket hangs off the arm of the couch, caught mid-movement. FRIDAY’s ambient lights glow low and warm.

Peter steps lightly. His shoulders dip an inch. It’s involuntary, a small, reverent motion—as if the apartment might notice him if he breathes too loud.

He heads toward the back, where the narrow staircase waits behind a flush panel. The private passage to the lab below. The only way in is through Mr. Stark’s space, and that means something. Even now, Peter’s chest tightens slightly with the weight of it.

He descends the stairs, heart thudding, not fast—just aware.

The lab greets him with soft blues and oranges, the hum of idle machines and slow-cycling lights.

Mr. Stark’s already inside, hunched over a workbench stacked with layered projection panels and half-built nanobot housings. He’s dressed like he didn’t plan to be seen—black undershirt, dark jeans, sleeves shoved high, arc reactor glowing low under the fabric. His hair’s a little chaotic. There's grease on his jaw. His foot taps an unconscious rhythm against the table leg.

Peter pauses, watching from the threshold.

Then:

“Underoos,” Mr. Stark calls, not looking up. “Glad you finally made it. Thought maybe Happy forgot where he parked the kid.”

Peter exhales a laugh—short, relieved.

“You sound worried,” he says, stepping into the light.

Mr. Stark glances at him. “Not worried. Just emotionally prepared to never see my prototype again.”

Peter slides into his seat with practiced ease. “Relax. I brought it back in one piece.”

Mr. Stark levels a dry look at him. “Define ‘piece.’”

“Look,” Peter says, raising his hands, “if it powers up and doesn’t explode, that’s basically a success.”

“That’s barely a pass.”

Peter grins, “then curve my grade.”

Mr. Stark’s eyes narrow, but not in irritation. There’s amusement there. Hidden, but traceable. The corners of his mouth tug, just faintly.

They fall into rhythm.

The lab begins to hum with more than just machines—with movement, with sound, with a shared language only they seem fluent in. The light feels warmer here, golden even in the artificial blue. Jazz hums like a heartbeat under their voices, and the faint smell of coffee and soldered wires hangs in the air like comfort. It’s not just a lab. It’s a cocoon. Familiar. Safe. Proof he belongs—here, with Mr. Stark, in this moment.

Mr. Stark’s working on a shell for modular nanobots. The issues with the neural threading—synaptic lag, filament drift. Peter leans forward, frowning at the schematic.

“You reversed the polarity again,” he says quietly.

Mr. Stark doesn’t even glance at the screen. “No, I didn’t.”

“You did.”

“I didn’t.”

Peter tilts his head. “Okay, but if I rerun the loop and it stutters—”

Mr. Stark holds up a finger. “No stuttering.”

“—you owe me an apology.”

“You’re fifteen. You don’t get apologies.”

“I’m sixteen.”

“Barely.”

Peter smiles to himself and adjusts the schematic interface. His fingers move quick, confident. He doesn’t even hesitate anymore.

Mr. Stark watches him. Not openly. But his hands pause. His eyes flicker.

Peter doesn’t notice right away. But when he does—when he catches the weight of that quiet glance—his heart pulls taut like a tripwire.

Mr. Stark doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t offer praise. But his posture shifts slightly, the way it does when he’s impressed but pretending not to be.

Then he does something even worse.

He walks over and rests a hand on Peter’s shoulder.

It’s a casual touch. Brief. But grounding.

Peter goes still. His breath catches. His brain catalogs everything—the warmth, the weight, the gentle pressure. He wants to press pause. Wants to remember this for the nights when silence presses in too close. For the moments when Mr. Stark forgets to look at him at all.

The warmth from Mr. Stark’s palm seeps straight through his hoodie and down to something he can’t name.

He doesn’t look up. Can’t. His skin prickles, ears hot, and the edges of his mouth twitch upward despite every effort to stay cool.

Mr. Stark’s voice is quieter when he speaks again. “What did I tell you about making me look bad?”

“That I’m not allowed to do it in front of Pepper,” Peter mumbles.

Mr. Stark pats his shoulder once, then moves back to his table. The touch lingers like a promise Peter can’t cash. Here, then gone—like so much of Mr. Stark.

Peter’s smile blooms behind his hand.

They work like that for a while.

Mr. Stark’s movements are deliberate, occasionally erratic. He talks with his hands more than necessary. When he gets excited, he talks faster. When he gets annoyed, he cuts himself off and gestures aggressively at things instead of explaining them.

Peter adapts easily. He babbles when nervous, over-explains when uncertain, but today he’s sharper. Grounded. He’s sharp today. Efficient. And Mr. Stark’s in a good mood. That’s probably not a coincidence. Peter’s learned—quietly, over time—that being useful keeps him close. That if he’s impressive enough, needed enough, Mr. Stark won’t drift. He teases back without thinking. Corrects numbers in Mr. Stark’s formulas. Swipes tools before Mr. Stark asks for them.

“I swear to God,” Mr. Stark mutters when Peter passes him the splicer unprompted, “if you start finishing my sentences, I’m installing a mute chip in your molars.”

Peter beams. “You wouldn’t dare. You’d miss me.”

Mr. Stark doesn’t answer.

But his smirk lingers a beat longer than necessary.

“You’re not bad at this, you know,” Mr. Stark says quietly. “Makes me forget how old you actually are. Or how not-old, I guess.”

Peter doesn’t think about how the lab looks different without the fear. Doesn’t think about how his brain finally feels like his again—how it’s not racing, or pulsing, or stuck in a loop of questions with no answers.

He doesn’t notice how long it’s been since he last ate. Or drank. Or thought about anything except staying in this moment a little longer. He doesn’t think about the session that never happened. Maybe if he pretends it never mattered, it won’t hurt when it happens again.

Because Mr. Stark is here. And Peter feels... real again.

He finds himself staring.

At Mr. Stark’s hands. The little scars on his knuckles. The way his fingers move when he’s measuring conductivity across a joint sleeve. At the way Mr. Stark’s jaw tightens when he’s concentrating, then loosens when something works. At the crinkle in the corner of his eyes when he grins—so rare, so fast, but so honest when it’s there.

And Peter thinks—I broke my promise, didn’t I?

He remembers being nine years old and telling himself he’d never let anyone matter like that again. Not after his parents. Not after Ben. Not again.

Mr. Stark?

Mr. Stark snuck in.

Mr. Stark got under the door.

Mr. Stark became the exception without Peter even noticing.

And now he’s here. Watching Mr. Stark talk to FRIDAY, his fingers dancing over the interface, the blue light framing him like something out of a dream—and Peter knows, knows deep in his chest, that if he loses this, it’ll hurt more than anything.

Even Ben.

Especially Ben.

He doesn’t want to think that. It feels wrong.

But it also feels true.

Mr. Stark's phone buzzes.

The sound is minor. Background. But the change is instant.

Mr. Stark glances at the screen. His expression shutters—quick, practiced, like a man who’s had to hide too many things from people who cared.

Peter doesn’t look up right away. He’s adjusting a micro-wire array, trying not to fumble.

“I need to take this,” Mr. Stark says, already moving. His voice is low, controlled, the way it always is when he's annoyed at something but doesn’t want Peter to notice.

Peter nods without looking. “Okay.”

Mr. Stark hesitates at the door. Then steps back and ruffles Peter’s hair—an affectionate swipe more practiced than conscious—and disappears.

The glass door slides shut.

And the silence that follows is not the kind Peter likes.

It’s the kind that remembers too much.

The glass door seals shut behind Mr. Stark with a sound far too soft for the weight it carries.

The jazz doesn’t stop. Neither does the faint espresso scent or the pulse of the ambient lights. But now they feel wrong. The music is too bright, the lights too warm—it’s all still here, but twisted slightly. Like a hologram glitching out of sync. Like the shell of something that used to mean something.

Peter stares at the schematic hovering in front of him, blinking slowly.

He doesn’t move. Doesn’t speak. Just sits.

The micro-filament loop he was adjusting flickers on the display, waiting for input. The soft ambient jazz continues to play through the lab speakers, cheerful and cruelly unaware.

The silence isn't total. Not really.

The machines are still whirring. Lights still blink and cycle. Somewhere in the background, a low-energy calibrator hums to itself, rhythmic and steady.

But Mr. Stark is gone.

And with him goes the gravity holding the room together.

Peter exhales through his nose. It doesn’t feel like breathing. 

He blinks again, slow this time. Like his brain is buffering.

He’d known the moment couldn’t last. Had even told himself—don’t get used to it, it’s temporary, it’s just one good afternoon. But the warmth had crept in anyway. Had wrapped around his ribs and burrowed deep.

And now?

Now there’s only air.

He taps the interface, not because he knows what he’s doing anymore, but because his hands need something to do.

Nothing responds.

He doesn’t try again.

The space that had once felt alive, glowing and kinetic, now feels... staged. Like a room built for someone else and abandoned in a hurry. Even the hum of the machines feels more mechanical now—less like a heartbeat, more like a timer counting down to something inevitable.

He thinks about the touch on his shoulder. The warmth of it. The weight. How it had made him feel real.

That same shoulder feels cold now. Like the warmth had been wiped away with the sound of a ringtone.

FRIDAY speaks softly, almost like she’s trying not to startle him.

“Mr. Stark has been delayed. He asked that you make yourself comfortable and eat something before heading out. Dinner is waiting upstairs.”

Peter doesn’t respond.

Not with a nod. Not with a word.

He stares forward, fingers loosely curled in his lap.

His stomach growls quietly, but the sound feels separate—like it’s happening to someone else. He can recognize the discomfort intellectually, but it doesn’t spark any urgency. Doesn’t connect.

He remembers the kitchen upstairs. Remembers thinking earlier how warm the apartment had felt. But now the idea of sitting alone at Mr. Stark’s table, with a plate of food he didn’t ask for, feels unbearable.

He can already see it: the overhead lights casting a too-bright glow, the silence pressing in on all sides, the empty seat across from him.

He swallows, but his throat is dry.

He reaches for his backpack.

He doesn’t bother powering down the interface or clearing the schematics.

He just walks out.

The car ride home is silent.

Not heavy. Not loud. Just... absent.

Happy drives like he always does—smooth, steady, just under the speed limit—but Peter doesn’t feel the motion. Everything outside flashes too fast, like a reel spinning on broken film. Neon signs blur, street lights flicker in erratic rhythm. None of it fits the way he feels—like the world is speeding up just as he’s slowing down. The world feels too loud for how numb he feels, like static at full volume under his skin. He watches the city move around them and feels like he’s not inside his body at all.

The window is cold where his head rests against it. His breath clouds faintly on the glass and vanishes before it can leave a mark.

Outside, Manhattan glows in passing fragments. A river of headlights and blinking crosswalks. People talking, laughing, moving in pairs.

Peter’s alone in the back seat. He doesn’t turn on the radio. Doesn’t reach for his phone. His hands stay where they are, limp and forgotten in his lap.

Happy glances at him in the rearview mirror once. Then again. Still, he says nothing. His hands tighten on the wheel for a second. He doesn’t like silence that stretches. Not from Peter.

Peter’s grateful for the quiet. For a while.

He’s still replaying the lab. The shift. The ruffle of his hair, the soft click of the door sliding shut, the way the air changed as soon as Mr. Stark was gone.

It happened so fast. It always happens so fast.

One minute, he’s whole. The next, he’s background noise again.

He tells himself—it was a work call, not personal. But logic can’t hold the ache in his chest.

Because his brain remembers the warmth of Mr. Stark’s hand on his shoulder. He hates that he misses it already. Hates that a single touch could undo him this badly. God, get it together, he urges himself. It was a call, he reassures. A stupid work call.

But the logic doesn’t reach his chest. Doesn’t untie the knot under his ribs.

And his body remembers the cold that came after.

His stomach aches now—sharp and hollow. He knows it’s hunger, but it feels like punishment.

He pulls his knees up into the seat, hoodie bunching around him, and presses his face closer to the glass.

He doesn’t want to be seen. Not even by Happy.

The world outside keeps moving. People laugh on sidewalks. Headlights flash. Life continues as if he hadn’t spent the past two hours convincing himself he mattered.

He closes his eyes.

For every action,

An equal and opposite reaction.

Joy had rushed in earlier. Fast. Real.

Now it’s receding.

Leaving emptiness in its place.

He pulls his sleeves over his hands and doesn’t notice he’s holding his breath.

Happy’s voice breaks the quiet. Gentle. Rough around the edges like someone trying not to step too hard.

“You okay, kid?”

Peter blinks.

The words are so simple they almost undo him.

He swallows before answering. “Yeah.”

Too fast.

Too automatic.

Happy hums like he doesn’t buy it.

They stop at a red light. The glow from the streetlamps spills over the dashboard and the side of Happy’s face. He drums his fingers once on the wheel, then says, more carefully:

“You want me to pick something up? Food or... I don’t know, bubble tea? You kids like bubble tea, right?”

Peter doesn’t laugh. But he almost does.

He shakes his head. “No, I’m good. Thanks.”

Happy watches him in the mirror a second longer, like he’s trying to read past the words.

Then he nods. Doesn’t push.

“All right,” he says. “Just let me know if you change your mind.”

Peter doesn’t answer. Not because he doesn’t want to. Just because anything he says might come out wrong.

He rests his forehead against the window again and lets the silence settle.

This time, it doesn’t feel empty.

Just quiet.

Still heavy. Still aching.

But not ignored.

Fear of abandonment, Peter decides, is a one way ticket to helpless desperation.

Suddenly, he’s fourteen again. Head pressed violently into his pillow so as to muffle his murderous screams of pain and feet pushed sharply into his mattress with enough force to rip holes into his sheets— scared, alone, and coming into his powers.

He had been so sure back then that he was going to die.

The pain had been unbearable. He felt as if he was being split open, molecule by molecule. Then atom by atom. And just when he had thought that he had been completely undone— free to rest in peace. He had been forcefully put back together, atom by atom, then molecule by molecule. Reshaping his small scrawny body into hard muscle and superhuman strength all in the span of a single fateful night.

God, it was painful.

But this?

This is never ending cruel hellish torture.

The realization that the all-consuming fear of losing Mr. Stark hurts in a way that makes the pain of coming into his powers surface level raises alarm bells in his mind. They paint his world in a flashing tint of red, blaring and loud.

A warning.

Peter is no genius, just an objectively intelligent person with enough sense to understand the implication of his irrational fear. It’s hard to miss it when he’s practically drowning in red. If he were a genius though, he’d have the sense to do something about it— break his fall before he shatters into tiny unfixable pieces.

But he’s mildly intelligent, even bordering on idiocy.

All he does is build the momentum.

His helpless desperation reaches the point of self-destruction on a school night. It manifests in the most out of character way it possibly can— rule breaking.

Not accidental or unconscious.

But deliberate rule breaking.

Peter is three blocks away from home, perched on the highest building on the street staring into nothingness when Karen speaks up for the second time this night.

“Peter, it is thirty minutes past your curfew.”

She doesn’t add more, just a reminder spoken in a gentle human-like voice. The sound of it is almost maternal, kind and full of artificially generated emotions. It speaks to the parentless child in him. Peter leans into it, nearly allowing her to talk him out of his poorly thought out plan.

He doesn’t reply and neither does he make an effort to go back. He remains crouched in place, dangerously balanced on the edge of the roof, pensively overlooking Queens. Peter is utterly detached from himself to the point the view looks foreign to his eyes. There is no sense of belonging stirring inside of him. Just a numb feeling of indifference.

It’s unclear to him if it’s the view that’s unfamiliar or it’s himself that he has grown not to recognize. He doesn’t allow himself to contemplate either option, stubbornly choosing blissful denial over the hard uncomfortable truth.

Once an hour has passed, Peter reaps the first outcome of his plan.

“May Parker is calling,” Karen informs him needlessly. “Would you like me to patch her through?”

“No,” is all he says.

He stares at May’s smiling face in his hud vision, indicating the incoming call from her. Peter lets it ring out, clearly envisioning her pacing in their living room. Her brows are no doubt brought together by worry. Each holding on to the other for comfort. He can see her picking at her chapped lips, absentmindedly pulling at the dead skin as she convinces herself that Peter is fine.

A pang of guilt hits him.

But the anticipation softens the blow.

Peter is not entirely heartless, or remotely heartless to begin with, to let her drive herself crazy sick with worry. The moment the ringing stops, he instructs Karen to send her a text.

“Something along the lines of ‘ I’m safe ’ but don’t make it look like I’m unoccupied,” he says. “Make me sound busy.”

Karen quietly does as told, sending May a text mimicking Peter’s style and texting pattern to appear believable and authentic. He doesn’t ask to review it before she sends it. He doesn’t have it in him to care at the moment.

May doesn’t understand.

No one does.

Peter doesn’t need Mr. Stark because he wants to. He needs him because somehow, through painstakingly slow moments, Mr. Stark’s presence has turned into a necessity— an essential component of Peter’s entire being.

It’s unexplainable, impossible to put into words.

Nothing, Peter thinks, can ever come close to describing the feelings he has for Mr. Stark. It’s unlike anything he has ever felt towards any other human being before. No one has ever evoked an undoubted sense of safety in him before— an absolute belonging.

People usually refer to the person that brings them such feelings of utmost familiarity and being at home as their other half. Be it romantically or platonically. It’s a feeling of becoming whole, as if a two piece puzzle, only complete together.

But what Peter feels for Mr. Stark is beyond that.

They’re not two halves brought together to create a singular cohesive picture. Instead of two, they are one in the same. Heads and tails, two sides of the same coin. A unicellular organism that miraculously managed to split. Having two bodies but sharing the same mind. Mr. Stark is the mother cell while Peter is an extension of him. A smaller, less intelligent, and awkward clone of the original.

The two of them are a well oiled machine.

A beautifully choreographed dance engraved into muscle memory.

Like light and shadow, neither one exists without the other.

May doesn’t understand that.

She doesn’t understand that he wants to cut Mr. Stark’s chest open and nestle into a corner next to his heart. That he wants to engulf it like a protective barrier. Keep it as safe as Mr. Stark keeps him safe.

She doesn’t understand that he wants to spend every waking moment with him. That he wants to breathe the same air as him at every given moment. Or otherwise it doesn’t feel like he’s breathing at all.

Nobody will ever understand how Peter’s thoughts don’t feel like his own unless Mr. Stark says them out loud. Unless he peers inside his brain, takes a look at Peter’s jumbled thoughts, and shapes them into something that makes sense.

Nobody will ever understand how Peter’s heart doesn’t feel full unless Mr. Stark is in the room where he can see him. Unless he can touch him and feel his existence like a solid concrete fact.

How is he expected to put all of that into words?

How can he expect anyone to understand?

A quiet almost soundless sigh escapes him— defeated.

Below him, Roosevelt Avenue sprawls out in both directions—cars crawling beneath flickering streetlamps, the red taillights casting long reflections in rain-slicked asphalt.

Somewhere near 74th Street, a vendor's metal shutter clatters closed, followed by the low murmur of voices echoing up from the subway stairwell. A siren wails faintly in the distance, cutting through the evening like a warning no one’s paying attention to.

The city buzzes, indifferent. A blur of yellow cabs, corner delis, rusted fire escapes. Life stacked in layers, always shifting, always spilling over.

Peter watches it all without blinking. He doesn’t feel a part of it. Doesn’t feel a part of anything at all.

This time it’s FRIDAY’s mechanical voice, tilted with an Irish accent, that pulls him out of his brooding.

She overrode Karen.

Like he’d expected her to.

“Peter,” she says, cool and calculated like her maker. “Mr. Stark requests that you head home now. It is past your curfew.”

“I’m not done yet,” Peter replies, voice gruff from disuse. He’s spent the better half of his patrol doing nothing but wallow in self pity. He clears his throat then adds with a hint of defiance in his tone, “I’ll go back when I go back.”

FRIDAY doesn’t miss a beat, unaffected by his dismissal. “I advise against ignoring Mr. Stark’s req—”

Peter doesn’t allow her to finish.

He shuts the suit down, rendering the electronic automated part of it useless. Without power, the suit is nothing but an overpriced version of his original homemade suit or ‘ onesies ’ as Mr. Stark likes to call it.

He holds his breath, half expecting FRIDAY to drone on unstirred by his attempt. But his coding holds, and after several moments of waiting for it to fail— Peter relaxes when it doesn’t.

Hacking into his suit for the second time wasn’t easy. Mr. Stark made sure of it. Hacking it for the second time without Ned was even harder. It was sheer luck (or was it sheer misfortune?) That he managed to do it after several attempts of trial and error. The code is experimental and Peter was not confident enough with his programming skills to expect it to work.

But it did.

And Peter waits in painful anticipation.

He’d ignored the call, deflected the guilt. But the silence that followed—FRIDAY’s voice, the weight of the building under his feet, the dry wind licking at his neck—left only one thing to think about.

Tony Stark.

It has been a little over a week since Mr. Stark’s disappearance mid lab session without an explanation. The morning after Peter had to find out with the rest of the world that he’s in Vienna attending a UN meeting. As if that hadn’t hurt enough. His only communication with the man since then consisted of short dry texts separated by days. 

He is not back yet and Peter is beyond desperate for a second of his attention.

He remembers two nights ago, just as he was about to wrap up his patrol for the evening, he’d spotted a robbery in the making. A man, not much older than he is, with crazed eyes and shaking hands was attempting to break into a closed pharmacy. It hadn’t taken much after confronting him for Peter to discover what was wrong with him. 

He was an addict going through withdrawal.

After webbing him to the front door of a free rehabilitation center, Peter hadn’t given the man a second thought.

He thinks of him now, one miscalculated step from falling off the edge, and a feeling of bitter understanding washes over him. It’s the same desperation that led the man to break the law that’s leading Peter to break the rules.

This willingness to do anything for a hit— a high, terrifies him. The end has never justified the means, not for him. But in the wake of Mr. Stark’s absence Peter finds that his moral compass no longer points North. Rather, it points to where the man is. Leading Peter to him through any way possible.

It’s exactly at the midnight mark that Peter hears what he’s been waiting for.

The mechanical whir of the Iron Man suit is quiet, a small hiss of sound in a noisy blend of the city below. It rings loud in Peter’s ears. He’s been straining his hearing since the moment he went off the grid, waiting to catch the familiar sound of the repulsors. Peter doesn’t move, but tears his eyes from the city underneath to stare at the endless sky.

There are no signs of stars, not in the polluted lights of the city.

Peter sighs again.

He wishes, albeit childishly, to go to space and swim in a sea of celestial objects— stars and planets. He wants to get lost in its vastness, sucked in a near-perfect vacuum. Maybe out in the endless openness, floating, he won’t feel half as empty as he does now. Maybe with a new gravitational pull he won’t feel as heavy as he does now.

The Iron Man suit lands somewhere behind him. There is a soft click sound that echoes quietly at the moment of touch down. It’s low and light— empty .

“You’re not here,” Peter says and instantly hates the accusing harshness to his voice. Shame sears his skin red— hot and angry. He immediately feels stupid for expecting him to be here. To drop everything and come bully Peter into his nightly routine. To use his snark as a lullaby and his wit as a weighted blanket, tuck him into bed.

“You’re not here,” Peter repeats in a whisper, talking more to himself than the suit and the man haunting it. His eyes are still fixed on the horizon, searching it for answers. When he speaks again it’s louder, meant for Mr. Stark’s ears. “You’re not actually here.”

The silence that follows confirms it. A silence too perfect, too static. Not the kind that sits between breaths or between people, but the kind that lives in an empty room. Artificial. Engineered.

Then the suit moves.

Not a full step—just the subtle tilt of its head, the faint shift of weight from one foot to the other. Hydraulic and measured. Simulated.

Peter doesn’t flinch, but the shame floods him anyway. He feels stupid. Small. Like a kid caught trying to sneak into a grown-up conversation. Like someone begging into a void and pretending the echo means he’s been heard.

The voice comes a moment later. Filtered, flattened through the metal speakers.

“Peter.”

It’s Mr. Stark’s voice, unmistakable. Calm. Controlled. A few layers removed from human.

Peter swallows.

There’s a delay—just a second too long—before Mr. Stark speaks again.

“You need to go home. Now. It’s late.”

He doesn’t turn around. Doesn’t want to see the chest-plate pulse with words that aren’t accompanied by breath. Doesn’t want to picture Mr. Stark in some marble-floored room a continent away, half-listening with one hand over the mic.

“You sent the suit,” Peter says flatly. “Right. Of course you did.”

There’s another pause. Then static clicks again, and Mr. Stark’s voice returns—this time overlapping faintly with another voice in the background, deeper and gruffer, saying something Peter can’t quite make out. Governmental, maybe. Someone official.

Mr. Stark says something off-mic—muffled—and then returns to Peter like someone flipping back to the wrong tab.

“Sorry. I’m still in Vienna. Meetings ran late,” a pause, then to someone else “This’ll only take a second.”

Peter’s heart stutters. His throat tightens.

It shouldn’t hurt.

He knew . Of course he knew. He saw the press. Heard the reports. Watched the livestream of Tony Stark standing behind a UN podium in Vienna, jaw set, fingers twitching in irritation.

Still, it hurts.

“You didn’t have to come,” Peter mumbles. “But you could’ve… not done this either.”

The suit tilts again, that uncanny shift of weight like it’s mimicking empathy. It doesn’t move closer.

“You hacked your own suit. Shut out FRIDAY. That’s not nothing, kid. May called me.”

Mr. Stark sounds tired. Not angry—just… stretched thin.

Peter wants to scream. Wants to tear the suit open and make sure it’s really empty , because some part of him is still stupid enough to hope he’s wrong.

“I was fine,” he says instead. “You didn’t need to interrupt your Very Important Meetings to check in. I’m not twelve.”

There’s a longer silence now. Mr. Stark’s voice, when it comes back, is gentler—but more distant than ever.

“It’s not about your age, Peter.”

He could leave it at that. But of course he doesn’t.

“It’s about you putting yourself in danger when I’m not there to stop it. It’s about the fact that you’ve been off your game lately, and I don’t know why, because you won’t talk to me.”

Peter closes his eyes. The wind brushes cold across his ears.

“I can’t talk to you,” he says, barely audible. “You’re not here.”

“I’m doing what I can.”

“That’s not enough,” Peter snaps, and the words cut sharper than he expects them to. “I don’t need the suit. I don’t need tech or protocols or reminders. I needed you .”

The rooftop holds its breath.

Below, the city goes on—oblivious. A couple argues on the sidewalk. A train rumbles past. Somewhere, a bottle breaks.

“Peter…” Mr. Stark says, quieter now. Something in the voice cracks—not fully, but enough to bleed.

But Peter is already backing away. Slowly. Deliberately. The ledge is only a few feet behind him.

“I thought maybe if I waited long enough, you’d come in person,” he says, blinking hard against the sting behind his eyes. “That you’d get it. But I was wrong.”

The suit steps forward. Not fast—measured. Careful.

“Kid—don’t do anything stupid, okay?”

Peter smiles bitterly. “Already did.”

Then he steps off the roof.

The wind hits him like a slap as he drops. A clean fall—controlled. His eyes sting from cold and guilt and nothing at all.

The suit doesn’t follow.

It can’t.

Mr. Stark’s voice echoes into the open night, tinny and useless.

“Peter—”

But he’s already plummeting to the ground, waiting recklessly for the last possible second before shooting a web to break his fall. His feet graze the sidewalk as he pulls back up. He narrowly avoids breaking every bone in both of his legs. The impact sends a sting up his ankles and Peter welcomes the hiss of pain with open arms.

The arguing couple yell at his sudden appearance. The man pulls the woman protectively behind him and she clings to him for dear life— argument forgotten. They both relax once they realize it’s only Spider-Man passing them in a blur of red and blue.

Peter doesn’t apologize.

He shoots web after web, splitting the cold night air open like a bullet, as he pulls his entire body tut. Peter throws himself between buildings with reckless force, misjudging the distance on purpose. A shoulder clips a fire escape. A shin scrapes brick.

He doesn’t slow down. He wants to feel it.

Hopes that with his body sore and bruised his heart won’t hurt as much.

May waits for him when he finally gets home. Her eyes are red-rimmed and her hands shake around her cup of tea— she looks utterly wrecked with worry. One look at her and Peter can taste the sourness of her disappointment in him on his tongue and at the back of his throat— choking him.

May doesn’t say anything, just sighs in relief at the sight of him unharmed. Before she can think to tell him just how worried and scared she was, Peter storms to his room like a coward. The loud boom of the door slamming shut behind him echoes like a cry for help.

And in the safety of his own room, wrapped in silence and cloaked in darkness, Peter allows the tears to finally fall.

Chapter Text

The next morning, Peter wakes up uncomfortably sore and utterly mortified.

It's the pain that wakes him up. He stirs in his sleep, lazily turning to chase after a blissful dream. But the movement sends shocks of electricity up his spine and his entire body tenses up from the pain. 

He groans, wide awake now.

He’s aching all around, bruised too. Peter doesn't need to look at his skin to see the blue and purple marks, he feels them. It feels like he stopped a bullet train with his body, absorbing the entirety of its g-force. Or swallowed a grenade and had it explode inside of him, containing the blast within the walls of his body.

It hurts.

It's agony.

He welcomes it.

The aching rings louder than the feeling of outright humiliation.

The events of the previous night flash before his eyes. It’s a blur of colours and sound painted with a sinking feeling of desperation.

Peter groans again and this time, it’s a little sound of despair.

Ordinarily, for surface level injuries like these, a good two hour nap is enough to get him back on his feet. Not completely healed, of course. Just on the edge of the good kind of soreness. Where he can function normally with but a hint of pain hissing under his skin.

Now?

Peter dreads moving.

But he can hear the soft tapping of May’s feet against the hard wooden floors as she paces the living room. The sound comes and goes, though the tapping remains consistent. With the consequences of last night's actions looming over his head, the quiet ‘ tap tap ’ morphed into an echoing ‘ tick tick ’— a bomb waiting to detonate.

With a sigh, Peter sits up and hisses. He tries to maneuver his body in a way that hurts the least. Except halfway through his trouble he remembers he deserves the pain, wants it even. So he grits his teeth and gets up.

A quick glance to his bedside clock tells him that he still has thirty minutes before he has to be up. But there is no point in delaying the inevitable. May will not let him step foot outside the apartment without having said her piece first. Therefore Peter shuffles through his room, forcing his limbs to move despite their stiffness— welcoming the repetition, trying to memorize how the pain fits into his skin.

It’s only once he’s sure he won’t grimace in pain in front of May that he leaves his room.

She’s going to ask questions he doesn’t have answers to. Not ones he can say out loud, anyway. He knows the look she’ll give him—the tight press of her mouth, the worry she won’t say, the disappointment she will.

Time to face the music.

Peter steps out of his room, already bracing. He moves stiffly down the hallway, every step controlled, careful. His limbs ache, deep and throbbing, but he keeps his spine straight and his face blank.

The apartment is quiet. Dim morning light bleeds through the blinds in streaks, slanting across the floor like it’s watching him too.

May is at the counter—still in the same hoodie from last night, hair pulled up messily, a mug of tea between her hands. She doesn’t turn right away, but he can feel her awareness prick like static in the air.

“You’re up,” she says after a beat. Her voice is calm. Too calm.

“Yeah,” Peter mumbles, heading to the fridge.

“You sleep okay?”

He nods, avoiding eye contact. Opens the fridge and grabs a water bottle, lingering behind the door a second too long. He grips the handle like it’s grounding him.

“I, uh… I didn’t sleep much,” May continues, trying to make it sound casual. “Kind of hard to, after the whole dramatic rooftop reentry.”

Peter closes the fridge. The soft click is loud in the still apartment.

“I used the door,” he says, almost defensively.

“I know,” she replies. “You just… you didn’t say anything. Walked in like a ghost.”

He leans against the counter, shifts his weight to his right leg, trying not to wince. The muscles in his left thigh still burn when he puts pressure on them.

“I wasn’t gonna say anything at first,” May says, still watching her tea. “Figured maybe you needed space. But then you didn’t say anything . And I kept thinking, what if he’s not okay? What if something happened? What if—”

She cuts herself off, biting down on the panic trying to escape. The tea ripples slightly in her hands.

Peter stares at the counter. His fingers twitch.

“You scared me,” she says.

“I’m sorry,” he mutters, throat tight.

“I know.”

Silence settles between them again. The hum of the refrigerator fills the space like static.

“You didn’t look like that when you left yesterday,” she finally says.

Peter keeps his face still.

“I know it’s none of my business, not really,” she goes on. “You’ve got your whole secret superhero schedule, and I’m just the lady who makes your sandwiches and keeps your cover story straight—”

“May…”

“—but I need you to talk to me, Pete. Just a little. You don’t have to give me classified SHIELD intel or whatever, I just…” She hesitates. “I just need to know you’re okay.”

Peter tightens his grip on the bottle. The condensation slicks his fingers.

“I’m fine,” he says again.

May doesn’t push immediately. She just exhales, steadying herself.

“You’ve been off for weeks,” she says. “I thought maybe it was school. Or hormones. Or maybe—”
She glances at him.
“—maybe it’s Ben. Again.”

Peter jerks back a little like she’d smacked him. His expression flashes—hurt, guilt, something sharp—before he shuts it down.

“It’s not Ben,” he says, too fast, too defensive.

May’s mouth tightens. “Okay. Okay.”

“I’m not ten.”

“I know that.”

“Then stop acting like I’m going to fall apart just because you said his name.”

May blinks, caught off guard. The hurt in her face is immediate—and unhidden.

Peter looks away. The guilt curls low in his gut, tight and hot.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” he says. Quiet.

“I know,” she answers, just as soft.

A car honks distantly outside. Somewhere upstairs, pipes creak. The apartment feels too big for the two of them, like the walls are listening.

“I know I’m not cut out for all of this,” May says. “The superhero thing. The late nights. The pretending I don’t notice when you limp down the hallway.”

Peter shifts again, subtly favoring his right leg.

“I’m not trying to control you. I’m not trying to trap you in a guilt trip. I just… I need to know you’re not self-destructing.”

Peter doesn’t answer. His throat works around a response that never forms.

May’s voice breaks a little: “Because if something happened to you and I wasn’t paying attention—if you were hurting right in front of me and I missed it—”

“You didn’t,” he says suddenly, cutting her off. “Okay? You didn’t miss it. I just… didn’t want to talk.”

May nods slowly. The silence between them stretches again.

She rises from her stool and moves to the fridge, pulling out a brown paper bag and setting it on the counter. The bag is heavier than usual.

“I packed your lunch. There’s extra snacks. Like, real ones.”

“I’m not hungry,” Peter says, almost automatically.

“You will be.”

He picks it up, slings his backpack on one shoulder with a slow, awkward motion.

At the door, he hesitates.

“I didn’t mean to scare you,” he says again, this time quieter.

May smiles gently, though her eyes are tired. “Don’t make a habit of it.”

“I’ll try.”

He reaches for the door.

“Love you, Pete.”

He doesn’t turn. “Love you too.”

The door shuts behind him with a soft click.

As his life crashes and burns around him, Peter comes to the conclusion that his theory regarding the existence of ‘ middle ground ’ is in fact unsound.

Once, he had attempted to explain this to Ned. His hypothesis that there was no such thing as neutrality or gray areas in relation to situations or matters regarding feelings and opinions.

For instance, love and hate, one cannot claim to walk the thin line separating the two emotions without leaning towards one more than the other. You either love something— someone, or you hate it— them . Of course this does not mean one cannot change their mind or feel differently. There are coefficients and variables at play, as every well formed equation has, and they determine which side is greater. External factors may well enhance and reinforce an existing feeling or opinion as likely as they are to change said feeling or opinion.

One thing for sure, however, both sides of the equation are not and will not be equals— ever.

The young and naive version of Peter that came up with the theory viewed everything through the lens of this perspective. In his mind, you are either good or evil, kind or cruel, loving or hateful. It is possible to have strong feelings and opinions of both opposing sides. However, one will always be stronger, more dominant. As such, claiming neutrality is incorrect and false. There is no gray area to revert to in such claims because in the end, as Peter sees it, the world is black and white.

At least, it used to be.

Now?

Peter isn’t so sure.

Students pass by, laughing and shoving, their movements blurred and fast. Peter’s barely moved since he sat down. Even blinking feels like a decision.

The sandwich May packed is still sealed. He stares at the plastic wrap like it might unwrap itself, like it might decide for him. Around him, the cafeteria buzzes—shoes squeaking, trays scraping, someone shouting something about gym class. It all feels like background radiation, indistinct and too bright.

He looks intently at his untouched lunch, mentally retracing his steps in order to pinpoint the exact moment his black and white world exploded into shades of gray.

He finds that all his trail of thoughts eventually lead him to Tony Stark. It’s no surprise, for the man himself is the biggest and grayest area of all. It’s his sudden arrival in Peter’s life that disproves his theory. Mr. Stark is a living and breathing contradiction and he falsifies Peter’s core beliefs by merely existing.

He’s obsessive, consumed by a need to be in control. Compulsively planning for every worst-case scenario he can predict. Yet, constantly improvises and creates new tech without fully thinking through consequences— reckless . 

Egotistical, constantly seeking validation to feed his pride and self-worth. Whilst also being consumed by guilt, loathing himself for the harm he has caused. Mr. Stark is narcissistic, flippant and indulgent— painfully selfish at times. But somehow he is also a self-sacrificing hero, viewing himself as insignificant in the face of the greater good or the safety of others. 

The paradox of wanting to live while willing to die is what drives him, what makes him Iron Man.

These are the contradictions known to the world. The more intimate ones that Peter gathers from his own observations during their interactions are an entirely different story. What he sees when he looks at Mr. Stark goes beyond the facade— the performance. 

Tony Stark hungers for deep meaningful connections, craves them even. He wants to be loved, trusted, needed. Yet is terrified of being vulnerable. He builds relationships only to sabotage them, always keeping anyone who starts to mean something at arm’s length.

Forever charming.

Often an asshole.

Mr. Stark is fiercely protective of the people he cares about— a silent caregiver. In spite of that, he is emotionally unavailable. He faces difficulties expressing affection without sarcasm, guilt, or distraction. No matter the effort he puts in, his attempts are more often than not awkward, stilted, or emotionally overwhelming. His poor communication skills makes him seem cold or selfish— the deflection, sarcasm and arrogance. It’s only natural that the majority of the people that interact with him end up misreading him. Time and time again he is written up as aloof or manipulative.

But what lies ahead, under thick layers of skin is overwhelming feelings. He’s scared and overloaded— desperate to be seen. Unfamiliar with human softness or a constant presence.

He’s scared and alone.

And Peter sees him.

It’s precisely that that makes Peter question his theory.

Which, in turn, means he questions himself.

His chest tightens. Not in panic, not sharp—just heavy. Like his body’s trying to hold itself together with too few supports, and something is going to snap if he shifts the wrong way.

How can he distinguish right from wrong in a world that is no longer black or white but rather made of endless shades of gray?

“Dude,” Ned starts, plucking him out of his internal spiral. “You’re being so weird right now, it’s not even funny.”

Peter blinks, as if realizing for the first time that he’s not alone. He sighs and leans back, the plastic bench creaking under his weight.

There’s no point in trying to explain his ever-growing dilemma. Not to Ned. Not now.

“Are you, like…” Ned continues, mouth half-full of grilled cheese and spam, “still hung up on Liz or something?”

Peter rolls his eyes. “No, Ned. I’m not hung up on Liz.”

He wishes he were. Life would be easier if his biggest problem was a broken heart. He pushes the majority of his lunch across the table—half a sandwich, a bruised apple, a granola bar. He keeps the baby carrots for himself. His stomach feels like a pit, but the thought of filling it makes him nauseous.

Ned blinks at the offering, but takes it. “Okay, so then what is it?”

Peter doesn’t answer.

Ned squints. “Because, dude, you’re giving serious Mr. Harrington vibes. Like when he’s mad the school board didn’t approve his debate club funding, but pretends he’s chill, then sighs super loud waiting for someone to ask.”

Peter lets out a breath—something like a laugh, thin and dry.

“That’s a dark place to be, man,” Ned adds, peeling open the granola bar like it’s evidence.

Peter half-smiles. Just the corner of his mouth. Tired. Hollow.

“I don’t want to be asked about it,” he says finally.

Ned quiets. He nods slowly, not hurt—just thoughtful.

“Okay,” he says. “I won’t ask.”

They fall into a lull. Around them, the cafeteria pulses with normalcy: trays clatter, someone swears too loudly, a basketball rolls out from under a table. Peter picks at a carrot. Ned eats like nothing’s wrong, even though everything is.

“I mean,” Ned offers lightly, “I could just guess random stuff and see what makes you flinch.”

Peter raises a brow, amused despite himself.

“Like—” Ned raises a finger. “Your Sokovia Accords essay got flagged by the FBI.”

Peter blinks.

Ned grins. “No? Okay, new theory: you finally found out Mr. Delmar’s sandwich cat died and now you feel responsible because you never said goodbye.”

Peter snorts.

“Still no? Wow. Brutal crowd.”

Before Peter can come up with a comeback, a familiar voice cuts through the noise like a dull blade.

“Hey losers.”

MJ slides into the seat across from them, dropping her tray with a calculated thud. She doesn’t look at Peter right away. Just pops open her yogurt and starts stirring like it insulted her family.

She glances up mid-stir. “Why does Parker look like a Reddit mod who just got banned from his own forum?”

Peter groans.

“Don’t,” he says. “Not today.”

MJ raises an eyebrow. “You’re giving ‘existential crisis in homeroom’ energy. I figured I should say something before you start reciting Nietzsche in gym class.”

“He’s going through a tragic origin arc,” Ned supplies helpfully.

MJ tilts her head. “Didn’t he already have one?”

Peter bangs his head on the table. It makes a satisfyingly dull thunk .

“I hate both of you,” he mumbles into the laminate.

Ned pats his back. “Don’t worry, man. Pain builds character.”

MJ nods solemnly. “And characters build lore.”

He should laugh. He should play along. But all he can think is how none of it—MJ’s teasing, Ned’s concern—can fill the hollow ache building behind his ribs.

At night, Peter dreams of him.

Ben.

He's laying on the pavement, body stiff and rigid—bones and muscles locked in place. His skin is white as a sheet, lips a cold shade of blue. There’s frost along his jaw, like death arrived early and brought winter with it. Blood spills out of a gaping hole in his chest and through his small fingers, as Peter pushes down hard to stop the bleeding. The wound pulses wet and open under his hands. His ribs crack under the pressure, bones groaning in protest. Yet the blood doesn't slow down. It flows, a running stream with no beginning or end. No amount of desperate pressure slows it down.

It smells like rust and pennies. Like every accident Peter’s ever walked away from.

It floods the streets.

Thick, syrupy, almost sentient—like it wants to swallow the world.

The thick sticky liquid, uncharacteristically cold, paints the city in red.

There is so much of it, it reaches just above Peter's navel. It clings to his clothes, seeps into his socks, smears under his nails. It’s endless, pours and pours out of Ben’s lifeless body. Until he's submerged in his own blood, sinking further into a place Peter can't reach him. The heaviness of the years not yet lived out pulls him away from Peter.

His eyes never close. Just fade.

He kicks and screams, thrashing his arms and legs around—trying to save him. But the harder Peter tries to get to Ben, the greater is the force that pulls him away.
So he pleads and begs, suddenly fourteen again, praying for an ambulance to come and save his uncle.

In his dream, it didn't come.

The sirens are silent. Time slows to a crawl. Each breath Peter takes feels like breathing in tar.

When his throat is raw from yelling and his lungs are filled with crimson poison—it stops.

The flood recedes. Not gradually, but violently—jerking backward like it had never existed. Ben’s body absorbs the blood, the street, the sky, the buildings. The world folds in on itself until all that remains is a flat, black vacuum.

No sky. No ground. Just Ben’s outline, glowing faintly in the void, and Peter—floating. Weightless and gut-punched.

Peter is completely and utterly alone.

When he wakes up, soaked in sweat and covered in his own tears, eyes burning and throat split open from swallowing his screams—the bitter taste of metal lingers in his mouth.

His chest lurches. He sits up too fast, the world spinning in wet, pulsing color. The sheets tangle around his legs like restraints.

Peter barely makes it to the bathroom in time to spill his insides in the toilet.

The tile is freezing. The fluorescent light burns. The sound of retching echoes louder than it should.

When he’s done, he slumps back against the bathtub. Peter wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. His fingers tremble.

Somewhere deep inside, the dream lingers—too vivid, too real.

When Friday comes around and Peter spots the familiar Audi across the street from his school, the correlation between it and getting to see Mr. Stark is gone. Now, his chest tightens uncomfortably at the sight of it, his stomach twisting painfully. When he starts to walk towards it, his feet drag under him— wanting to take him anywhere but the car and its isolating bubble of loneliness.

As he approaches, Peter readies himself for disappointment, anticipating the now familiar sting of abandonment. It weighs him down, making his limbs heavy and his heart heavier— Peter almost forgets who he is under all that added weight.

He steels himself for the emptiness inside—just the leather seats and a texted excuse. As he opens the car door, he says, “Just take me home Happy. I don’t feel like–” Peter stops, vowels and consonants scattering across his tongue, leaving him speechless in his shock.

Sitting there, legs crossed and a picture of cool casualness, is Tony Stark. 

“Well this is awkward,” the man says, peering at Peter over his yellow tinted sunglasses. There is a hint of amusement hiding in his eyes, making it shine with mirth. It is the only thing that gives him away, the rest of his features maintain his usual aloofness. “This is what? The third time you've blown me off for homework. I'm starting to look desperate,” there is a tilt to his voice, a familiar tone that draws out his words— laziness. He pulls off his glasses to better look at Peter, his eyebrows raised into a playful curve. “I don't do desperate, kid. Not really my, what do you kids call it? Vibe? Yeah, not really my vibe.” 

Peter wants to scoff, to roll his eyes and say something like ‘glad you remembered I existed’ or something harsh and equally as snarky. He wants to voice his inner turmoil and crippling fears. 

Instead, his body betrays him. 

The corners of his mouth twitch before he even gives them permission. His heart hammers with warmth that feels both welcome and traitorous. His lips curve upwards, a smile slowly forming. Just the look of him, the sound of his voice, and the warmth of his body makes Peter feel more like himself— whole and alive. 

“I don't know Mr. Stark,” he replies, taking a seat next to the man and breathing in his scent. “Starting to think this too cool for….” He trails off, considering. “Well, anything, is just an act,” Peter teases, every cell in his body humming in contentment. Every broken piece of him slots back into place, restored by Mr. Stark's mere presence. 

Cracks appear on Mr. Stark's facade, and through them Peter glimpses a flash of relief— fast enough for him to question its existence. 

“Watch it Parker,” he says, pointing a finger at the teenager in mock threat. “Keep decoding me like that and I’ll have to call in a cleanup crew.” 

He says it casually, playfully— in his own dry sense of humor. It's a nod to a previous conversation they've had before, an inside joke. Peter had once asked, jokingly and a little terrified, if he should expect a visit from Black Widow now that he knew the inside and outs of the Iron Man suit. Finding the thought rather hilarious, Mr. Stark since made it a point to threaten to eliminate him every time Peter gave away how much he knew about Stark Industries, Avenger related technology, and the Iron suits. But most importantly, each time he gets the slightest bit touched or overwhelmed by Peter's rich perception of him. 

Normally, it makes Peter laugh.

This time, it makes his blood run cold. It’s not the joke that hits him—it’s the way it lands now. Like Tony’s half-smiling confession that Peter could still be erased if he got too close. It’s a blunt reminder that he is disposable.

The breath catches in his throat. Just for a second.

A chill, cold and fast, shoots down his spine—uninvited.

He realizes that Mr. Stark had not intended for it to mean as such, nevertheless, it still feeds his insecurities and the dread of being left behind returns worse than it once was. As if each time it fades it builds momentum, coming back to hit him harder every time.

Peter swallows, shoving saliva and bile back down his throat. He forces out a laugh, a quiet and fickle sound. As it echoes and fades, his heart breaks a little. Suddenly, the full extent of his mistake dawns on him. 

He had built a home on quicksand. And now the floor is giving way, inch by inch. The warmth that used to keep him safe now pulls him under.

He laughs again, tight and forced— broken in a way he never was before.

“Maybe you should,” he whispers in a voice so quiet, so small, it barely registers to his own ears. He blinks, surprised his lips moved when he hadn’t intended for them to.

“Hmm?” Mr. Stark questions, already distracted. He’s busy typing on his phone, writing and erasing words— brows furrowed. The yellow tinted glasses are back on, carefully placed on the bridge of his nose. Like the tinted glass separating them from Happy, the lenses feel like another pane between them—one Peter can see through, but never get past.

Tony Stark’s attention, Peter discovered long ago, is that of a flickering candle— here and there. One moment you’re illuminated by the warmth of his awareness and recognition of you. The next you’re engulfed in its absence, his attention passes over you as if you do not even register to him.

“Say, underoos,” he starts, not bothering to look up from his phone. He scratches absentmindedly at his chin as he speaks, pulling at the short hairs of his perfectly trimmed goatee. “Have you ever thought about integrating a dual-phase coil for the neural thread housing? I was messing with the simulations and it might reduce the drift rate—at least theoretically.”

“Actually, yeah, I was thinking—what if we reroute the filament through a secondary lattice? Like, if we weave a micro-flex grid beneath the main channel, it could stabilize the neural signals and cut the lag by—” the enthusiasm in his voice gradually decreases until he comes to a full stop mid sentence.

“Uh huh,” the older hums passively. The sound that escapes his throat is more of a practiced response than an active one.

He glances at Mr. Stark. The man’s still typing, barely nodding, sunglasses hiding his eyes. Peter understands then— he’s nothing but background noise. A soothing ramble, a continuous stream of white noise half registering to him.

“—uh… never mind,” Peter says, hurt and embarrassed. Then he adds, consoling himself more than anything, “It probably wouldn’t work anyway.”

The car ride continues that way. Mr. Stark says off handed comments, voices half formed thoughts, and makes pitiful attempts at small talk he doesn’t commit to. Through it all, Peter only occasionally hums, biting down the urge to fill the empty silence in between. His uncharacteristic quietness doesn’t seem to register to Mr. Stark and the fact leaves a bitter taste in Peter’s mouth. It settles on his tongue like copper—familiar, metallic, and impossible to swallow.

The car ride back is quiet. Not peaceful. Not companionable. Just… quiet.

The kind that fills your ears until they ring.

Peter sits with his backpack clutched in his lap, staring straight ahead. Outside the window, the city peels past in smeared streaks of neon and concrete. He doesn’t follow the blur. Doesn’t speak. His hands twitch, then still again. His smile, the one that had cracked across his face just minutes ago, has already dissolved into nothing.

Mr. Stark types on his phone. The screen lights his face in fractured white and blue. He doesn’t look over. Doesn’t say anything.

Peter doesn’t either.

The silence stretches. Too long. Like old gum between teeth—sticky, thin, ready to snap.

He swallows around the dryness in his throat, the ghost of bile still clinging at the back of his tongue. His thoughts churn loud and fast—things he should say, could say. But nothing makes it out. His jaw locks tight. A white-knuckled grip on composure.

They don’t speak again.

When they reach the Tower, FRIDAY opens the gate like always, her voice pleasant, practiced. Peter follows Mr. Stark out of the car and into the elevator, steps echoing faintly against the polished floors. The ambient light inside the lift catches on Tony’s lenses, turning them opaque.

He doesn’t take them off this time.

The ride is smooth. Too smooth.

Peter shifts his weight from one foot to the other. Mr. Stark pockets his phone at last, but says nothing. The silence between them feels more final now. Like a conversation that never happened.

The elevator doors open onto the penthouse. It’s dimly lit, cast in gold from the dying sun bleeding through the tall windows. For a moment, Peter wonders if Tony will stop here. If he’ll make an excuse and disappear upstairs—into a meeting, a call, a room Peter can’t follow him into.

But he walks toward the lab instead.

So Peter follows.

Down the private staircase, the hum of machinery grows louder. Familiar.

But not comforting.

Not this time.

“Let’s start with the…” Mr. Stark trails off as soon as they step foot into his personal lab. He snaps his fingers as he points to the far left corner of the space. He doesn’t look at what he’s pointing at, instead fishes his buzzing phone from his pocket. The vague gesture gives nothing away, and Peter stands still by the door, trying to decipher its meaning.

He looks at the left corner.

There’s the unfinished phase-shift shielding array — the one Tony specifically told him not to touch unless he wanted to destabilize the molecular alignment of his own fingers. Next to it is the holo-integrated neurolink — a prototype meant to sync with FRIDAY’s core and still in its dangerous infancy. And behind that, shoved half under a tarp, is the quantum disruptor housing from their dimensional interference fail-safes. All of them are too advanced, too sensitive, or too dangerous.

All of them things Peter’s not supposed to touch.

His brows knit. “Uh… which one, exactly?”

But Tony doesn’t answer.

He’s already halfway across the room, phone to his ear, murmuring something low and clipped.

Peter just stands there.

Peter has never believed in the myth of fifty/fifty relationships. That idea—that effort can be cleanly measured and split like a check—has always struck him as naive. That both halves should contribute equal amounts of time, effort, and dedication to maintain a sacred balance. He has always thought that their mistake— the people who thought that way— is assuming relationships resemble a scale. Insinuating that healthy, strong, and meaningful relationships are acquired through keeping the scale balanced.

In true Peter Parker fashion, Peter has always thought that relationships are best represented by an equation. Instead of having each person contributing equal amounts, both parties strive to achieve an accumulated hundred percent of joint effort. It doesn’t matter, if at times, both parts do not equal each other as long as the end result is the desired hundred percent.

This belief is brought forth by The Scale Theory, as he likes to call it, not accounting for outside factors that come into play and affect the amounts contributed to the relationship. Whereas equations, flexible and adaptable, have room to accommodate each factor.

Yes, in an ideal world, relationships could and should be fifty/fifty. That is if they are maintained in a controlled environment without outside influences or affects. Theoretically, if you remove stress, build up from responsibilities outside of the relationships, and commitments to other relationships, then yes fifty/fifty is the way to go.

In practice, however, the fifty/fifty approach is impossible to retain. Isolating environments are hard to come by. Which means, in the real world, relationships are affected by external factors. Those external factors can lead one part of the relationship not being able to contribute their desired target of supplying half of the required effort needed to keep the bond alive and well. In which case, the other person must increase their input to achieve the hypothetical end result preferred— a hundred percent.

This means, according to Peter, that relationships are fluid and forgiving. They adapt and adjust to the environment around them. People in a relationship should not aim to balance the supposed scale that is the relationship but instead balance each other out to create harmony. Person A puts more effort than person B at times, then person B puts more effort than person A, sometimes they put equal effort, sometimes they put almost equal effort— this is how a true relationship should be.

Almost like a lazy tide, pushing and pulling in a perfect rhythm.

Now, Peter is hit with a bitter sense of deja vu as he questions yet again another core belief because of Tony Stark.

Where is the line, if there is one? To what extent and period should one part of the relationship increase their input until they realize that it’s hopeless? Because if he thinks about it, really thinks about it, Mr. Stark’s effort during the entirety of their relationship up to this very moment does not amass a total amount of thirty percent of the collective effort put into the relationship. Since the very beginning, Peter has always been compensating for the man’s shortcomings.

He feels it the strongest now, standing on the edge of the lab. Looking into Mr. Stark’s space: his frustrated movement, the curt ring to his voice, and the rigidness of his muscles— there is no space for him there.

“Tell Ross if he wants cooperation, he needs to stop using the word containment like we’re talking about weapons,” he says into the phone as he shrugs off his suit’s blazer. Once freed from it, he tosses it carelessly to the nearest surface— a workbench. The blazer barely grazes the sleek surface before slipping to the floor with a soundless thud. It sits in a sad pile by Mr. Stark’s feet, discarded and ignored.

Peter nearly whimpers when Mr. Stark rolls his chair back, the wheels catching and dragging across the fallen blazer. A sense of kinship washes over him, a kindred understanding of the blazer’s discarded and ignored state. Pitying the no doubt expensive piece of clothing, and in turn pitying himself, Peter approaches it cautiously. He shouldn’t care. It’s just a blazer. But the way it lies there—forgotten, in the way, run over without thought—makes something in his chest twist tight.

The man’s only acknowledgment of his closeness is a raised eyebrow and a quick glance in his direction as he speaks once more into the phone, “no, that language won’t hold—Article Five still implies UN oversight. I told them that’s a dealbreaker.”

He crouches by Mr. Stark’s feet, carefully prying the fabric free from the wheels, then pulls it to his chest with quiet protectiveness. He smoothes the wrinkled patch in gentle consoling strokes before folding it and setting it neatly on the workbench.

“Thanks kid,” Mr. Stark says, covering the speakers with his hand so that whoever is on the other side doesn’t hear. Then, not giving Peter a chance to respond, adds, to the person on the phone, “No, it’s not about vengeance. It’s about liability. If they’re back on U.S. soil, I’m not shouldering the blowback,” he sighs, listening to whatever the person has to say in response. His frustration visibly grows with each word said to him. When he speaks next, his voice is tight— sharp, “I’ve got half a team scattered across three jurisdictions. You want them unified? Amend the jurisdictional enforcement clause.”

By the time Mr. Stark is done tossing around clinical bureaucratic words Peter doesn’t understand, he’s drowning in the growing distance between them. Despite him being a literal arm’s length away, so close Peter can touch him if he just reaches out, Mr. Stark never felt so far away. Even as he sets his sleek Stark Industries phone on the equally sleek workbench and finally looks at Peter, he still feels unreachable.

“So,” Mr. Stark says, rubbing his hands together and flashing Peter a smile that’s all teeth and zero energy—tired and tight, like he’s holding the rest of himself together with it. “About that dual-phase coil, simulations suggest that it might reduce the drift rate—” his phone buzzes, the sound louder now that it’s vibrating against a solid object. He glances at it from the corner of his eyes, but makes no move to read the notification he just received. He crosses his arms instead, an obvious attempt at resisting picking the phone up. “In theory, of course,” he adds, “You said something about the filament, right? What were you thinking—stabilizing the neural signals or…?” his phone rings with another notification and he bites down on his lips hard, halting his words to an abrupt stop.

“You can go,” Peter hears himself suggesting. Voice quiet and uncertain— strange to his own ears. Mr. Stark looks at him curiously, one eyebrow arched, curved in challenge instead of surprise. “You’re busy,” he says, justifying his offer or the man’s blatant distraction— he’s not sure. Ultimately, it’s true. Mr. Stark is busy. In the grand schemes of his life, Peter is but a small insignificant part. A responsibility he didn’t ask for but ended up stuck with nevertheless.

A pesky bug crawling all over his highly important and valuable time, trying and failing to create a nest in stolen moments.

“Can I?” Mr. Stark repeats, eyebrow cocked, tone sharp enough to cut glass. It’s not curiosity—it’s a dare. “Because the way you’re looking at me, kid, makes me think you might actually cry if I do,” he says, his voice is serious but his eyes are soft— tired instead of compassionate. Undeterred by Peter’s shock, or the uncomfortable blush creeping up his neck and nervous energy moving his awkward limbs, he continues. “So let’s say I don’t give a damn. Let’s say I’m the selfish, absentee bastard you’ve got scribbled in the margins of your trauma journal—” He lifts a hand, cutting off Peter’s stammered protest before it starts. The words die on Peter’s tongue, premature and stillborn. “And I do leave to take care of this mess,” he gestures, rather frustrated at the phone vibrating continuously, buzzing from a stream of texts and unanswered calls. “What’s to say you’re not going to throw a tantrum and do something reckless and stupidly dangerous like go off the grid— Which reminds me, hand over the suit. I’ve gotta install a new protocol: ‘Keep Parker From Self-Destructing 3.0.’ Working title. Feedback welcome— like an angsty teenager? Contrary to popular belief, I haven’t unlocked that level of assholeness yet. I do care about that , at the very least.”

Peter’s lips press into a thin line. His heart is hammering, but his voice is cold. “Well, color me reassured,” he says flatly. He’s too tired to run. So he swings.“I feel so cared for.”

Tony freezes, just for a beat. The air between them tightens like a stretched cord, and Peter doesn’t stop—he can’t stop. The quiet dread that’s been simmering under his skin for weeks bubbles over, white-hot and blistering.

“Oh, look at that. Little Parker’s got bite,” Mr. Stark drawls, somewhere between impressed and offended. “And here I thought you were one of Mary’s wholesome little lambs. Turns out there’s a bit of wolf hiding under that fleece.”

“Maybe,” Peter says, jaw clenched. “Maybe I had to grow teeth.”

Tony raises an eyebrow, unimpressed. “You wanna say what you’re really thinking, or are we just gonna keep dancing around it like it’s prom night?”

The lab lights hum overhead, casting sterile white shadows on the concrete. Machines blink to themselves in the corners, silent witnesses to the unraveling.

Peter laughs, a low, joyless sound. “You want me to say it?” he asks, stepping forward. “Fine. You’re distracted. And half the time, I don’t even think you see me. I know you don’t even realize that you’re hurting me. And that’s what makes it worse.”

Tony’s face goes carefully blank, which only makes Peter angrier.

“I show up,” Peter says, louder now, voice cracking at the edges. “I always show up. I wait for you, I listen, I pay attention even when you think I’m not—because it matters to me. You matter to me.”

He swallows hard, the words catching like splinters in his throat.

“But the second your phone buzzes, or someone else pulls your attention, it’s like I never existed, like I was just something passing the time until something real came along,” He lets out a shaky breath, hands tightening at his sides. There is a slight wobble to his voice when he speaks next, “you do that a lot, you know—pull me close, just long enough for me to think I’m safe, then vanish like none of it meant anything. And maybe I’m not supposed to say anything, maybe I’m supposed to just… get it, and keep getting it, every time it happens, but it doesn’t make it easier.”

Tony exhales hard. “You really think I wanted it to be like this?”

Peter doesn’t answer right away. He shifts his weight, stares down at the floor.

Of course not , he thinks. But that doesn’t make it hurt less.

“It’s not about what you wanted,” he says finally, voice thin but steady. “It’s about what you chose,” he explains, earnestness overflowing his voice, engulfing the lab in raw emotions. He meets Tony’s eyes when he speaks again, wrecked and bitter. “And you didn’t choose me.”

Peter’s voice drops low, fragile and unsteady—surrendering. “I know I’m not your kid, okay? I know I’m not anything . I get it. I’m just some broken science project you took in on a whim.”

Tony doesn’t move. Doesn’t breathe.

And then, something in his face twists. “You’re not the first to try, you know. People line up thinking they can fix me. And they all leave when they realize I’m still cracked underneath. I can’t be fixed.”

“I know that!” Peter snaps—louder than intended. The words rip out of him too fast. His own voice startles him, sharp and frayed at the edges. He winces, squeezing his eyes shut like he could shove the volume back in, bottle it up where it won’t break anything.

Tony’s eyebrows twitch downward, almost imperceptibly.

Peter’s chest heaves. His ribs feel too tight around his lungs. Too small for everything he’s been trying to hold inside.

“It’s not—” he swallows, eyes darting everywhere but Tony’s face. “It’s not fair.”

Tony shifts, almost like he’s going to speak—then doesn’t. His arms cross tighter over his chest.

“It’s not fair,” Peter says again, softer this time, hoarse. “How am I supposed to fix something that’s not even broken?”

He doesn’t wait. Can’t wait. The words just keep coming.

“You keep talking like you’re damaged goods or—or some busted prototype that people toss out when the upgrades don’t stick. Like I’m supposed to come in with a soldering iron and fix all the wiring. Recode you. Rewrite your software. Like you’re this… malfunction I was supposed to debug.”

Tony lets out a breath. Not loud. But sharp, through the nose. Defensive.

Peter flinches slightly at the sound—then barrels forward.

“But you’re not! You’re not broken! You’re just—” he flails, then clenches his fists tight. “You’re just someone who… who forgot that being better doesn’t mean being perfect. You keep acting like you’re stuck this way forever, like the best thing you can do is warn people off because you think you’re some kind of hazard.”

Tony’s gaze drops. Just a flicker. A rare tell. Then it’s gone again, hidden behind the flicker of the arc reactor glow.

Peter notices. His voice cracks.

“Yeah, okay, maybe you mess up sometimes. Maybe a lot. Maybe constantly . But don’t we all? That’s not failure. That’s—human. That’s what everyone does! You screw up and you learn and you try again and that’s it. That’s the deal.”

Tony turns slightly—like the impact of the words is just a bit too direct. He picks up a tool from the nearby workbench, then sets it back down without purpose. His fingers linger.

Peter’s throat tightens. He presses forward anyway.

“I wasn’t trying to fix you,” he says, and now his voice is shaking. “I was trying to hold space for you. I was trying to be there while you figured it out.”

Tony finally looks at him then. Fully. And Peter falters for half a breath under the weight of it—but keeps going. He sniffles once, hard, and swipes at his face like it betrayed him by crying.

“But I can’t keep doing this alone. I can’t keep… reaching for someone who keeps disappearing the second it gets hard.” Peter’s voice trembles with the effort it takes to stay grounded. “I’m not asking you to be perfect, or to have it all figured out. I just need you to show up. Even when it’s hard. Especially when it’s hard.”

Tony doesn’t respond at first.

His expression is unreadable, arms still crossed tightly over his chest. The arc reactor hums faintly in the silence between them.

Peter waits—heart in his throat, lungs burning. There’s a moment where the air could shift, where something real could be said. But it never comes.

Instead, Tony exhales slowly through his nose and says—

“Great speech. Really. Add some violins and I might’ve cried.” He smirks, thin and hollow. “Hell, you should give that one at graduations—call it Reasons Not to Rely on Tony Stark 101 .”

The words hit like a punch to the chest.

Peter doesn’t move. 

He doesn’t blink.

The lab light seems suddenly too bright. The sound of a distant processor spinning up cuts into the silence like static.

“Wow,” he says softly, the word folding in on itself as it leaves his mouth. There’s no anger in his voice anymore. Just disbelief. And something greater— consequential. Disappointment. “I meant all of that,” he says. “Every word.”

Tony shifts, the smile slipping slightly—but he doesn’t speak.

Peter nods to himself, like that’s confirmation enough.

“You don’t have to mean it back,” he adds, more to the floor than to Tony. “But you didn’t have to throw it away like that.”

He wants Tony to call him back. To say something—anything—that makes this feel less final. But the silence stretches again. Familiar. Cold.

He turns.

His footsteps are soft on the concrete, almost swallowed by the ambient hum of the lab. The door hisses when it opens, spilling warm light from the corridor outside.

Peter pauses just once at the threshold, not turning around.

“You know,” he says quietly, “for a genius, you really suck at recognizing when someone cares about you.”

Then he walks out.

And this time, he doesn’t look back.

Chapter Text

In the aftermath of the confrontation, everything comes to a standstill. 

Peter floats away, adrift in a vast, endless vacuum. A vacancy bound by nothing—not gravity, not time. There isn’t a single thought or feeling weighing him down. He feels weightless in every sense of the word—hollowed, empty, and utterly blissful. Just a shapeless soul in a borderless body, filled and surrounded by nothingness.

The numbness is liberating. Freeing.

Drifting in nothingness becomes a euphoric experience.

In that cold, dark void, Peter flirts with consciousness and subconsciousness. He dances on the delicate line separating the two—it’s heaven. It’s hell. 

Time has no meaning in Peter’s new state of mind. It can’t be measured or tracked. It just loops—constant, directionless, without beginning or end. Infinite. Stretching so far into the darkness, it stops being a construct at all.

Peter doesn’t eat.

He doesn’t sleep.

He exists outside the scope of existence.

Like a particle at absolute zero—still, suspended, frozen in place. Nothing moves. Nothing changes.

He doesn’t know if the silence is peaceful, or just the absence of pain.

He only knows it doesn’t hurt here.

The sun is brutal, even through the gauzy clouds hanging over Midtown High’s football field. The air is thick with humidity, clinging to skin and fabric like wet gauze. Sneakers thud against the rubber track, a percussion line of teenage exertion. Laughter and groans cut through the air like background static—chaotic, messy, real.

Coach Wilson stands near the bleachers, sunglasses on, posture slouched like he’s two seconds away from checking out completely. A whistle hangs from his neck, swaying with every lazy shift of his weight. “Alright, let’s pick it up,” he calls out, monotone. “Two more laps. Channel your inner gazelle. Or don’t. Just move.”

Some kids groan. Others ignore him. Flash mutters something about cardiovascular propaganda. A few students are already slowing down to a walk, barely pretending to jog.

Peter keeps running.

He’s lost count of the laps. His body feels detached, like it's moving on autopilot. Breathing burns now, sharp and thin, like he’s inhaling steam. His legs are heavy. Each step sends a jolt up his spine. His shirt clings to him. His vision is dimming at the edges.

MJ glances sideways as she jogs past, earbuds in but not pressed all the way. She doesn’t say anything—yet—but her gaze lingers.

Ned’s trailing further behind, face flushed, arms pumping like he’s trying to outrun a final exam.

Peter tries to keep pace.

He doesn’t remember the last time he ate something. Breakfast was… nothing. Lunch was a bottle of water and a tight-lipped smile. His stomach cramps—not from hunger anymore, just emptiness—and his vision blurs at the edges.

No one notices when he stumbles the first time. Just a misstep. A skid on the edge of the lane line.

But MJ’s eyes flick toward him.

The second stumble is less subtle—he trips over his own foot, nearly twisting his ankle. He catches himself, barely. His hands tremble.

“Peter?” Ned calls from behind, uncertain.

The field tilts.

The sky seems… loud.

And then he’s not upright anymore.

Peter crumples mid-stride, collapsing like a puppet with cut strings—face first onto the track. He’s unconscious before he makes contact with the ground. Everything cuts to black, like someone unplugged the TV mid-movie. One moment, there were sounds and colors; the next, it’s silent darkness.

Fainting feels a lot like drowning.

Everything is muted, dulled—engulfed in water. His senses are muffled. Sounds jump octaves and warp in volume. Visions lag and blur. Sensations flicker in and out. Somewhere, distantly, he hears his name being said in an echo that loops back on itself—far away, but insistent.

Peter… Peter… Peter…

When his eyes finally blink open, lashes fluttering incessantly, the world is distorted and out of sync. Light stabs at his pupils. The track beneath him feels both hard and grounding, and somehow also jelly-like—liquid and unstable. His breath hiccups. Every inhale tastes like asphalt and iron.

He squints against the sunlight. There is a rhythmic pounding in his skull, like his heartbeat is trying to crack through his temples. Everything aches.

He blinks again, and someone’s shadow moves across his field of vision. A voice—maybe MJ’s?—filters in like radio static.

"Peter?"

He tries to turn in the direction of the voice, and finds the person chanting his name like a prayer. But the slight movement of his head makes his vision swirl again. Dizziness and nausea hit him in a delayed warning. As if his body meant to send him the signal hours ago but his brain couldn’t decipher the message fast enough.

"Peter?" The voice says again and through the haze, Peter recognizes it as Ned. A shadow shifts across his face. Ned’s voice comes into focus. So does MJ’s shape hovering just behind him. “...hey. Peter?”

“Wha—” he mumbles. His tongue is thick, slurred around the word.

“Don’t move,” MJ says firmly, already crouched beside him, peeling his arm off the ground and checking his pulse like it’s not the first time she’s done this for someone. It probably isn’t.

Coach Wilson ambles over with a squint, looking vaguely annoyed.

“What happened now?” he asks, mostly to no one.

“He collapsed,” Ned says, alarm bleeding into every word.

Wilson leans forward, not bending, just peering. “Yeah. That’ll do it.”

“Do you—uh—want to get the nurse?” Ned ventures.

“I mean,” Wilson shrugs. “He’s breathing. He’s conscious. He’s fine.”

“Coach,” MJ says flatly.

“Okay, okay,” he sighs. “Fine. Walk him over. But if he pukes, I’m making you clean it up.”

As they help Peter sit up—slowly, carefully—Flash jogs by and tosses over his shoulder, “Someone get that guy a juice box.”

Betty, standing nearby with her phone half out of her pocket, frowns in vague concern. “He used to faint a lot. It’s probably nothing.”

Peter groans softly, letting his head hang as MJ and Ned each take an arm.

“Definitely not nothing,” Ned mutters, tightening his grip.

They lead him toward the building, slow and uneven. Peter’s legs are shaky. His breath comes in shallow draws. But he doesn’t complain.

The world tilts, but he walks anyway.

At home, May hovers—despite not having a reason to.

Well, not entirely. She has a reason. She doesn’t need one to hover, but still, she has one. Whatever it is, though, it isn’t Peter’s fainting spell in gym class. It’s not his skipped meals or the new way his clothes hang too loosely off his frame.

It can’t be—because no one called her.

Asthma attacks, nosebleeds, fainting spells—those were supposed to be a thing of the past. Residue from a childhood spent with inhalers tucked into his backpack and paper towels pressed to his bleeding nose. Before the spider bite rewrote his biology. Before he was supposed to be better. Invincible, even.

But reputation is a stubborn thing.

Peter may be Spider-Man now, but to Midtown High he’ll always be the scrawny, sickly kid who treated the nurse’s cot like a second home. So when he collapsed this morning, no one panicked. No one thought to worry.

No one thought to call her.

And yet—May hovers.

Peter’s sprawled out on the living room couch, hoodie half-zipped and socks mismatched. He hadn’t meant to crash there—but the stairs felt like Everest, and gravity was winning today. His head rests against the armrest, tilted just enough to keep May in his periphery.

She’s doing laps again.

Not frantic ones. She’s May. She doesn’t do frantic. No, this is her special brand of domestic reconnaissance—anxiously straightening things that are already straight, picking up objects only to set them down in the exact same spot. Every few minutes, she clears her throat like she’s about to say something… then doesn’t.

Peter stares at the ceiling fan, watching it spin slow and syrupy. His body feels ten sizes too heavy for his skin.

“Y’know,” May says eventually, arms crossed, tone light, “if I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were trying to merge with that couch.”

Peter doesn’t look at her. “Comfy,” he mutters.

She hums, noncommittal. “You haven’t moved in, like, an hour.”

“Not true,” he mumbles. “I blinked. Twice.”

May snorts, but it’s soft. She’s standing just behind the couch now, eyes scanning him like she’s trying to x-ray through his sarcasm. “You hungry?”

“No.”

“Want me to put something on Netflix?”

“No.”

“Want to talk about whatever’s going on in that overly complicated brain of yours?”

Peter’s silence stretches.

May sighs through her nose. She walks around the couch this time, stands in front of him like she’s waiting for a confession. When he doesn’t give one, she lets her hands fall to her hips and narrows her eyes.

“Okay. Just so I’m clear—you’re not eating, not sleeping, and now you’re impersonating a haunted throw pillow. Should I be worried, or is this just the latest installment in the ‘Peter Parker Has A Weird Week’ series?”

Peter gives a huff of laughter, but it’s weak. His eyes are red-rimmed, his body language brittle.

“I’m fine.”

“Cool. So I should just… ignore the fact that you look like you went twelve rounds with a woodchipper and lost?” she says, cocking her head. “Because that’s definitely how ‘fine’ looks.”

Peter shifts, slowly pushing himself upright. Not all the way—just enough to sit with his back against the cushions and arms limp at his sides. “May,” he starts, voice strained, “I’m tired. Okay? Just… tired.”

She studies him, expression softening.

“Okay,” she says, quieter now. “Then just let me sit with you for a minute.”

She moves beside him, careful not to make a big deal out of it. For a second, Peter looks like he might lean away—but he doesn’t. Not when her arm wraps gently around his shoulders, not when she pulls him into her.

His body tenses.

Just for a second.

Then sinks.

He leans against her, head buried in the slope of her neck. It fits there perfectly, like they’re two pieces of a puzzle that belong together. Nose pressed to her skin, Peter breathes her in, pulls her into his lungs. He holds his breath, savors her warmths, and hopes she can ward off the numbing cold spreading inside him. His arms slither around her smaller frame, holding her tight, as tightly as he can without hurting her.

May reacts instantly. She holds him just as desperately. She pulls and pulls, even when it’s impossible for Peter to get any closer. As if she wants to wrap around him, to open herself up and hide him inside her. So nothing and no one can ever hurt him.

“You don’t have to talk,” she murmurs, her long dainty fingers brushing through his hair. She twirls strands between her fingers and lightly scratches his scalp in the way she knows he likes— finds soothing. “But you don’t have to be alone, either.”

Peter exhales, a fractured, aching sound. His shoulders shake once. Twice. His resolve splinters—fractured, jagged, beyond repair. A sad pitiful noise, between a sob and a gasp, escapes him. He’s crying— the tears come but they don’t stop. Peter is too exhausted to fight it, so he lets it happen, he lets go.

He cries like he’s six, shaped by absence before he even understood loss.

He cries like he’s fourteen, heart racing faster than his uncle’s fading pulse.

He cries like he’s trapped again—bones crushed, breath stolen, hope flickering.

He cries until he dissolves into the silence, small and salt-stained and still here.

A hushed silence falls over the city. A rare sort of stillness—more foreboding than reassuring. There’s something sinister in the way Queens holds its breath, like the whole borough is waiting for something to go wrong.

Above, the moon glows dull and hazy behind a curtain of smog. Down below, the streets simmer in sodium orange and flickering neon. Shadows stretch long and jagged across the pavement, warping under streetlights—twisting like otherworldly things creeping in from somewhere else. A plastic bag skitters down the sidewalk like it’s trying to flee. A cat bolts across an alley, startled by something Peter can’t see.

Around every corner, bad omens loom. Harbingers linger. Every flickering storefront sign is a warning. Every far-off siren or backfiring car sounds like a prelude to something worse.

Danger clings to the air like humidity—thick and metallic on the tongue.

Still, Peter doesn’t turn back.

He swings straight into the night. Lets go. Embraces gravity as it pulls him down to earth’s center like it’s trying to remind him where he belongs. The freefall is exhilarating. In the seconds before he catches himself—when it’s just the scream of wind in his ears and the skyline blurred by motion—the numbness gives way to sensation, and for a moment, Peter feels alive again.

Every cell in his body thrums with energy, every synapse firing like short-circuit sparks behind his eyes.

There’s something to be said here about probabilities and statistics. About odds and expectations. About the likelihood of him ever meaning anything to Mr. Stark.

Peter had known from the very beginning how slim his chances were. He had made peace with the fact that he was merely an afterthought, the end credits to a movie no one stays long enough to see. He had made every attempt to guard himself, to keep his heart safe and protected.

But the stolen moments between obligation and indulgence disarmed him. Where guilt-infused lab sessions blur into something softer—dinner, laughter, comfort. Where Tony Stark folds into just… Tony. These were the moments that gave him a sense of false security— a sense of belonging.

And for a little while, Peter had let himself believe he belonged.

Turns out, the only thing that ever truly claimed him was this city.

It calls him now.

A noise cuts through the quiet—a ripple in the stillness. There is a scuffle, a sharp “Hey!” followed by a female voice barking, “Let go of me!”

Peter’s head snaps up, body tensing. Adrenaline sparks cold in his veins.

He doesn’t hesitate.

He lands silently on a nearby rooftop, crouched low. Below, in the half-lit alleyway, a man in his late 30s—leaning too close, drunk on entitlement—is grabbing at a girl’s wrist. She can’t be more than seventeen, maybe nineteen at most, dressed in a Midtown U hoodie and panic.

Peter’s already moving.

“Now, now,” he calls out, flipping down with practiced flair, landing with a thud between them. “Didn’t your mom ever teach you not to put your greasy hands on people without asking? Or is that lesson scheduled after ‘basic human decency’?”

The man recoils, startled, but recovers fast. “The hell—what are you, a mascot?”

Peter tilts his head. “Only on weekends and bar mitzvahs.” He points a web-shooter at the guy’s shoes and fires. “Although, fair warning, my balloon animal game is... a little stabby .”

The webbing glues the man’s feet to the pavement. Peter tosses a quick glance at the girl.

“You okay?”

She nods quickly, wide-eyed, backing away. “Y-yeah, I—I think so.”

“Good. Go. Run home. And maybe invest in pepper spray. Or lasers. Lasers are cool.”

She’s already sprinting down the block when the guy lunges.

Peter sighs. “Always gotta do this the hard way.”

The man’s knife glints under the streetlight—Peter flips backward, webbing the blade and yanking it out of his grip before launching it into the nearest wall with a thunk .

“Wow,” Peter says, circling. “A knife? Really? Bit cliché, don’t you think? I mean, come on. At least pretend you’re not from the 1800s.”

The guy growls and charges again. Peter ducks low, sweeps his legs out, and rolls, body moving in practiced, fluid rhythm. His mind clicks into fight mode. He’s on autopilot now—acrobatics, taunts, webshots—classic Spider-Man chaos.

“You should know,” he pants between jabs, “my Yelp reviews are great—four and a half stars for style, five for general annoyance.”

A fist grazes his shoulder, but he counters with a kick to the chest. The guy stumbles, grabs a trash can lid, swings it like a shield. Peter web-zips above him, flipping over and planting a foot squarely in his back. The man crashes to the ground with a groan.

“See?” Peter grins, landing softly. “This is what happens when you mess with science students. We fight dirty and have physics on our side.”

But then—

The world tilts.

Just slightly.

But it’s enough.

Peter’s knees buckle for half a second, a flicker of imbalance that throws his next move off-center. He blinks hard—too hard. The alley sways left, then corrects itself like a camera struggling to refocus.

What…?

The man doesn’t notice the slip—yet.

Peter steadies his stance, faking the bounce in his step as he flips over a row of garbage bins. “Alright, buddy,” he quips, voice tight with effort, “we’re gonna need to work on your people skills. I’m thinking less knife-waving, more therapy.”

But his words feel delayed in his own mouth, like he’s speaking through cotton.

The mugger growls and lunges—shoulder down, blade forward—and Peter sidesteps, one beat too late.

For a split second, he sees the flash of steel, feels it slice past—no pain, just the hiss of air—and then the crack of his fist connecting squarely with the guy’s jaw. The impact knocks the man off balance, the knife clattering to the pavement.

Peter exhales through a grin. “That all you got?”

But something feels off.

Then the guy punches him—square in the gut.

It’s not a hard hit. Normally, Peter would shrug it off.

But this time it lands different. His legs wobble. His stomach lurches. For a second, he thinks it’s just the adrenaline.

Until he feels it.

Warm. Sticky.

Blooming under his ribs like spilled ink.

Peter stumbles back. A cold sweat breaks out along his hairline.

He glances down, expecting to see nothing. Expecting confirmation he deflected the blade, just like he thought.

Instead, he sees the dark stain spreading through the red of his suit. Slow. Seeping.

He lifts a trembling hand and presses it to his side.

Wet.

He pulls it away.

Bloody.

“Oh,” he breathes. A realization, not a reaction. “Oh no.”

“Peter,” Karen says softly in his ear, voice instantly grounded and calm in a way that makes it scarier.
“You’ve been stabbed. You need to sit down.”

“I…” He sways. “I thought—I knocked the knife out of his hand—”

“You did. But not before he got you. Deep laceration. Possibly a kidney. Peter, you need to sit down. You’re going into shock.”

“I can’t—” His breath hitches. “I can’t— Not now. I can patch it. I’ve done worse.”

He pushes himself upright, legs trembling beneath him. The alley blurs. The ground keeps tugging at him.

“Peter,” Karen says gently. “You are not okay. I’m calling Mr. Stark.”

“No.” His voice sharpens, breaking. “Don’t. Karen, don’t.”

“He needs to know.”

“No, he doesn’t. He’s—” Peter grits his teeth, clutching his side. “He’s just gonna come and be mad or—or disappointed or worse, and I can’t do that again tonight.”

“He won’t be mad.” Karen’s voice lowers, full of conviction. 

His fingers twitch against the suit’s palm sensors. His tongue feels like it’s made of rubber. His next step lands crooked—like his foot didn’t get the message from his brain. Peter’s vision starts to tunnel. The edges of the world close in, soft and black. He blinks fast, trying to clear it.

But his knees buckle again.

This time, he doesn’t catch himself.

The pavement rushes up to meet him—cold and unforgiving.

“Peter,” Karen says, voice distant now, like she’s calling through water. “Peter, stay with me. Help is on the way.”

He mumbles something—maybe her name, maybe Mr. Stark’s. He can’t tell. The pain finally registers, sharp and deep. His side is on fire.

Then the fire fizzles.

Then nothing at all.

Chapter Text

The whisky sits like a pool of amber inside the crystal glass. It swirls when Tony picks it up, its reflective surface rippling from the movement. He just looks at it at first, watches it glisten and shine, catching the dim lights of the penthouse just right. There is something entrancing about this particular shade of burnt amber and how beautifully it rests against the clear glass. 

He takes a tentative sip and lets the liquid linger in his mouth. It tastes like smoke, like the ghost of peat fires. The whiskey coats his tongue in a layer of silky heat. When he swallows it, it glides down his throat with ease, creamy and velvety—burning a path down his throat with the kind of elegance only pain knows how to wear. The burn feels earned. Like penance in liquid form. Like punishment he can stomach, for once.

The glass clinks as he sets it down—too gently, considering how badly he wants to break something. Anything. Preferably a mirror.

He closes his eyes to savor the relief the spicy drink brings him. It lulls his senses, brings his racing mind to a slower pace. His scrambled thoughts settle, pacified by the quiet burn warming him from the inside out.

When he opens them again, his lids drag like sandpaper. They're dry and not even the sting of pain produces moisture. He rubs at them, digging his palms into his eyes finding alleviation in the pressure. 

A dull throb has begun to pulse behind his eyes—soft at first. A quiet thump-thump-thump, already gathering force. On its way to becoming a hammer.

The glass sits untouched now, glinting in the low light. Tony doesn’t reach for it again.

The penthouse is dark except for the occasional flicker of city lights bleeding through the floor-to-ceiling windows. Moonlight paints silver streaks across the polished floor, and the soft, rhythmic pulse of the arc reactor casts a cool blue glow against his shirt. The rest of the light comes from the steady hum of holograms suspended in midair—charts, clauses, images, and incident reports—flickering like ghosts above the coffee table.

The table itself is a disaster.

Not that Tony would admit that. There’s a system buried under the chaos—folded legal pads half-filled with annotations, government documents stacked in color-coded order, copies of old mission logs redacted to hell, and high-res images of Sokovia’s aftermath clipped beside outlines of proposed revisions to the Accords. A mug of untouched coffee has gone cold by the corner, its contents long forgotten. Another thing left to sit, to rot, to grow bitter. He’s good at that—letting things go cold while he busies himself pretending to care.

Tony leans forward, elbow propped on his knee, one hand dragging down his face as he reads from a printed page. His voice is rough, tired, barely loud enough to break the silence.

“Article Eight, Subsection Three… ‘In the event of cross-border operation, deployment must be cleared by both host nation and UN-appointed Oversight Representative…’”

He snorts under his breath. “Right, because that worked so well in Lagos.”

He tosses the page aside and turns toward the floating display hovering above the table. Images shift as he waves a hand—FRIDAY adjusting the layout seamlessly. One photo lingers in the center longer than the others: Steve, bloodied and defiant, standing over a collapsed parking structure. Behind him, the fire still smolders. Another flick—Wanda. Another—Vision. Another—bodies, paperwork, flames. It’s all cataloged. Everything's archived. None of it adds up to peace of mind.

Regret squeezes his heart—not for what he did, but for how it all turned out. Looking at their faces, the friends he’d made and the family he’s created for himself, he can’t help but feel conflicted. A part of him, the one that craves to belong, longs for them, for the way they made the tower feel not so empty. The other part of him, the one hurt by their betrayal, resents them, for leaving him behind— not choosing him.

“FRIDAY,” Tony says, voice cutting through the quiet. “Get me Norton. On the secure line.”

A soft chime follows. “Calling Harold Norton, Stark Legal Division.”

Tony doesn’t check the time. He knows Norton’s home by now—probably having dinner with his wife, probably half-asleep. Doesn’t matter. Tony pays him enough to skip sleep and make it look like he’s grateful for the opportunity.

The call rings once, twice. Then clicks.

“Mr. Stark,” a groggy voice answers. “Everything alright?”

“No,” Tony replies. “Clause fifteen still leaves room for non-extradition if jurisdiction is contested. It’s vague. Too vague. Fix it.”

There’s a pause. Then the sound of shuffling papers and a long-suffering sigh.

“Understood, sir. I’ll flag it and loop in the international affairs team.”

Tony rubs the back of his neck. “And rework the language in section twenty about collective liability. I’m not taking the heat every time a guy with a shield and a superiority complex decides rules don’t apply to him.”

“That’ll take some pushback. Ross—”

“Ross can kiss my titanium ass,” Tony mutters, already pulling up another file. “We’ll cite the Borderless Disarmament Act of ‘03. He’ll bend.”

“Sir…”

“Just do it.”

The line clicks off before Norton can protest.

Tony doesn’t have time for red tape. Not when the Accords—rewritten, repackaged, dressed up in legalese—still threaten to put a leash around Peter’s neck. The kid might not see it, not fully. Not yet. But Tony does.

Peter thinks he signed up for responsibility. What he’s really being offered is ownership. Not power—permission. Not freedom—control. Compliance disguised as duty. Obedience masquerading as honor.

Tony knows exactly what they’ll take from him—bit by bit, piece by piece—until there’s nothing left but directives and oversight and a version of Spider-Man Tony won’t recognize. A version Peter won’t survive.

He’s not letting that happen.

Not to Peter. 

Especially not to Peter.

Because Peter—Jesus, Peter—he’s not built for this world. Not really. He’s too soft in the places that matter. Too kind. Too good. He doesn’t know how to stop offering himself up like he’s expendable. Like love is a limited resource and his only value is what he can give away.

It’s infuriating. It’s terrifying.

It’s familiar.

And that’s what makes Tony flinch the most—how much of himself he sees in Peter. Except where Tony turned bitter, Peter still believes. He believes in people. In the future. In him.

Even now. Even after everything.

Tony thinks of the way Peter looked at him before he walked out—eyes glassy, voice tight, too young and too old at the same time.

You really suck at recognizing when someone cares about you.

And Tony—God help him—he knows that. He’s always known that. But it still hits like a gut punch.

Because the truth is, he does recognize it.

He sees it in every sideways smile, every terrible science pun, every second Peter sticks around long after he should’ve given up. It’s there, loud and obvious, in the way Peter looks at him—not like Iron Man, not like a myth or a mistake—but like he’s someone worth choosing.

And Tony doesn’t know what to do with that.

Because to him, Peter’s the one who’s rare. Who’s real. Some miracle the universe dropped into his hands with no warning and no manual. Precious in a way Tony doesn’t know how to protect—only that he has to.

Peter sees a man worth loving.

Tony sees a boy he’d burn the world down to keep safe.

And somewhere in the middle, neither of them really understands the other.

And maybe that’s for the best. Because even if Peter doesn’t care how wrecked Tony is—Tony does.

Because if Peter really understood what a liability Tony is…

He wouldn’t look at him like he did in the hallway. Hurt. Let down. Like Tony was someone worth being disappointed in.

Tony knows exactly what happens to the people who get close. Not Pepper, not Rhodey, not Happy—none of them walked away unscathed. Some didn’t walk at all. Tony ruins things. That’s what he does.

He’s a selfish bastard— egotistical and greedy. And he takes and takes even when he has no right to.

And Peter?

Peter’s the one thing in his life he hasn’t destroyed— yet .

So the further Peter stays from the fallout, the longer Tony can pretend he hasn’t started burning him too.

Another screen blinks to life beside him. FRIDAY’s soft tone breaks through the static hum of data.

“You’ve received a message from Secretary Ross’s liaison. Priority marked: High.”

Tony exhales hard through his nose. “Oh, great. My day wasn’t irritating enough.”

The hologram opens automatically, revealing a tightly worded message full of diplomatic threats dressed up as suggestions. Something about operational noncompliance. Something about PR containment. Something about Stark Industries’ continued involvement being politically sensitive.

Tony reads the first three lines and closes the message with a flick of his fingers.

 “Put it on the pile.”

“Which one, boss?”

“The one labeled ‘Bureaucratic Bullshit.’ Make a subfolder. Color code it piss yellow.”

“Noted.”

He pinches the bridge of his nose, trying to massage away the tension coiled behind his eyes. Somewhere deep in the system, the soft buzz of surveillance data rolls on. The images shift again—now field reports from independent agents, local footage, aerial scans. Somewhere in there, he’s supposed to find peace of mind.

Instead, all he finds are more fires for him to put out.

He shifts back into his seat, the leather creaking beneath him like old bones. The arc reactor glows faintly through his shirt—still humming. Still alive.

But flickering. 

Like him.

Then—

“Sir,” FRIDAY says gently, voice almost apologetic. “I’m afraid I need your attention.”

Tony doesn’t look up from the paper he’s reading. “Can it wait?”

Another pause. Just long enough to kickstart his nerves.

“It’s Peter.”

Everything in him stills.

Slowly— too slowly—he lifts his head. The paper crinkles in his hand as Tony holds on to it like a lifeline. Dread starts to creep in, slowly poisoning his blood supply.

“What about him?” His voice is low. Controlled. Like the wrong answer might break something vital.

FRIDAY hesitates again and that’s worse than anything she could say.

“There was an attempted mugging in Queens. Spider-Man intervened. He neutralized the attacker… but was stabbed in the process. Deep abdominal wound. He collapsed at the scene. Paramedics are en route. Condition: critical.”

Tony doesn’t remember standing.

Doesn’t remember knocking the coffee mug off the table, doesn’t hear it shatter on the polished floor.

All he hears is that one word, echoing louder than the others.

Collapsed.

It’s not the word itself that punches through him. It’s the fact that it’s past tense. Like it already happened. Like he already missed it.

“What—why wasn’t I—” He swallows hard, voice catching. “Why the hell wasn’t I alerted the second he went down?!”

“You disabled emergency alerts for street-level incidents,” FRIDAY says quietly. “After the Helmut Zemo flare event last quarter. You asked not to be disturbed unless the threat was global.”

Tony’s throat locks up. The words echo louder than they should. Not because they’re wrong—but because they’re exactly right. They’re so undeniably true that there is no escaping his charges— guilty. Of negligence, failure, and a violation of his duties.

You asked not to be disturbed.

His vision tunnels. His own voice, earlier that week, echoes back at him: If it’s not aliens or apocalypse, I don’t want to hear about it.

God.

God.

He leans over the table, hands braced on the surface like he might fold otherwise. The arc reactor casts harsh blue shadows on the stacks of documents. Sokovia glows faintly beneath his palm.

“Where is he now?”

“Mount Sinai. EMTs are administering blood and oxygen en route, but his vitals are unstable. Estimated arrival to the trauma center in eleven minutes.”

“No.” Tony’s voice hardens into steel. “Divert them to the Tower. Override whatever you need to. I want Cho and a full trauma rig prepped and sterile. Start printing transfusion-ready synth-blood. Clear the surgical floor, notify security, prep biohazard protocols. Move. ”

Maybe if he acts fast enough now, he can drown out how late his interference came. Maybe if he saves Peter now, it’ll matter less that he let him bleed in the first place.

“Yes, boss. Redirecting the ambulance now. Engaging surgical AI, routing Doctor Cho to your private line.”

Tony drags a hand down his face, fingers trembling against his jaw. “Contact Pepper. No—scratch that. Not yet. Not unless it goes south.” A beat. “God, don’t let it go south.”

A new screen opens beside him—a live aerial feed of the ambulance weaving through traffic, sirens screaming against a gridlocked Queens.

“FRIDAY, reroute traffic. Give them the cleanest corridor. Hack every red light from here to Roosevelt. I want a straight shot across every intersection.”

“Already done. Recalibrating NYPD traffic controls now.”

“Call Happy,” Tony snaps suddenly, voice breaking through the chaos with sharp precision. “Direct line. No relay.”

FRIDAY connects the call instantly. It only rings once.

“Boss?” Happy’s voice is thick with sleep, but alert in seconds. “What’s wrong?”

“I need you at the Tower. Now.”

“Tony…” A pause. “Is it Peter?”

Tony’s jaw clenches. His hands curl into fists at his sides. “Yeah.”

“How bad?”

Tony doesn’t answer right away. He’s staring at the vitals feed. The numbers aren’t stable. “Critical.”

Happy inhales like he just got sucker-punched. “I’m on my way.”

“Use the service entrance. No press. No delays.”

“Got it.”

The call ends with a click, and for a second, Tony just… stands there. The silence after Happy’s voice makes everything feel more real.

“And the paramedics?”

“They’ll arrive five minutes before Doctor Cho. She’s in transit.”

“Fine. Prep NDAs. I want confidentiality contracts waiting on their tablets before they leave the vehicle. If any of them saw Peter’s face, I want memory scrubs and suppressants logged, just in case. Have security escort them out and monitor all comms. If I catch so much as a whiff of leaked metadata—”

“They’ll be handled,” FRIDAY interrupts, unusually firm. “I’ve already quarantined their body cams and begun wiping local EMS database entries with false identifiers. Blood samples are being redirected to Stark Medical under private clearance. Chain of custody is clean.”

Tony swallows, throat dry. “Good. Good.”

He stares at the feed—watching as the ambulance turns sharply, blaring through an intersection he knows is always backed up this time of night. But tonight the road is clear. No headlights. No delay.

He’s still not breathing right.

He paces.

Back and forth across the floor, arc reactor flashing like a heartbeat. The data on his desk now forgotten. The Accords, the revisions—irrelevant. Everything collapses down to a single thought pulsing in his mind like a siren:

Peter is hurt.

Peter is bleeding somewhere, alone, in the back of a fucking ambulance because he turned off the goddamn alert settings—

A rush of nausea hits him hard. He grips the edge of the table again.

“ETA?” he chokes out.

“Six minutes.”

“Tell Cho I’ll meet her in the lift. And FRIDAY?”

“Yes?”

“Lock the building down. No press. No drones. No visitors. This doesn’t go public.”

“Understood.”

The overhead display shifts again, showing Peter’s vitals in real-time: heart rate unstable. BP falling.

Tony stares.

He’s always been good under pressure. That’s his thing. React, adapt, control the damage. But this—this isn’t damage control. This is the one thing he doesn’t know how to fix.

Not if it goes wrong.

Not if the blade was too deep.

Not if Peter— God, Peter—

Tony clenches his jaw so hard it aches.

He’s not praying.

But it’s close.

Tony doesn’t remember moving.

One minute he’s pacing, shouting commands at FRIDAY, and the next he’s in the private lift, descending like a bullet through the heart of the Tower. The walls hum around him, sterile and silver. His reflection flickers in the polished panels—ashen, tight-jawed, eyes gone near feral with fear.

The doors slide open to the med-level.

Dr. Helen Cho is already there, coat half-buttoned, hair damp from the rain outside. She’s barely set her bag down before Tony’s on her.

“You’re prepped?” he demands, voice razor-sharp.

Cho nods, matching his urgency. “The lab is sterile. Surgical AI is online. Synth blood is warmed and typed.”

“You can’t fuck this up, Helen.”

She stiffens slightly, meeting his eyes. “Tony—”

“No,” he cuts in, stepping closer. “Listen to me. You don’t get to hesitate. You don’t get to have an off day. That kid comes in with even a fraction less blood than he should, and you fix it. If a single artery’s torn, you stitch it. If his heart so much as flutters, you bring him back.”

Her expression hardens. “I know what I’m doing.”

“Good,” he says, deadly quiet now. “Because if he dies on your table, Helen, I swear to God—”

“I won’t let that happen.”

His mouth opens again, another threat locked and loaded, but the shriek of approaching sirens cuts through the corridor like a blade.

They both turn as the emergency elevator dings open.

The gurney rolls in fast—wheels screaming, EMTs barking vitals, one of them already drenched in blood. Peter’s mask is still clinging to his face, soaked through with blood.

Tony’s breath catches in his throat. His chest caves in on itself. All the systems in his body keep firing like nothing’s wrong—breathing, blinking, standing. But everything inside him has already collapsed alongside Peter.

One of the EMTs reaches for the rest of the mask and pulls it up the rest of the way—exposing Peter’s face completely. It’s procedure, checking pupils, verifying neural response. But Tony still twitches. Just slightly. Like instinct wants to stop them.

He doesn’t.

Because one look at Peter—slack-jawed, bloodied, barely breathing—and Tony’s already unraveling. The mask falls limp against the side rail. Peter’s eyes don’t track. His face is pale beneath the blood. The arc reactor’s light flickers in Tony’s chest, caught somewhere between rage and heartbreak.

Peter looks small on that stretcher. Smaller than he’s ever seen him. His suit is soaked dark, sticking to his ribs, and Tony can’t tell where the red fabric ends and the blood begins.

He forces himself forward.

“Vitals unstable—BP crashing,” one EMT reports. “Pupils slow, abdominal puncture wound appears to have nicked a major vessel. We started transfusion en route but—”

“I’ll take it from here,” Cho cuts in, her voice all business now. “Move him.”

They obey without question.

Peter’s gurney vanishes through the double doors of the operating suite, flanked by Cho and the surgical AI. The metal doors hiss shut behind them with a finality that slams into Tony like a fist.

He’s left in the corridor. Alone.

Blood smeared on the floor. Tony stares at the red streaks disappearing behind the doors like they mean something. Like they’re trying to spell out a message.

He doesn't need a translation. He already knows what it says.

Too late. Again.

The smell of antiseptic is already overpowering. The faint echo of the heart monitor beeping—then flatlining, then restarting—as it fades behind the walls.

Tony stares at the doors.

His hands are clenched so tightly at his sides, the muscles in his forearms twitch from the strain. He doesn’t notice his fingernails digging into his palms, carving half-moon indentations deep into skin that’s already gone white from pressure.

The floor tilts under him, just slightly. Not enough to fall. Just enough to feel it.

The arc reactor in his chest glows faintly, casting his silhouette on the polished tile.

Still humming. Still alive.

But flickering.

Like him.

The hallway is too quiet. Too clean. The kind of sterile silence Tony hates—one where every sound becomes deafening.

He stands frozen, eyes still locked on the doors Peter just disappeared behind. His fists are raw and red, crescented with half-moon marks. A part of him knows he should sit, breathe, maybe not look like he’s about to set the entire floor on fire. But that part’s buried under panic and guilt and something sharp curling inside his chest.

The elevator dings behind him.

Happy steps out, moving fast despite the bags under his eyes and the fact that Tony probably woke him from dead sleep. His suit’s half-wrinkled, tie crooked, but his expression is all business.

“Tony,” he says gently, like approaching a cornered animal. “What happened?”

Tony doesn’t look at him. “He was stabbed.”

Happy’s face goes slack.

“He’s in surgery now,” Tony continues, voice thin and fraying at the edges. “Collapsed on the street. Paramedics picked him up off the pavement like he was some fucking nobody.”

Happy approaches slowly, like he might be able to defuse him if he just gets close enough.

“Jesus,” he breathes. “Does May know?”

Tony freezes.

The question hangs in the air—soft, obvious, and entirely damning.

His breath catches, and something sharp twists behind his ribs.

“I—” His mouth opens. Closes. Opens again. “Shit.”

He swipes a hand over his face, pacing fast now, like the motion might help him outrun the fact that he hadn’t even thought to call her.

“I forgot to call the one person who actually matters,” he snaps, mostly at himself. “What the hell am I supposed to say, huh? Hey, May, sorry I didn’t reach out sooner, I was busy rerouting half the city’s traffic and rewriting a trauma protocol so your kid didn’t bleed out on the floor— !”

Happy doesn’t flinch. “Then don’t say anything. Not yet. I’ll go get her. When she’s off shift.”

Tony swipes a hand through his hair, pacing now, unraveling. “No. No, I—I have to tell her. It has to come from me. She’d kill me if I didn’t—”

“She’ll kill you either way.”

“Yeah, well,” Tony mutters, “at least I’d deserve it.”

He dials. On speaker.

It rings.

And rings.

And keeps ringing.

“Pick up, May. Come on. Pick up. Pick up—”

Voicemail.

Tony hangs up like the phone just confirmed his worst fear.

“She’s still at work,” Happy says. “You said double shift, right?”

Tony nods distractedly, barely hearing him. “Yeah. Yeah. Probably doesn’t even have her phone on her.”

His voice goes thin. “God, I didn’t even think of her. I was so—so focused on Peter. The Tower. Locking it down. Making sure nobody saw too much or touched the wrong thing or—”

Happy steps closer. “You’re doing everything you can.”

Tony shakes his head. “Not enough. Never enough.”

Then, quieter—“She can’t find out on her own, Hap. Not from some news anchor, or a building alert. Not from Cho walking out with blood on her shoes.”

“She won’t,” Happy says. “You’ve got this place locked up tighter than Fort Knox. I’ll go get her myself—quietly. When she’s done.”

Tony doesn’t answer right away. He just stands there, eyes fixed on the sealed doors, breathing like it hurts.

“She’s gonna hate me.”

“She’s gonna be scared,” Happy corrects. “Same as you.”

Tony doesn’t argue.

Because he is.

He’s fucking terrified.

Peter codes three times before they manage to stabilize him enough to operate on. Each time his heart stops, Tony feels something rip loose—another piece of himself lost to the terrifying possibility it might not start again.

It's not an idea he wants to entertain. But standing outside the operating suite, too scared to even breathe— petrified— he can't think of anything else. 

His lungs burn from holding in air that never seems to fill him. Every second ticks louder than the last, echoing like gunfire in a cathedral. 

He thinks of Peter’s workbench, up in the lab. Messy and chaotic, just like his own. Crumbled up papers scattered on its sleek surface, half-legible formulas scribbled on them haphazardly. Post-it notes stuck to random objects— containing reminders, equations, and project ideas. An Iron Man mug doubling as a pencil holder—overstuffed with movie-themed pens and broken lead—sits crooked in the corner.

A display of a soft kind of worship. Of a boy who saw past the armor and wanted the man underneath. Who took Tony’s clutter and made it his comfort. Who built his own little sanctuary with Tony’s flaws and called it home. Who sifted through the static in Tony’s brain and pulled out something whole. Something worth keeping.

He thinks of Peter—in his home, in his space. How the kid never flinched at the mess Tony made of everything. How he never tiptoed around the broken parts, or tried to clean them up. He just walked in, saw the chaos for what it was, and made room for himself inside it.

He made the chaos feel less like something that needed to be cleaned up, and more like something that deserved to exist.

Peter understands the way Tony spirals. The way thoughts get too fast, too loud, too tangled to sit still. He gets the itch to build something just to see it work—just to make the noise stop for a second. He understood how stillness could feel like suffocation. He mirrored it, in his own way—restless fingers, caffeine habits, whiteboards covered in formulas and doodles that made perfect sense only to him. 

The compulsions, the sleepless nights, the scattered brilliance—they share all of that.

But where Peter turned those sleepless nights into hope, Tony turned his into weapons. Into contingency plans. Escape routes. Ways to outsmart the worst in people because he’s lived long enough to stop expecting anything better.

Peter still expects better.

That’s the difference.

Peter reaches out—again and again—even when it hurts. Even when it costs him. He saves people who don’t thank him, forgives the ones who fail him, believes in the ones who don’t deserve it. He gives pieces of himself away, offering them up freely to make others feel whole again. And when there's nothing left of himself to give, he still gives somehow. He makes something out of nothing, builds himself up just to give himself up. Endlessly sacrificing himself for the sake of others. Devoting himself to a cause he strongly believes in.

Tony doesn’t do that. He calculates. He withholds. He gets there late and leaves early and builds backup plans in case he fucks it up, because he always does. He throws the first punch and has the last laugh. He loves like it’s a liability and protects like it’s a punishment. He's tortured by what he has and what he doesn't. The victim and perpetrator, suffering the pain of his own infliction. 

And still, somehow, Peter looks at him like he’s something worth protecting.

Tony doesn’t know what to do with that. 

He doesn't know how to deserve it.

Because Peter may be messy, reckless, too trusting for his own good—but he’s good .

God, he's too good. 

And Tony? 

He fears for a world without him. 

Fears what the world will come to without him. 

What Tony will come to without him. 

Because even at an arm’s length, Peter's presence in his life is like a lighthouse. A beacon of hope guiding him through the unknown, coaxing him to do better. He’s the angel on Tony’s shoulder—the last flicker of conscience Tony thought he'd extinguished years ago.

Peter is everything . 

And if he—

Tony can't bear to think about it.

He’s a man of science not God. But science seems insufficient at a time like this, where higher entities are involved— death and fate. So he doesn’t pray to science or God, but prays to the only thing he believes in. He prays to Peter for Peter. He begs and pleads with him. Chanting please live like a prayer, over and over again until the words are engraved in his mind and on his tongue.

The passage of time, Tony is reminded, moves at a different pace on this side of the operating room’s door. There is something about waiting for death to stake its claim that brings the world to a standstill. Waiting, as someone you care about drifts unsteadily between life and death, is like stepping through a portal to an unknown dimension. An isolated environment where the laws of time and space don't apply. Where time is shapeless and unmeasurable— infinite. 

Time, on this side of the door, passes in ripples. A slow and gentle movement— a lazy wave. It washes Tony to the shores of reality then pulls him back to the moment he saw Peter's bloodied form being wheeled through the door. Time moves forward then rewinds, again and again, creating a loop of endless torture. 

He doesn’t notice his legs have gone numb. Or that his hands are still clenched, nails digging half-moons into his palms. Or that there is not enough air in the world to fill his lungs.

By the time Helen steps out of the operating room, still in her surgery attire, Tony feels like he's lived a lifetime in a matter of seconds. 

Her surgical gown is no longer green. Peter’s blood streaks across the nylon fabric in smeared lines, clinging to the creases. It shines under the overhead lights, still wet enough to leave a trail in her wake. Her mask is pulled down, hanging loosely around her neck. Her gloves are bloodied. She peels them off with the kind of practiced detachment that only comes with doing this too many times. They fall to the floor with a soft slap. Unbothered by the sacredness of the thick liquid coloring them— Peter's blood.

Blood that should be safely stored inside his body.

She stops a few feet short of him, and suddenly the hallway feels colder. Quieter. Like it’s holding its breath. A silent and unwilling witness to an unforgivable crime.

Tony’s stomach churns, his breath hitches at the intensity of the nausea that hits him. He holds his breath, surprised by the unforeseeable urge to cry in both relief and regret. His eyes sting, hot and watery. He blinks repeatedly, wiping away the moisture, refusing to give in.

Not yet, he tells himself, not yet .

When she speaks, the sound of her voice cracks like a whip, shattering the silence. Her voice is steady, but not cold—measured, the kind of tone people use when they know words can tip the balance between collapse and composure.

“He’s stable,” she says first. She takes a deep breath and lets it out in a sigh. She’s still catching her breath. “For now,” she adds, her brow furrowed with focus

Tony doesn’t move. Doesn’t breathe.

Helen exhales and continues, expression unreadable. “Tony…,” she stops, considering her choice of words. “The only reason he made it to the table alive is because of the rate at which his cells regenerate. That stab wound—it punctured the upper abdomen and nicked a major vessel. A centimeter to the left and he would’ve bled out before EMS even reached him. But his body was already trying to heal itself before we cut him open. That’s the only reason we had a window at all.”

She pauses, scrubs a hand over her face, leaving a faint streak of red across her temple. “But the energy it took to keep himself alive through that…” Helen trails off, not unsure but contemplating. Tony can almost see the cogs turning in her brain in real time as she pieces her findings into an explanation. “It drained him. He burned through reserves that most enhanced individuals take days to recover from. He pushed his healing factor to the edge. That means his recovery is going to take longer—maybe significantly longer—than anything we’ve seen from him before.”

Tony’s jaw tightens, but he doesn’t speak. He can’t, even if he wants to. His voice is a prisoner of time, stuck in that loop of torture.

“We repaired the damage,” she says. “There was extensive internal bleeding, and the tissue trauma was… severe. But we managed to stabilize the area. The surgery was a success in technical terms.”

That word— technical —makes Tony flinch. It leaves room for uncertainty, a margin of error he rather doesn’t exist at all. Technical is the doorway to endless possibilities, many of which are not in Peter’s favor.

Tony has always been good at predicting the future. Detecting patterns and collecting data in order to analyze every possible outcome. He’s always over prepared— his biggest flaw and greatest attribute. Now, however, when he looks to the future he is met with the unknown.

“But until he wakes up, we can’t confirm anything. Neural response, motor function, long-term organ viability—those are things we won’t be able to evaluate until we run post-op scans and see him conscious. There’s no guarantee yet that he won’t experience permanent damage.”

Helen softens just slightly. “We’ll start neuro-monitoring immediately, and I’ve already scheduled imaging protocols for the next twelve hours. He’s strong, Tony. And he fought like hell to stay alive. But he’s going to need time, and care, and… a lot of support to regain full function.”

She glances away, just for a moment. As if the floor has more answers than she’s willing to say aloud. “You should prepare yourself,” she warns, the first hint of emotions bleeding through her voice. It trembles ever so slightly and the waver serves as a reminder that just as Peter had done with him, he had warmed his way into Helen’s heart. “This won’t be a fast recovery. And there’s a chance it might not be a complete one.”

Silence follows her words. It settles between them like fog—thick, unmoving, impossible to see past. Tony lets it simmer, allows it to cook over low heat. He doesn’t know how to break it, how to respond to such warning. The promise to take care of Peter dances on the tip of his tongue. The words sway together, slide to his lips—then retreat, frightened of being broken. He can’t bring himself to say it, to make another promise he can’t keep.

Not this one.

“Thank you,” he says instead. The words feel insufficient, too little to encompass the true altitude of his gratitude. They’re not enough, but Tony still means them. More than he has meant anything before.

But Helen seems to understand. “You’re welcome,” she says, accepting his thanks with a pitying smile. “You’ll be able to see him in a few minutes. He’s in the recovery room right now but will be transferred to his usual room shortly.”

Tony nods at her, not knowing what else to say, and Helen takes it as her cue to leave. She nods back at him in acknowledgement before stepping aside to leave. As she passes by him the scent of sterile antiseptic barely masking the coppery sting of blood and something else— burnt and metallic— hits him. The aftermath of flesh singed closed and a brush with death. The smell makes him gag and Tony slaps a hand to his mouth covering both it and his nose to stop himself from throwing up.

The smell is nothing unfamiliar. He’s worn it himself, scrubbed it from armor, tasted it in the back of his throat. It never made him gag—until now.

It’s the fact that Peter is the one that produced it that upsets his stomach. Because nothing in the world ever smelled more wrong.

“And, Tony?” Helen’s voice cuts through the air—low, somewhere behind him, half-swallowed by the hallway.

He doesn’t turn. Just clenches his jaw hard enough to ache. His stomach churns. His throat’s on fire. He feels like a grenade mid-detonation—held together by nothing but the will not to fall apart where everyone can see it.

“Don’t talk to me like that again.” Her words aren’t angry. Just tired. Flattened under too many hours, too much blood, too little sleep. Stretched thin over exhaustion and hours of holding someone’s life between her hands. Then she’s gone, the tap-tap-tap of her footsteps fading into sterile quiet.

Tony doesn’t move.

He tries to breathe through the nausea crawling up his throat. Tries to stay upright. Tries to pretend his hands aren’t shaking. But the effort it takes to pretend drains him. It leaves him hollowed, gutted out and left empty. His thoughts echo inside of him, repeated into silent whispers. Again and again until they fade into quietness.

It’s only when he feels the nausea subdue that he attempts to move. He takes a step forward only to have his legs give out on him. His knees buckle and Tony goes down.

There’s no dignity in the fall—he drops hard, like a puppet with its strings cut. The sound echoes down the hall. His hands slap the marble. Something slick smears under his palms.

He lifts one hand.

And stares at it.

Red coats the cracks of his skin, mapping out his crimes. It’s on his palm and under his nails branding him guilty.

Peter’s blood.

It shouldn’t be here.

It shouldn’t be on him.

But that’s the pattern, isn’t it? People bleed. People break. And it always traces back to him. Always . He pulls them in with promises and arrogance and good intentions , and then he leaves them like this—shattered. Stained. Hooked to machines, or zipped into bags.

Peter almost died.

Because Tony believed—for one selfish second—that he could handle it. That this time would be different.

And for what?

To feel better. To sleep a little easier knowing he’d made something good. To shove Peter between himself and the guilt he never managed to bury after Berlin. After Vulture. After fucking everything.

It was never about Peter. Not really. It was about Tony—always has been.

About trying to assemble the worst version of himself into something vaguely functional—like rearranging rubble and pretending it was ever a foundation. He wasn’t looking for redemption. He didn’t believe he deserves that anymore. He just needed the illusion of control, the comfort of pretending he could still fix things. That he was capable of doing more than ruin everything he touched— doing good .

And now Peter’s paying for that too.

The thought hits like a punch to the chest.

He turns his head and vomits—violently. His whole body convulses. Acid and bile pour out of him, burning his throat raw. He chokes on it, nearly inhales it, like even his own body wants to punish him for being this goddamn useless.

When it’s over, he wipes his mouth on his sleeve. His hands are shaking. His breath won’t come steady. His vision swims.

There’s blood on the floor. On his palms. On the sleeves he just wiped his mouth with.

And none of it is his.

But all of it is.

He stays down for a while.

Long enough for the bile to dry on the back of his throat. Long enough for the shaking in his hands to dull into a steady tremor. Long enough for the sterile hallway to forget he was ever standing.

And when he finally gets up—knees stiff, back aching, palms smeared red—he doesn’t wipe them clean.

It feels wrong to.

He moves through the corridor like he’s underwater. Everything is muffled. Muted. His own footsteps sound distant, like they belong to someone else. Like he’s watching himself in third person, floating toward something he’s not ready to see.

He rinses out his mouth in the staff restroom, knuckles white on porcelain. Stares at the sink a second too long, like he can’t quite make sense of the reflection staring back at him in the mirror—bloodshot eyes, clenched jaw, a man who built a thousand suits and still wasn’t fast enough. Strong enough. Smart enough.

He scrubs his hands one more time. They’re already clean. Yet he can still feel the phantom of Peter’s blood on his hands. Thick, warm, and crimson. It haunts him.

A nurse is waiting outside when he steps into the hall. “He’s been moved to the recovery suite,” she says. “You can see him now.”

Tony nods once. Doesn’t speak. Doesn't thank her. Doesn't trust his voice not to betray the fact that he wants to throw up again.

The walk down the hallway feels longer than it should. Like every step is a taunt. His footsteps echo like laughter. Loud, sharp, and at his expense. The walls mock and the lights flicker in amusement.

Why did he ever think that this could be different?

The door is open when he gets there.

Peter looks smaller than he should. Pale beneath the blanket, too still, too quiet. A monitor hums beside him, soft but steady. There are wires, tubes and dressings attached to his body, shackling him to the bed.

Tony stands in the doorway, frozen in place by the sight before him.

This is the part where he’s supposed to be relieved. Where he breathes a little easier and shakes a little less. Where his heart doesn’t beat as frantic and his thoughts turn against him.

But all he feels is sick.

Because this—this room, these machines, that bandage peeking up from under the collar of Peter’s gown—this is his fault .

And he knows it.

He knows it the way he knows the arc reactor, the specs of every suit he ever built, the body count tied to his name.

He said he’d keep Peter safe.

He meant it.

But meaning things doesn’t change outcomes. And now Peter’s lying there, kept breathing by machines and luck and whatever genetic miracle kept him from dying on the table. Because Tony had been too distracted. Too arrogant. Too confident.

He takes one step into the room. It feels like trespassing. Like he’s walking into a place he knows he’s not supposed to be. Has no right to be in. But he’s always been selfish and self-destructive, pushing where it hurts the most.

So he takes another.

By the time he reaches the bedside, his hands are fists in his pockets and his mouth tastes like bile. The guilt is loud in his chest, a pressure behind his ribs that won’t let up.

He’s not here because he deserves to be.

He’s here because he doesn’t.

Tony watches the rise and fall of Peter’s chest, barely there beneath the sheet. Watches the soft flutter of the kid’s lashes against pale skin. Like he might wake up at any second. Like this isn’t the worst moment of both their lives.

He drags the chair closer, but he doesn’t sit. Not yet. That spot—right there beside Peter—isn’t his to take. Not after what happened. Not when the only reason Peter’s in that bed is because Tony failed to keep him out of it.

So he stands.

Because sitting would mean he deserves the spot— deserves Peter. Sitting would mean he belongs in it. That somehow, Tony has earned the right to worry and fret over Peter. To claim he cares when he proved time and time again he doesn’t. When he let each chance Peter gave him to step up slip through his grasp like it wasn’t even worth holding on to.

Tony doesn’t get to have the comfort of watching Peter breathe. Of reassuring himself that he’s alive—broken, bruised, but repairable. Not when he’s the reason Peter needs repairing at all. He doesn’t get to have the luxury of catching the brown of his eyes once he opens them. Of tasting the sweetness of his voice when he talks or hearing the joyful noises he makes when he laughs.

He deserves none of it.

But what does that matter now? The kid trusted him. Again and again. And Tony—brilliant, broken Tony—took that trust and cracked it open, dissected it like a machine, until it bled.

Peter gave him everything and asked for nothing. And Tony, in return, gave him trauma, stitched to the bone.

Maybe one day he’ll make it right. If Peter lets him. If the universe doesn't take that choice away first.

Maybe one day, when the damage isn’t fresh and the air doesn't still smell like antiseptic and regret, Tony will have earned that chair. Earned the right to sit, to stay, to be part of Peter’s orbit without scorching him in return.

Until then, he stays on his feet.

He stands and thinks, wonders how things got this far.

There is a scientific neurological explanation to his feelings. He remembers something he read once—late night, half-drunk, in the hollow space Pepper used to fill. About how attachment is nothing but chemistry: dopamine, oxytocin, a few misfiring synapses convincing you someone matters.

He’d laughed at the time. How pathetic it was, how programmable. As if connection was just a trick the brain played on itself.

And yet, here he is. Programmed. Rewired. Completely undone by a kid with shaky science jokes and a spine made of steel. Tony feels it—deeply, in every fiber of his being. Engraved into the fabric of him, atom by atom. He’s made up of feelings, of emotions, conjured up by Peter. It doesn’t seem right, that something so integrated into him, woven into muscle and bones, can be the work of neurological signals. How do chemical pulses become this? This ache that doesn’t fade, this guilt that thrums louder than his own heartbeat. How does a series of synapses mimic grief so convincingly, it feels like punishment?

He looks at Peter and feels something he can’t name. It twists inside his hollow chest—new, raw, and just a little terrifying.

A gasp cuts the air like a wire snapping under strain.

“Oh my God.”

May’s voice trembles as she rushes through the door, breath caught somewhere between a cry and a prayer. She doesn’t hesitate—she goes straight to Peter, nearly tripping over the leg of a chair to reach his bedside.

Her hands hover just above his arm, afraid to touch. Her eyes dart between the dressing taped to his side and the monitors blinking above him, reading numbers with the eyes of an experienced nurse.

“Peter…” Her voice is a whisper now, breaking on the edges. “Oh, baby.”

Happy lingers in the doorway, quiet. He doesn’t say anything, just watches with that deep, silent ache of someone who wishes they could offer more.

Tony doesn’t move from where he stands. He stills, breath caught in his throat as he waits for the anger, for the blame. His knuckles turn white as his grip on the chair tightness, bracing himself for May’s wrath.

She doesn’t look at him right away—but he feels her notice him. Feels the shift in the room when her hand finally brushes over Peter’s fingers, when her shoulders square and she takes a breath that doesn’t quite steady her.

“I had a double shift,” she says, softly, not looking at him. “Didn’t see the missed calls until I was already on my way out of the hospital.”

Tony’s jaw clenches. “I called as soon as—”

“I know.” Her voice cuts through his. Not angry. Just tired. Raw. “I’m not saying you didn’t.”

There’s a beat of silence. Peter doesn’t stir, he’s as still as a corps. The beeping of the monitor fills the space between words like it’s trying to keep time— a reminder he is still alive.

May exhales through her nose, blinking hard.

“He’s always been like this, you know?” she says, brushing a thumb gently across Peter’s hand. “Always jumping in to help. Always thinking it’s his job to fix things. Even before the bite.”

Tony swallows hard. “I know.”

“No, I don’t think you do.” She finally looks up at him, eyes sharp but wet. “He’d be Spider-Man with or without the suit. That’s who he is. That’s who Ben and I raised him to be. But that doesn’t mean you’re any less responsible.”

“I never thought I wasn’t.”

May turns, facing him fully now. There’s no cruelty in her expression—but there’s no softness either. She was never his biggest fan but that never stopped her from treating him like a human capable of making mistakes. It never stopped her from giving him the benefit of the doubt. But now, he wonders if maybe she has reached the end of her patience with him.

“You knew what he was like. You encouraged it. You gave him tools and tech and validation and told yourself that made it okay. That if you gave something other than yourself it would be fine.”

He doesn’t argue. He doesn’t defend himself.

“And now he’s lying here,” she says, voice low but steady, “with a hole in his side, on your medical floor, because none of us could make him believe he doesn’t have to carry the weight of the world.”

She shakes her head—more at herself than at him.

“I’m not mad at you, Tony. I’m just…” Her breath stutters again. “I’m so tired of watching him bleed for people who don’t understand how much it costs.”

Tony looks at the floor.

“I do,” he says. Quiet. Unsteady. “Now I do.”

May nods once. Then turns back to Peter, reaching out to adjust the edge of his blanket, like it’s something she can actually fix.

Happy steps into the room, slow and careful, and rests a hand lightly on her back. She leans into it without thinking, a quiet familiarity that doesn’t need explaining.

Tony watches that moment and feels the guilt dig in deeper.

He takes a step back—still in the room, but giving space.

He doesn’t deserve to be the one beside Peter right now.

May does.

And she’s here.

That has to be enough—for now.

So he leaves quietly, retreating out of the room like a shadow fading with the light—unnoticed, unneeded, exactly as it should be.

He walks until the air shifts—trades the sterile sting of antiseptic for the familiar hum of his lab. That’s where he always ends up. When the world spirals, when his guilt gets too loud, when there’s nothing left to fix except the wreckage inside him—he builds.

He cues up the footage from Peter’s patrol, loads the last half hour into a loop. He doesn’t scrub past the stabbing. Doesn’t skip over the moment Peter folds in on himself. He watches it happen—again and again—until it etches itself into his retinas.

Then he pulls up the suit’s schematics and tears them apart.

Every glitch, every oversight, every millimeter of vulnerability—gone. He rebuilds the whole damn thing from the ground up. Stronger. Smarter. Less breakable. Everything Peter needed before the blood and the sirens and the panic.

He throws himself into the upgrades like they might wash him clean. Like Kevlar and reinforced nanoweave can make up for the fact that he wasn’t there. That he failed.

Because he can’t undo the damage.

But he can bury it in tech and sleepless hours and guilt-threaded wire.

And maybe that’s not enough.

But it’s what he has.

What he is.

The only thing he knows how to do when he breaks something precious.

He builds.

The funny thing about time is—it plays a game of statues. The moment you look straight at it, become aware of it, it freezes. Stands still like it’s holding its breath. But the second you glance away, let yourself get even a little distracted—time moves. Fast. Slipping past like it was never still at all.

If waiting for Peter’s surgery to finish was like waiting for a statue to move, then working in the lab is like trying to stop a river with your hands.

Time loses its concept within the walls of Tony’s safe haven— his sanctuary. The lab is sacred ground. The moment his feet touch the cool marble, the world outside stops existing. No noise, no press, no guilt loud enough to follow him in here. Just silence and control—two things he’s always mistaken for peace.

It’s no different this time around. Without indicators of time’s pace, Tony loses all sense of it.

The shutters are down, sealing his link to the outside world. There is no sun or moon to signal the shift from day to night, just the artificial lights of the lab. Without the orange hues of sunrise painting New York in its golden rays and the purple shades of sunset engulfing the city in darkness— it’s hard to tell time passes at all.

No one hounds him to eat. No one texts him reminders to sleep. No one bangs on the lab door with takeout and bad jokes, trying to anchor him. No one stills the constant movement, stops him enough to breathe… to just be .

Pepper is busy. Rebuilding herself. Rebuilding his company. Picking up the pieces he swore he wouldn’t drop this time—but did.

Rhodey is busy. In rehab, again. Muscle memory and nerve damage and silent pain Tony’s too much of a coward to visit.

Happy’s busy, too. Holding May together with soft words and stitched apologies—because Tony shattered her world without meaning to.

And Peter—

God, Peter—

Peter’s busy fighting for his life.

Because Tony, in trying not to screw up, managed to screw up worse.

So time passes in a continuous stream, on and on, with no beginning or end. It could be mere hours since he descended to the safety of his lab, or it could be days. Tony has no way of telling.

He just knows that it does —pass.

In electric guitar solos and booming drum beats. In lyrics shouted over the speakers. The music is loud, blaring intentionally—overwhelming. So loud Tony can hardly think. Overstimulated: by the full-volume songs, by the relentless motion of his fingers—typing, zooming, designing—and by the blue glow of the screens burning into his eyes.

It’s a perfectly formulated chaos— his .

So when the music suddenly stops, disrupting the formula and unbalancing the impeccably engineered atmosphere, Tony feels it like a slap to the face. He blinks, startled by the sudden ache in his jaw. He lifts a tentative hand to his cheek— the ghost of the metaphoric slap lingering —and discovers his teeth are grinding down with enough force to flatten them. When he opens his mouth, his jaw cracks, a sound so loud it rattles through his skull.

Disoriented, he looks up at the ceiling—despite always teasing others for doing so when talking to FRIDAY. The AI is integrated into the walls and floors of the building, not just the ceiling. Still, in a rare moment of genuine confusion, Tony lifts his head with furrowed brows and wide, questioning eyes.

“Sir,” FRIDAY starts, already anticipating the reaction. “May Parker is in the penthouse kitchen.”

The revelation stills Tony, his breath catches in his throat and his body locks up like a statue.

May Parker is in his kitchen, his penthouse, his private floor. She’s inside his territory—his space— uninvited but not unwelcome.

“What?” he says, and his voice comes out sharp, panicked, with a thread of manic disbelief stitched into it.

“She is requesting your presence,” FRIDAY provides.

Her emotionless voice only adds fuel to his panic. The sound of it increases his instantaneous anxiety, as if pushing Tony to compensate for her lack of feeling. He swallows. Hard. Loud. Embarrassingly so and the pathetic little sound it makes earns him a fresh wave of self-loathing.

Tony bolts up. The sudden movement sends his chair skidding across the floor behind him with a shriek. He freezes, suddenly dizzy, and braces both palms against the cool surface of the workbench to steady himself.

He inhales slowly through his nose, eyes shut, chest tight with restraint. His heart races, each beat a jolt behind his ribs. Once he’s grounded—just enough to move without shaking—he forces himself forward.

The climb up is draining. His feet drag, heavy and uncooperative, like they belong to someone else. By the time he reaches the final step, he’s winded—more than he wants to admit.

He lingers at the top of the stairs, caught between hesitation and inevitability.

May Parker is in his kitchen.

His private floor.

She moves with quiet purpose, exuding the calm authority of someone who owns the place—even though it’s her first time stepping foot inside it. She’s put the kettle on the stove, and even from this distance, Tony catches the calming scent of chamomile.

He didn’t even know he owned tea.

She’s chopping something too—fruit, maybe? He can’t see it clearly from where he stands. Just hears the rhythmic chop-chop-chop of the blade on the cutting board. It’s the kind of domestic noise that doesn’t belong in his world. That’s never belonged in his world.

And then something about her—her posture, the economy of her movements, the way she holds her fear just under the surface—strikes him hard.

She reminds him of Maria.

It hits fast. Sharp. A flicker of memory so brief and so brutal it leaves him breathless.

His mother in the kitchen, caught between love and fear. Always careful, always composed, always protecting him with a quiet desperation.

Tony had never doubted she loved him. But she’d been terrified too—of Howard’s moods, his silence, his approval. And that fear had made her small in ways Tony couldn’t unsee.

And now here’s May. In his space. Carrying that same tight-lipped composure. That same trembling calm. That same ache of someone who loves too hard and loses too often.

Past and present overlap before his eyes, and the parallel stabs into his heart over and over again. Unearthing a type of pain he’d thought he had buried with his parents.

His eyes sting. Hot, sudden. He blinks the heat away before it can gather, before it makes a fool of him.

And still— God, still —the urge to drink gnaws at him. It buzzes beneath his skin, familiar and insistent. He wants to drown in a bottle, wants to disappear beneath layers of aged whiskey and cold scotch until everything burns quiet. Until he’s just... numb. But he can’t, not now, after —maybe.

He owes May this much at least. So he approaches even though it’s the last thing he wants to do. Walks toward the kitchen like a man sentenced. His steps feel heavy, his guilt heavier. He’ll take the yelling, the blame, whatever she’s ready to throw. If she needs to break something—hell, if she needs to break him —he won’t flinch. He did something he can never atone for and he knows, whatever she unleashes upon him will feel like mercy. One he doesn’t deserve.

When he gets to the counter, May glances at him—acknowledges him with a brief look, nothing more. She doesn’t speak right away. Just keeps moving. She plates the fruit she’s been cutting— an apple. Then opens two wrong cupboards before finding the one housing the mugs.

Through it all, Tony just stands there. Hovering. Uneasy. Hands shoved in his pockets, heart pounding behind his ribs like a prisoner trying to break out.

He takes a half step forward, then stops himself.

When she turns back with two mugs in hand and finds him still standing where she left him, May frowns at him. There is a hint of irritation in the curve of her brow.

“Sit,” she says, setting one of the mugs in front of an empty kitchen stool. It’s not an offer. It’s a command.

Tony scrambles. He moves too fast, too eager to comply. He sits, his back muscles pulled tut as he sits straight, shoulders stretched wide. Like a schoolboy caught cheating on a test.

Not many people can rattle him like this.

But May does.

Not at first. At first, she knew nothing of Peter’s tendencies to fight crime in his onesies. Back then, she had been elated by Peter’s accomplishment, wholeheartedly believing he had scored an internship with Stark Industries— with Tony Stark himself. But after— after Germany, after The Vulture, after handing her back her kid broken in ways she couldn’t see— once she found out about Peter’s secret identity. May had changed. She’d bared her teeth at Tony— a tigress protective of her little cub.

She wordlessly slides the plate of precisely cut apples in front of him.

Surprised, he looks at the plate then back at her.

May doesn’t look at him, she leans on the counter, letting the edge dig into her hips. Her arms are crossed tightly over her chest—not defensive, exactly, but holding herself together. A broken woman hugging her loose parts close. Bracing for another piece to fall apart.

The unspoken command hangs in the silence between them, balanced by a thread.

Quietly, Tony follows it.

He reaches a shaking hand to grab a piece. When he bites into it, it produces a satisfying crunch—loud in the silence. The apple—green, by the taste of it—is crisp and sour. It makes his mouth water and his stomach rumble in silent appreciation. The flavors are there, tart and acidic, dancing on his tongue, washing away the bitterness of his dry mouth. It’s a change his body welcomes.

But one Tony can’t enjoy.

Not while knowing what waits for him at the end of May’s anxious hovering.

Finally, after what feels like hours, May opens her mouth to speak. But nothing comes out. She hesitates, pressing her lips into a thin line. Her eyes shift, flicking between the granite countertop—as if it might hold all the answers in its swirls of gray—and Tony, as if peering into the depths of his soul.

She’s thinking whatever she intends to do, say , over. Tony can see her hesitation, can feel it in the way she stirs the air with anxious vibration. He waits for her to find her words, to mull them over and hand pick the ones she wants to say.

When for the second time, she opens her mouth, the kettle on the stove whistles loudly making them both jump in surprise. Tony’s fingers press hard on the countertop, his nails dig into the impenetrable granite, failing to sink in. His heart hammers in his chest, triggered by the sudden loud noise. In her place against the counter, May hisses and rubs her hip, trying to soothe the ache. Having knocked it hard against the hard edge in her fright.

She pours them both a hot mug of camomile tea.

Tony doesn’t drink tea. He takes a sip anyway.

“I—” she shuts her mouth as soon as the word is out. A frustrated sound escapes her and Tony takes another sip of his tea to give her a moment to find her words again. May takes a deep breath and starts again, “I’m not your biggest fan.”

Tony has always known this, but hearing her say it stings.

“Really?” he asks, tone sarcastic. He scoffs despite himself, “I didn’t notice.”

May doesn’t dignify his comment with an answer, only sends him an unimpressed look. A sense of deja vu washes over him, raging and intense, reminding Tony of Maria.

“Sorry,” he says, effectively chastised.

He lowers his eyes, looking away. Overwhelmed by the similarities between them. He wonders, for a brief moment, how he had never made the connection before. They don’t look the same, but there are instances where May says something or moves in a certain way that has him swearing she's possessed by Maria’s ghost.

Undeterred, she tries again—her voice steadier this time. “I’m not your biggest fan. I don’t approve of the choices you made— continue to make— and the life you lead.”

It’s nothing he hadn’t heard before, just in different variations. Pepper had once said something similar, granted with harsher words, but still carrying the same meaning.

“But…” she trails off, distracted by a thought.

Tony’s eyes snap to her so fast, he almost gives himself whiplash. ‘ But’ echoes in his mind, loud at first then fading into silence. The moment it stops echoing, it detonates—sending Tony into a quiet whirlpool of dread. Because there has never been a but before. Nothing to add in justification of his long line of growing screw ups. Yet here is May, trying anyway.

“Peter chose you,” she says, her voice wavering as she speaks his name. She clears her throat, then takes a sip of her untouched tea—trying to wash down the need to cry. “He chose you, Tony,” May repeats, her words laced in pain.

Their eyes meet and Tony’s heart nearly stops at what he finds in hers.

“And I know it’s not your fault—” Tony’s breath hitches at that, the sentence foreign and unexpected “— you didn’t ask to be responsible for Peter , you didn’t sign up for that. You recruited Spider-Man , promised to sponsor him, offered protection and safety. You’ve done that—poorly at times— and beyond. The suit alone is….” She shudders, probably remembering those sad, too-thin pajamas he used to swing around in, dodging bullets and swerving daggers.

“But Tony, Spider-Man is Peter, you can’t have one without the other—”

“I know that,” Tony snaps, too hot and too fast. Guilt tightens in his chest, spreading across his lungs until every breath burns.

“Do you?”

It’s a challenge disguised as a question.

She looks at him, eyes hard and eyebrows arched dangerously. Her gaze sparks a fire inside of him, and guilt spreads like wildfire across his body. Everything aches, bone and muscle alike.

When he says nothing, she continues.

“He’s a kid, Tony. Just a kid. He carries himself like an adult. And he’s so good at impersonating one I forget that he’s a kid at times,” she confesses, biting her lips hard until they're red and puffy— throbbing. She looks away, hiding the shame swelling in her eyes.

Tony hums in agreement, not knowing what else to say.

“He’s always been too mature for his age— trading his childhood for adulthood. Shouldering the weight of the world as if it’s his duty. He feels responsible for every person living in it—” May stops, overwhelmed.

“The kid has a big heart,” Tony offers, voice gruff and low.

God, if it’s not true. It should be impossible for a body as small and lithe as Peter’s to fit a heart so big. Yet, somehow, it does. Perfectly too. Because he walks around like it’s a blessing and not a curse— to care so much.

“He does,” she agrees, sniffling. Her eyes are filled with tears too proud to spill. They hang on to her lids desperately, refusing to part with her. “He cares too much and loves deeply. And he—” her voice cracks as a tear finally breaks loose. She wipes it away instantly, erasing the evidence—but her red-rimmed eyes give her away. “And he wants everything . Do you get that?”

No, Tony doesn’t. But he can’t find his voice to say so. His throat burns and so do his eyes. There is an ache in his heart, a clench that grows tighter and tighter until it feels like his heart might burst from the pain.

“He’s lost so much already— can you imagine that? He’s only fifteen and he lost everyone . I’m the only person he has in his corner. And you…” she stops, suddenly at a loss for words.

She’s trembling with the effort not to break down. More tears fall down her face, and this time, May lets them. She looks wrecked, utterly ruined.

And it guts him.

Tony has faced gods and monsters, demons with fangs and men with nukes. But nothing— nothing —has ever looked as terrifying as a grieving mother falling apart in his kitchen because of a kid he was supposed to protect.

He did this.

With his hubris, his blind spots, his inability to be what Peter needed when it mattered most.

Tony swallows, but it catches halfway down. He can’t look at her, not like this. So he looks down to his tea instead, watches the surface ripple every time he quietly taps the mug. He has nothing to say, because she’s right. Every word of it. And it hurts like hell.

“You come along but you don't stay long . You come and go as it's convenient to you. You’re here when it serves you—and gone when it doesn’t. Do you see how that hurts him? He’s desperate for something permanent, Tony. Something that doesn’t walk away when things get hard. Don’t you get it? You’re not just another adult to him. You’re the one he picked. And that means more to him than you’ll ever understand.”

“What are you saying?” he asks, voice thin and cracking. The dread that follows hits like a punch to the gut—sharp and disorienting. His palms sweat, and suddenly the kitchen feels too hot, the air too thick to breathe.

May exhales shakily. Wipes at her eyes, but it’s futile. Her face is already blotchy, raw with emotion. Still, when she looks at him, she’s steady. Not calm—no, not by a long shot—but composed in the way people are when they’ve come to a decision and there’s no walking it back.

“I’m saying,” she begins, slow and deliberate, “that you need to decide, Tony.”

His stomach drops.

She presses on, voice hoarse but unwavering. “Because I can’t keep doing this—letting you float in and out of Peter’s life like you’re some weather pattern. One day sunshine, the next a hurricane.”

Tony flinches. He deserves that. Every word.

“He looks for you,” she says, her voice breaking on the last word. “Even when he pretends not to. He listens for your voice, watches the news for any glimpse of your suits, your name. He thinks you’re watching, that you care. And I— I can’t watch him go through that anymore. I won’t.”

She draws a sharp breath. “So here’s what’s going to happen.”

Tony straightens instinctively, bracing for impact.

“You’re either in,” she says. “All the way. You show up, consistently. You stay when it’s hard. You take responsibility—not just for what’s already happened, but for what’s going to happen. Because he’s not done getting hurt, Tony. He’s Spider-Man. And Spider-Man gets bruised. But Peter—he needs someone in his corner who knows that. Who doesn’t run when things get messy. Who helps him pick up the pieces when he shatters.”

Tony swallows. Hard.

“Or,” she continues, “you’re out. Completely. No half-measures, no broken promises. No more hovering around like some ghost. If you can’t be there fully, then I’ll be the one who talks to you. I’ll pass messages along. I’ll coordinate the tech and the upgrades and whatever else you want to throw his way. But you will not— will not —get to show up when it suits you. You won’t be allowed to keep hurting him, intentionally or not.”

Silence settles between them like dust.

May lifts her cup again, her hands trembling slightly. She doesn’t drink—just holds it like a shield, eyes downcast.

Tony tries to speak, but nothing comes. There’s a boulder lodged in his throat.

He stares at her, at the woman who raised Peter into someone good and kind and impossibly brave. At the strength it must take to sit here across from him and say all this. Not out of anger—but out of love.

For Peter.

Tony runs a hand down his face. He feels cracked open, like she’s peeled him layer by layer and left the ugly parts out on the counter for them both to see. And somehow, she didn’t flinch.

“I don’t want to hurt him,” he says finally, voice quieter than it’s ever been. “That’s the last thing I want.”

“I know that,” she says gently. “But that’s not enough anymore.”

Her eyes meet his again, soft but resolute. “You don’t get credit for meaning well.”

Tony stares down at his tea, the steam curling up toward his face like a question.

And he knows—this is it. This is the moment. The choice.

In or out.

No middle ground.

Silence stretches, long and brittle.

Tony doesn’t speak. Can’t.

Because the thing is—this offer, this ultimatum—it should feel like a relief. An escape hatch. An out. A clean break from all the guilt and responsibility choking him like smoke.

May is letting him off the hook. Offering him mercy.

She’s telling him he doesn’t have to stay. That if he walks away now, she’ll be the one to absorb the fallout. She’ll be the one to pick up Peter’s pieces.

It should make him feel lighter.

But it doesn’t.

Instead, something in his chest tightens. Squeezes hard. And it hurts . A dull, echoing ache. The kind that settles deep in the bone and refuses to leave. Because the idea of losing access to Peter—of not hearing his excited rambling, of not seeing his face light up when he talks about some new web-fluid formula or math thing or dumb sci-fi reference Tony pretends to get—hurts more than he ever expected.

He doesn’t want out.

But he also doesn’t know if he’s good enough to stay in.

And that realization splits him wide open.

May watches him quietly, like she sees it all—the way his jaw tightens, the way his eyes stay fixed on the mug in front of him like it holds answers he doesn’t have.

She sets her own tea down, the porcelain clinking softly against the granite.

“You don’t have to answer me now,” she says gently, like a balm against the sting. “Sleep on it. Think it over. Be honest with yourself—for once.”

Tony looks up at that. The corner of her mouth twitches, the closest thing to kindness she can offer in this moment.

“If you decide you’re out,” she continues, voice soft but firm, “don’t come downstairs tomorrow. Don’t show your face in the medbay. I’ll know what it means.”

Tony swallows past the lump in his throat.

“And if you do show up,” she finishes, standing straighter now, “I’ll take it as your answer. And I’ll hold you to it. Every part of it.”

She doesn’t wait for a response. Just leaves him there at the kitchen island—tired, unraveling, and alone with the bitter taste of his tea and the unbearable weight of maybe .

He does drown himself in a bottle, eventually. 

After May leaves, and the bitter taste of his tea fades into a distant memory—Tony floats to the bar. The irony— floating like a ghost —doesn’t escape him. Instead, it encourages him to bring out the extra strong stuff. The kind that once made Captain America himself hum at the satisfying burn he rarely feels anymore.

He’s not hiding. Not running. He tells himself that, anyway. No—he’s seeking the truth. May wants him to be honest with himself, to dig deep into his soul and see if there’s enough good left in him to care for her kid.

To do that, he drinks.

Because the only time he’s honest with himself is when his fears are subdued and his self-loathing is buried under a thick layer of numbness. When his mind is silenced and it’s no longer his cruelest enemy. When the noise dulls and the ghosts stop screaming.

He drinks until he’s weightless. Until his body is slack, and his thoughts unravel like thread from a spool. Until he’s an honest man.

It’s only when he’s in that state—of incapacity to lie, not even to himself—that Tony lets himself really think about his options.

He thinks of Peter— of doe brown eyes and shy awkward smiles— and does something he has not done in years.

He smiles.

A soft and genuine smile, free of the shackles of overthinking.

Because how could he not?

Peter is so…

There are no words to describe him, to convey what he is, what he embodies. Even thinking about it, Tony can’t seem to find the right thoughts to paint Peter’s picture in his mind.

There is a pureness to him, not a sacrificial lamb type of pureness, something more . Something rare, once in a lifetime rare, like a unicorn almost— but better. Innocent, graceful, and pure in ways none of them deserve to witness. To be at the receiving end of. Especially Tony.

But he does, give freely, that is. And it never was about who deserves it, not to Peter— he doesn’t care about that. He gives because he can , he gives because people need .

He gave—gives—Tony more than he can carry, can hold in him.

And Tony? He drops it every time.

Not on purpose. Not maliciously. Just… instinctively. Like his hands were never meant to hold something that delicate. Like his palms are made of broken glass and Peter’s trust is water slipping through the cracks.

May’s words echo, harsh but fair—cutting through the fog of liquor and regret.

In or out.

No more dancing in the middle. No more flinching when things get real. No more running from a fifteen-year-old boy who just wants someone to stay.

Tony stares into his glass, now half-empty and sweating in his grip. The burn no longer satisfying—just familiar.

This should be his out. His exit strategy. Guilt outsourced, responsibility removed. May offered him mercy disguised as a boundary.

And yet—

The thought of walking away makes his chest cave in. Makes the room tilt on its axis. Makes him feel like he’s tearing open a wound stitched shut too soon.

Maybe he’s not just selfish, but a masochist too. Because he wants too. To be a part of something good, do good. To stay in Peter’s orbit a little longer, regardless of how much it hurts, and soak up the unconditional love he keeps pouring into him. To be wanted, chosen, loved . And learn how to do all of that in return too. To allow himself to have nice things.

Because it always comes down to that—what he deserves.

And the answer is always the same.

Nothing.

That word hangs in his mind like a noose.

Because what kind of man wants to stay in a kid’s life only to poison it?

What kind of man dares to think he can do better, when history says otherwise?

Tony runs a hand down his face, rough and slow, and lets his mind wander where it rarely dares to go: to Howard .

To the original architect of his damage.

He thinks of cold whiskey breath and colder compliments. Of genius wielded like a weapon and silence used as discipline. Of a man who thought parenting was synonymous with expectation —the kind that crushes bones and reshapes them into obedience.

He remembers birthdays forgotten and awards dismissed. Remembered, too, are the rare moments of affection—so rare Tony can list them on one hand. And every one of them came with a price.

That’s what scares him the most.

Not failing Peter.

Becoming his father.

Tony’s eyes close and the ache behind them grows sharper. It’s not just the liquor anymore—it’s grief. Grief for what he never had, and fear for what he might become.

Because what qualifications does he have? What blueprint is he working from?

He was built in a house that taught him love was earned, not given. That softness was weakness. That boys don’t cry and men don’t apologize—at least not out loud.

So what makes him think he can be anything better?

A wrenching thought creeps in, quiet and cruel:

What if the best thing he can do for Peter is leave?

Cut the thread before it tangles around the kid’s neck and chokes him out.

But then—

Tony remembers the way Peter smiled at him on the tarmac. How his voice lit up talking about “the internship,” about science fairs and webs and ways to help. He remembers how that tiny body shook in his arms when he saved him from a patrol gone wrong— bleeding, scared, but alive.

He remembers what it felt like to be needed .

And worse—what it felt like to be trusted .

He doesn’t deserve it.

But maybe—

Maybe he wants to try anyway.

Despite it not being something to take pride in, Tony has always been proud of his impulsivity. Granted it always comes to bite him in the ass. If not instantly, then later— but definitely .

Consequences—cause and effect—an unbreakable rule. He acts first, thinks later, and inevitably ends up diving headfirst into a flaming shit pile with no parachute.

Which is ridiculous— in his opinion— because brilliance should cancel out impulsivity. Yet somehow, in his case, it seems to amplify it. And if that is not the essence of being Tony Stark, what is? Always an exception, in the cruelest most sadistic way— punished with being different.

Impulsivity, brilliance, flair for dramatics and a hack for making unorthodox decisions— let it never be said that Tony Stark is predictable.

Yet, somehow, when the next day finds him outside Peter’s room— lingering, hesitating— there is nothing impulsive about it. Instead, it’s like everything finally falls into place, clicks . As if, one way or another, Tony was always meant to find himself here, in this moment— at the threshold of Peter’s life.

The corridor is too quiet—just the soft hum of recessed lights and the faint, sterile sting of antiseptic in the air.

He doesn’t knock on the door, not yet, simply hovers by the invisible line. For once, the hesitation that pulses through him is not born out of fear of commitment. He has resigned to his fate, there is no turning back now. Rather, it’s fear of what comes next. Of what happens after he crosses the line and asks for something he was never meant to have—something pure, real, terrifying in its simplicity. One thing that means everything .

“Tony?”

The name breaks through the silence—quiet, unsure.

Tony doesn’t flinch. Just keeps staring at the door like it might open on its own if he looks hard enough.

Footsteps approach, unhurried. Then a familiar presence settles beside him, not too close but not distant either. Happy, holding two coffee cups, stands shoulder to shoulder with him. He doesn’t say anything at first. Just looks straight ahead, mimicking Tony’s stillness.

After a beat, he offers one of the cups.

Tony takes it without looking, without speaking, fingers curling around the warmth like it might anchor him to something solid. It’s scalding. He welcomes the burn.

“She’s been doing this on her own for a long time,” Happy says finally, voice low. Not accusing—just fact. Heavy with a kind of quiet reverence.

Tony nods once, just enough to be seen. “Yeah,” he murmurs. “I know.”

Another silence settles between them, not uncomfortable, but thick.

Then, “can you… get her? I need to talk to her.”

Happy doesn’t question it. He steps forward and does what Tony couldn’t bring himself to do— opens the door. The sound of steady beeping filters out and in the brief moment before he closes the door behind him, Tony catches a glimpse of the dimly lit room and the still figure on its bed.

Moments later, the door opens again—soft and slow—and May steps out, still wearing yesterday’s exhaustion. She’s holding an identical cup, desperate fingers wrapped around it.

Tony straightens instinctively.

And then she looks at him.

If there she is surprised to see him, May doesn’t show it. There is no hope or relief in her eyes either, just a look of raw desperation.

“You came,” she says, it’s a statement, a fact. She doesn’t add anything else, only leans—sags— on the closed door behind her.

“I won’t be good at it,” Tony blurts the warning. It’s been gnawing at him since the moment he made his choice. Bubbling inside of him, desperate to come out. “Might do more damage close than far.”

May stares at him for a long moment, unreadable. Then, quietly, “None of us are good at it. Not at first.”

She takes a shaky sip from the cup. “God knows I wasn’t. Still don’t think I am most days.”

Tony scoffs under his breath, bitter. “You kidding? He talks about you like you hung the moon.”

A sad smile ghosts across her face, faint and flickering. “That’s the thing about Peter. He sees people for who they could be. Gives us more credit than we deserve.”

She steps forward, not close enough to touch, but closer.

“You don’t have to be perfect,” she says gently. “You just have to stay. And try.”

He swallows hard, jaw clenched. “I don’t know if I can.”

“You already are,” she replies, lifting the coffee slightly like a toast. “You showed up.”

For a moment, neither of them says anything. The silence stretches, soft around the edges.

Then May turns around, her hand lingering on the doorknob. “He’s waiting for you. Whether he knows it or not,” she says over her shoulder, a hidden invitation. Her hand turns the knob and she steps in quietly leaving the door open.

Tony nods— even though she can’t see him— stiff and uncertain. His legs feel heavier than they should. His chest aches with every breath. Old habits scream at him to run, to turn and never look back. But something instinctive almost, a need to care, to provide, and to protect bacons him forward.

He walks past the threshold.

The cables and tubes are everywhere, looping over his wrists and trailing down the sides of the bed, encircling him like silk spun in grief. Like a spider’s web—delicate, deliberate, inescapable.

And Peter looks small. Not just young— small . Fragile in a way Tony has never allowed himself to see. The kind of fragility that makes his heart hurt, like if he blinks too hard, the image might shatter.

His chest rises and falls with the mechanical regularity of sedation, not life. Not the erratic, jittery energy Peter usually vibrates with. Not the kid who talks a mile a minute, hands flailing, words tumbling over one another in a rush to be known.

He’s silent now. Still.

And Tony feels the weight of it settle in his bones.

He freezes just inside the doorway. A captive of the pain he feels at the sight before him— Peter, a boy that is his and not, broken in ways he can’t mend.

Three days.

Three days, and this is the first time he’s let himself see. His vitals hover in the blue light of a hologram in his lab, a constant reminder of what Tony failed to stop. But he hasn’t allowed himself the luxury of looking— watching the boy who’s yet to wake up.

Not until now.

He exhales shakily, the air in his lungs tasting like guilt.

With leaden steps, Tony crosses the room. He doesn’t speak—can’t. He just pulls the chair up beside the bed and sinks into it slowly, elbows on knees, eyes never leaving Peter’s face.

May sits quietly in the corner, nursing her cup of cold coffee, while Happy stands near the door, arms crossed, silent but steady.

Tony leans forward, resting his forearms on the edge of the bed.

And he waits.

Tony doesn’t remember falling asleep.

One moment he’s skimming Peter’s chart again—eyes scanning over oxygen levels, blood pressure, sedation intervals—and the next, his head is tilted back awkwardly against the chair, a crick in his neck blooming like a bruise. Sunlight spills in through the blinds in dusty gold slants, cutting across the sterile blue-white of the medbay walls. The steady hum of machines is almost soothing now, a grim lullaby.

Peter hasn’t moved.

Still curled slightly to one side, barely perceptible under the weight of IV lines and medical tape, his chest rises in slow, metronomic pulls. It’s unnatural. It’s not the way a teenager should breathe. Too still. Too measured. Too quiet.

Across the room, May stands at the small sink, rinsing out their coffee cups. Her movements are methodical, but her shoulders are tight, her eyes sunken from nights with no real rest. When she turns, she catches Tony watching her, and for a moment they just hold the silence between them.

She nods once—tight, tired, but genuine.

It’s not approval. It’s acknowledgment.

The offer comes out of Tony’s mouth before he can stop it. “Let me try.”

May hesitates, staring at him with one arched brow that practically says, Since when do you do gentle? But she doesn’t push back. She hands him the warm, lemon-scented cloth with only a brief, “Be careful of the IVs.”

Tony sits beside the bed and brings the cloth to Peter’s forehead. He starts there, cautious and slow, wiping away the faint sheen of sweat. The fabric drags lightly across the boy’s pale skin. He moves to Peter’s temples, down the sharp cut of his cheekbone.

“You can press a little harder,” May murmurs behind him, voice low. “He won’t break.”

But Tony doesn’t. Not because he didn’t hear her—but because deep down, he’s terrified that she’s wrong.

The sudden beep-beep of the monitor cuts through the stillness like a gunshot.

Tony jumps, coffee sloshing over the rim of his paper cup and onto the floor. He curses under his breath, eyes darting to the vitals—heart rate stable, oxygen steady, infusion rate unchanged. Just a scheduled med dose.

May barely looks up. “It does that every six hours.”

Tony runs a hand through his hair, embarrassed. “Right. Of course.”

Happy chooses that exact moment to walk in, arms full of takeout and phone chargers and fresh clothes for May. He surveys the puddle of coffee, Tony’s white-knuckled grip on the chair arm, and says nothing.

May mouths a silent thank you to him.

The lights have dimmed. May is curled on the cot in the far corner, one hand loosely draped over her eyes. Her tea sits forgotten on the bedside table.

Tony sits beside Peter again, this time slouched low in the chair, fingers tapping restlessly on the armrest. He leans forward.

“You’re really milking this, kid,” he mutters, voice low but tinged with something fond. “Four days unconscious? That’s dramatic—even by my standards.”

He glances over at the pale profile. “You’re just trying to get out of doing calculus, aren’t you?”

Nothing.

“I swear, if this is a ploy to guilt me into giving you that AI drone prototype, you’re not getting it. Well… maybe. If you wake up.”

A pause.

He sighs. “Please wake up.”

It happens late into the night, when the medbay lights are dimmed and the hum of machines has faded into the rhythm of background noise. Tony's half-asleep in the chair beside the bed, arms crossed across his chest and legs stretched in front of his, when a soft, croaky sound cuts through the quiet.

“...Arc reactor’s got a heartbeat, you know?”

Tony startles upright, the words so quiet he almost thinks he imagined them.

He looks at Peter—and for the first time in four days, Peter's eyes are barely cracked open, glassy and unfocused. His lips move slowly, shaped around slurred words like they’re caught in molasses.

“I heard it,” Peter murmurs, gaze sliding past Tony toward the ceiling. “Thump-thump. Like mine but smarter.”

Tony leans in, breath caught somewhere in his chest.

Peter’s brows twitch like he's working through something complex, some impossible equation no one else can see. “M’sorry ‘bout the watch. The—uh… watchy-thing. I dropped it. Or maybe I was dreaming? Was I dreaming?”

His voice drifts, fading out like a radio signal losing range.

Then, softer, like a confession he doesn’t realize he’s making, “did you come back this time…?”

Tony doesn’t move, doesn’t breathe.

Peter's eyes slip shut again, lashes resting against pale cheeks. Within seconds, he’s still.

Tony doesn’t move.

Even after Peter quiets—breath evening out, eyelids fluttering closed—he stays exactly where he is, hunched forward in the chair, every muscle pulled tight like a wire ready to snap.

He doesn’t dare blink, like if he looks away even for a second, the moment might vanish. Peter might vanish.

He swallows. It feels like swallowing glass.

From the cot in the corner, May sleeps on, unaware. Her back to them, one arm dangling off the edge, the blanket still wrapped tightly around her shoulders. She doesn’t stir—not yet.

And maybe that’s for the best. Tony isn’t ready to share this.

He shifts slightly in his chair, settling in deeper, elbow propped on the armrest, fingers curled close to Peter’s. Not touching. Just there.

He exhales shakily, not quite a breath, not quite a sigh. But it’s something. A release. A vow.

Peter called for him.

Asked if he came back.

And now that he has—he’s not leaving.

Chapter Text

There are steps to waking up from deep slumber, a ceremonial procedure that starts with regaining cognitive functions.

It’s a single thought that breaches the haze of unconsciousness to pave the way for consciousness— recognition. Understanding, despite the absence of his five senses, that he is sleeping.

Peter floats on the surface of that awareness, oblivious to the world outside his bubble of utter tranquility. He stays there a while, blissfully aware of himself as a conscious and unaware of himself as an entity— awake yet not quite awake.

Gradually, noises filter through the quietness and infiltrate his bubble. They are distant at first, muffled in an underwater sort of way. As if the vibrations are drowning in a body of water before reaching him disoriented and mangled.

Slowly, however, these noises take shape, morphing into identifiable sounds. A steady beeping, the gentle rustling of paper, and the hum of electricity all around. There are voices too, quiet and faraway, speaking around his beeswax filled ears. The words spoken tickle his brain, familiar yet untraceable. His mind stirs, seesawing between recognition and confusion, until finally the fog settles into clarity.

“I can’t afford to miss another day of work,” a warm voice says, feminine and gentle. The sound of it is like a stream washing away the haze.

There is a sigh, heavy and loaded, in response. The weight of it sits hefty in the back of his mind, nagging to be recognized. It pokes at his bubble of tranquility, threatening to burst it.

“I told you,” the sighing voice says, tired. “I’ll watch over him. I won’t leave his side, you can take a break. You need a break, May.”

May.

The sound of her name alone calms him, a cloak of safety wrapping around him. Instantly, he realizes that the feminine voice from earlier belongs to his aunt. The connection births a need, piercing and sudden, to be held by her. In a way not unlike how she often did when he was younger. Pulled tightly against her delicate frame, surprisingly strong hands tethering him to her as the warmth of her body engulfs him.

“I don’t think going back to work is the best idea. Not right away, at least. You should rest, go back home and take a day to recover,” the second voice continues on, a hint of urgency sown into every syllable uttered. It sounds familiar and foreign all the same, an enticing enigma begging to be solved. “You haven’t moved since you got here.”

Despite the fog clearing and lucidity taking its place, Peter can’t seem to place the voice. There is something familiar about the vibrations it produces as it speaks, how it ripples the air in a way that he knows— intimately. Yet the softness in which it travels through the quietness, how it whirls and coils into his ears in the most gentle of ways, is foreign.

Foreign but not unpleasant.

“Neither have you,” May replies in a whisper, protecting the fragility of her words. Silence follows her revelation, it stretches with no end in sight. It’s comfortable, something about it feels raw and honest.

The quiet almost lulls Peter back into unconsciousness, leading him into familiar lands of dreams and peaceful slumber. But unlike the graduality in which he regained his hearing, his sense of smell rips through him with unforgiving intensity.

The sterile scent of antiseptics is overwhelming, so strong and potent that it threatens to sterilize his brain as well— wiping it clean of thoughts. It does, for a brief second. Everything simply stops as the smell overpowers everything else.

Recognition comes almost immediately.

Medbay.

Then, the bare and impersonal aroma gives way to something else. A rich and warm— earthy —smell invades his consciousness. It fills his lungs with a vigor that is borderline painful.

Coffee, mixed with a faint woody cologne that smells distinctively like home. Like evenings spent in a lab surrounded by all he ever wanted but couldn’t have.

The moment his brain computes the input, it’s like a dam breaking—everything floods in at once. His awareness of his body slams into him like a tsunami.

He aches everywhere.

Not the dull, manageable kind of ache he knows from bruises or late nights swinging, but something deeper, heavier—like pain has sunk into his bones and fused itself there. His stomach throbs, sharp one second, molten the next. His chest feels tight, each breath scraping raw, like the air itself is too heavy to carry.

The world around him is muffled— far away once more. It blurs at the edges, weakened by the way his body screams in sharp detail.

His head swirls, dizzy from the pain.

His skin is clammy, stretched too thin over trembling muscles. There’s a metallic taste in his mouth, coppery and stale, a reminder of blood he doesn’t remember swallowing. And underneath it all is exhaustion—bone-deep, marrow-deep—like every cell in him burned itself out just to keep him here.

It’s overwhelming, this sudden awareness. Too much, too loud, too heavy. And Peter, caught in the flood, almost wishes the dam had stayed intact.

There is a raspy broken whimper, quiet at first then sharper— keen. In his state of confusion and helpless surrender to the immense discomfort and soreness of his body, it takes Peter an embarrassing amount of time to realize that the pathetic little sounds of agony are of his own making.

There is shuffling around him, then a hopeful “Peter?”

A slender hand, hesitant and featherlight, touches his own. He gasps at the contact, the sound turning into a deep guttural whine as the soothing stroke sets fires under his skin. Instinctively, he flinches away, turning the little fires into flames of smoldering heat.

The hand retrieves instantly but the pain it initiated lingers, drawing little cries of suffering out of his lips.

“Oh, baby,” May whispers, voice close. Close enough for Peter to feel the waver in her voice across his clammy skin. “Shhh, I’m here. I’m here,” she repeats in a hushed sound, the strain of holding back her tears evident in her tone.

“I’ll go get Cho,” someone says, a new third voice. The shuffling of their steps grow distant as they move further away.

“M’y,” Peter croaks out, voice mangled and unrecognizable even to his own ears. Eyes still closed, he blindly turns his head in the direction her voice came from. The tips of his fingers twitch, wanting desperately to touch her but afraid of the pain it will cause him.

“I’m right here baby,” she promises, stepping closer— near enough to touch without touching him. The warmth of her body is like a soothing palm, calming the violent throbs of pain shocking his broken body.

Peter sighs at her closeness, then whimpers when the action deepens the ache in his chest.

“Hurts,” he complains needlessly, voice cracking.

“I know,” she sniffles. Her hand settles near his, close enough that if Peter brushes his own a quarter of an inch to the right they would be touching. “Happy is getting Dr. Cho,” May says, “She’ll give you something that’ll help with the pain.”

Peter isn’t sure if it’s bravery or desperation that makes him do it, but eventually his eyelids twitch—just barely—then lift.

Light floods in all at once, unfiltered and merciless. It sears into his skull, jagged and too bright, like someone set the sun directly above his face. His breath catches, eyes slamming shut again with a strangled noise he doesn’t remember making. The effort leaves him panting, chest heaving shallowly against the unyielding weight pressing down on his ribs.

The second attempt is slower. He peels his lids open in tiny increments, letting the brightness bleed in gradually, shapes and shadows swimming into existence. It’s blurry—everything soft at the edges, like the world has been dipped in watercolors and left to drip. His head throbs in time with the slow blink of the machines, the edges of his vision pulsing black.

The first thing he makes out is movement. A figure leaning in, warm brown hair pulled back hastily, strands falling loose to frame a face he knows as well as his own. May. The sight pulls something tight and aching in his chest, and before he can think, his hand—trembling, clumsy— shifts toward hers.

Her expression crumbles at the action, something within her braking. Fresh tears streak her face, their trail shimmering when it catches the fluorescent lights of the medbay.

Her fingers meet his halfway, wrapping around his with the gentleness one might use to hold spun glass. Peter clutches back with surprising strength, a quiet, broken sound escaping him.

The pain is searing, stabbing into him with brutal intensity.

He bites down, locking his jaw shut. His groans of agony imprisoned in a cage of white teeth. He holds them back, smothers them down afraid she will pull away if he vocalizes his discomfort.

It hurts, in ways death might, but Peter doesn’t care. He hardly cares, at the moment, about anything except the solid reality of her hand anchoring him here— to her.

“Hey, honey,” she whispers, and the relief in her voice makes his throat tighten.

Peter stares at her, trying to memorize every detail—the faint smudge beneath her eyes, the way her mouth trembles when she smiles, the warmth radiating from her skin. There is relief in the sight of her, instant, and it dulls the pain. Not entirely, nothing ever does, but just enough for him to notice the difference.

The world expands beyond her, as information filters in from all around. The sterile smell, the humming machines, even the shadowy shape standing somewhere behind. Yet they all fade into nothing— irrelevant.

All that matters is May.

Overwhelmed by the emotions her presence evokes in him, paired with the intensity of the pain simmering under his relief— his eyes burn. His chin quivers for a second and there is nothing he can do to stop his own tears from coming. He sobs, low and choked— helpless, desperate— and wishes he could fold himself into her.

“Don’t go,” he rasps, the words a plea, a command, a child’s desperate bargain all at once. His grip tightens, as if letting go will send him spinning back into the dark. “Please,” Peter begs, wrecked. His voice is a slur, a disfigured concoction of letters and sounds.

It hurts.

God, it hurts—

To breathe, to talk, to move— everything.

“I’m not going anywhere,” she promises, brushing her thumb over his knuckles in small, steady circles.

The motion is grounding, providing a point of connection between him and the world. Posing as a constant proof that he is real. Peter holds on to it desperately, suddenly afraid to slip back into the darkness. There is an irrational need, childlike and vulnerable, to not separate from her.

“It hurts,” he whines again, vision blurry from the tears. He shifts in the bed, making to move away from the pain— as if it were possible, but wires tug at his body and he gasps, breath caught, as an electric shock travels down his spine.

Above him, May whimpers, shedding fresh tears at his agony.

The shadowy shape standing on the threshold of their little world steps closer, its movement slow and hesitant. Peter can’t make the person out past his tears, who appear to him in a blob of colors and dismembered shapes.

Yet, strangely, his heart calls out to them.

“I know, kiddo,” they say, voice thick and heavy— familiar. “Helen will be here any minute now,” Mr. Stark reassures, hovering just out of reach. “You’ll be as high as a kite in no time,” he chuckles with no humor in his voice.

Peter blinks rabidly, clearing his vision to better look at the man. His breath catches in his throat once the blurriness vanishes and Mr. Stark comes into focus.

He looks… wrong—at least, wrong for Tony Stark. His hair is nothing short of a mess, sticking up in every direction like it gave up on order days ago. There’s a shadow of stubble across his jaw, darker and rougher than Peter has ever seen— even after Siberia. Deep bruised half-moons live under his eyes, an ombre of blue and purple. His clothes are wrinkled, his posture slack with exhaustion, but his gaze…

His gaze is unwavering.

It’s not the confident, irreverent spark Peter was used to seeing there—it’s raw, unguarded, weighted by something he can’t name but feels down to his bones. And for a moment, Peter can’t breathe—not from the pain, but from the sheer relief that the man is here.

Was here.

That maybe— just maybe— he hasn’t been alone, not for a second.

The realization cracks him open all over again, tears spilling hot and fast as he swallows a sob. It refuses to go down, instead it erupts from him in a high and unrestrained sound. A wrecked guttural cry escapes him and whatever strength he was holding himself together with disappears.

He comes undone.

“Y—you’re here,” Peter sobs, borderline hysterical. The words tremble in his mouth and when the trembling doesn’t stop even after they are spoken, he realizes it’s his body that’s trembling.

He clings harder to May’s hand, not because he needs to hold her tighter, but because it’s the only thing keeping him from reaching for him—afraid that if he does, Mr. Stark might vanish like a dream.

“He—” Peter chokes, his chest heaving. It burns, hot and dry. “He’s here,” he repeats, tone unbelieving. His tear-filled eyes, desperate and manic, shifts from the pained expression on Mr. Stark’s face to May’s sympathetic one.

Mr. Stark opens his mouth to say something— Peter holds his breath to listen. However, nothing comes out. He presses his lips into a thin line, at a loss for words. His eyes, bloodshot, glances hesitantly at May, looking for some guidance.

The silent exchange between the adults pulls a gut wrenching sob out of Peter— afraid of what’s left unsaid. His body flinching from the force of it. He whimpers breathlessly, the broken sound turning into yet another sob. His tears refuse to come to a stop, burning a path down his cheeks.

The pain is dizzying and crying only makes him that much more lightheaded. His vision darkens at the edges. Unconsciousness creeping into his sight, readying to deprive him of it once again. Stubbornly, Peter holds on to it. He fights the urge to blink, afraid if he does his eyes won't open until hours later.

“Please,” he begs, unsure what for.

He moves despite his body throbbing in protest, every muscle pulling tight as if trying to hold him still. The motion sends a shockwave through him—sharp at first, then deep and molten, seeping into his bones until it feels like he’s burning from the inside out. His stomach twists, his chest seizes, and a raw sound claws its way up his throat before he can stop it.

“Hey now,” Mr. Stark says, stumbling forward. There is a slight waver to his voice, a faint trembling that matches the shake in his hands. He reaches out for Peter— calloused hand quivering— then stops shy from touching him, hesitant.

Peter whines.

“You need to calm down, Pete,” he whispers gently, his eyes shining. “Helen is coming any second now,” Mr. Stark promises.

“Please,” Peter chokes out again, wheezing. His ribs protest every shaky breath, each sob pulling them apart only to snap them back together like broken hinges. Heat builds in his skull, pounding behind his eyes until the world wavers.

It’s too much.

“Please,” and it’s all he can say, a chant he can’t break.

Mr. Stark makes a broken sound at the back of his throat, raw and devastated. His hovering hand makes its final descent and delicately cups Peter’s cheek— he sighs blissfully at the contact.

He closes his eyes, feeling the rough thumb stroking his face. It wipes his silent tears as they fall and the warmth and weight of it against his skin makes his wrecked body hum in contentment.

“I’m here,” the man says, a vow woven into his words.

Peter blinks up at him, dazed. The first blink is heavy, lids dragging against burning eyes. The second is a fight, slow and lingering. And the third never comes.

When he comes to next, it’s to a sharp throb razing through his body.

In his sleep, Peter had attempted to turn on his side—only to ignite a searing fire, smoldering hot, just below his ribs. The pain blooms outward in aching ripples, each one sharper than the last.

A small sound of protest escapes him, a breathless groan that echoes far too loudly in the fragile quiet of the room.

There is shuffling all around him again, his movement breathing life into the stillness.

The faint scrape of chair legs against tile, the rustle of fabric, the low hum of machines that never truly fade into the background. Somewhere, the sterile scent of antiseptic still clings to the air, cut faintly by the warmer aroma of coffee gone cold.

This time, his eyes flutter open—slow, heavy—with more considerable ease.

Shapes swim and sway before sharpening into lines, colors pooling together into something familiar. May is beside him well before the world settles into focus. And it’s her face, carved with worry lines and hollowed by exhaustion, he sees first. It hovers above his, framed in the glow of harsh fluorescent light.

She smiles, lips tilting into a bittersweet curve, as their eyes meet. The lights above her cast a gleaming circle around her head—a halo. She looks not unlike an angel, beautifully cut from pure light and quiet devotion.

Peter looks at her through his lashes, bleary-eyed and groggy. Disorientation has a vice-like grip on him, a haze that weighs his tongue heavy and slows his thoughts until they drag. His skin feels too warm under the thin hospital blanket, and the air tastes faintly metallic against the back of his throat.

“Jesus?” he whispers, voice soft and blurred with painkiller-induced wonder.

For a heartbeat, the room goes still—then May’s breath catches, and she laughs—sharp, wet, disbelieving—tears slipping free as a wave of utter relief submerges her.

She drowns in it.

May leans down, fingers curling around his with the careful fierceness of someone who’s been holding on for days. Instinctively, he squeezes her hands with a hiss of pain, holding on to her with matching desperation.

“You always did pick the dramatic opener,” she murmurs, voice torn between a chuckle and a sob— half-tear, half-grin. Then, suddenly overwhelmed, her chin starts to quiver. A chocked up sound slips past her lips and she presses her eyes closed.

“Give me a second, baby,” she says, letting go. May pulls back slightly, turning her face away— composing herself. She rubs at her eyes, wiping her tears. When Peter, still a little loopy, whines at the loss, she laughs. Open and freely, a booming sound of unmeasurable joy.

“I’m here,” she promises, incredibly fond.

Mr. Stark, just outside that small orbit of warmth, lets out a soft, dry chuckle.

“So that's the first thing you say?‘Jesus,’” he asks in exasperated humor. He looks more tired than amused. A man spread thin over a world that cared too little. “I was rooting for something less apocalyptic. Next time, try ‘Hey, what’s for breakfast?’—less existential, more carbohydrate-driven.”

Peter squints through the fog, the corners of his mouth quirking like he’s trying to decode a joke written in syrup.

“Breakfast… miracles…” he mumbles, words sliding into each other, “Can I get, uh, holy pancakes?” His eyelids flutter, the drug-softened world tugging at him again, and he lets out a small, ridiculous sigh that’s half-laugh, half-sleepy surrender.

He startles when a laugh roars through the stillness, hearty and unapologetic— drenched in relief. Peter blinks owlishly at the man, brows furrowed together in surprised confusion. Unable to comprehend that Mr. Stark was the source of the sound.

“God,” he swears, a little breathless from laughing. His eyes are shining, gleaming under the dim light, and despite his unkept appearance there is an air of unusual tenderness surrounding him. “Dr. Cho really did a number on you, kid,” Mr. Stark says. His tone is indisputably adoring, bare of his characteristic impassiveness— it deepens Peter's confusion.

His nose scrunches up, suspicious eyes—a little hazy still— training on the man. There is a significance to this moment that he feels deep within his chest, one his mind— now a useless organ made of mush and goo—fails to identify.

“You're riding the morphine train,” Mr. Stark chuckles, the sound comes out a little wet and thick. There is a grin splitting his face in two, crow's feet edging genuine lines around his eyes. He looks lighter, somehow. Like he might start floating any minute now.

Peter giggles at the thought.

“All the way to la la land,” May confirms, amused. She reaches for him again, her slender fingers threading through his hair. The gesture soothes some of the tension in his body, a tension he didn’t know he was holding on to, and he sags deeper into the mattress below him. He slides lower, the deadweight of his body pulling him down.

“Wha?” He slurs, glancing from the man to his aunt. The question comes out as a breath of air instead of an actual word— a deep exhale.

“How are you feeling?” She asks instead.

The confusion paired with the sudden change of topic nearly gives him whiplash. He closes his eyes briefly and tries to consider the question beyond the thick fog in his brain. It’s hard to think clearly when his head feels like it’s been stuffed full of cotton. Even if he could miraculously form a single coherent thought with fluffy fiber for brains, it’s impossible to think over the ache he feels in his bones from the uncomfortable position he is in.

Peter plants his palms against the bed, feeling the mattress dip under the light pressure. He pushes his body up, trying to maneuver his heavy limbs into a better position. But the moment his muscles shift, stretching to accommodate his weight, his side burns with a vindictive vigor.

He groans, falling backwards from the sudden pain. His nostrils flair as he takes in a deep breath, suppressing a cry. He brings a hand to his ribs and rests it above his bandaged side in hopes of holding the pain still. 

As Mr. Stark’s strained voice says, “yeah, I wouldn’t recommend moving for the next two days.” May coos at him sympathetically, nails lightly scratching at his scalp to distract him from the pain. But it’s no use, despite the soothing gesture, the pain cuts a path of sobriety through his brain and Peter blinks rabidly as the world around becomes less a fragment of a dream and more of a reality.

“What happened?” he croaks out, mouth dry.

The adults share a look, a silent sort of conversation only they seem to understand. It tickles his brain, a familiarity he can’t explain.

After a beat, Mr. Stark breaks the silence. “You were stabbed while you were patrolling,” he explains, tone soft. A shadow of quiet guilt hangs on to his words, a desperate claim to a blame Peter’s yet to accuse him of.

Mr. Stark is not someone who folds onto himself or makes himself smaller until he disappears— never. He’s defiantly stubborn, a man forged from iron and shaped by hellfire. So it’s only natural that even in his turmoil, Mr. Stark doesn’t break. Instead, his shoulders hunch in shame and his arms cross over his chest— hiding in plain sight.

“Oh,” is all Peter says, all he can think to say.

It’s hard to recall a time before the darkness, before the dreamless slumber. When he tries, he finds a distant memory of brutal heat and a football field, of a desperate embrace and a salty taste in his mouth. Yet nothing to explain the wound on his side.

“Oh?” Mr. Stark echoes, low and hesitant. Then, firmer, he repeats “Oh?” His voice is higher the second time, one octave above exasperation and one below hysteria— something in between. His eyes narrow at Peter, the warmth in them evaporating.

Once the steam clears, it reveals an entanglement of emotions Peter doesn’t know how to unravel.

With his eyes locked on Mr. Stark, Peter doesn’t see the way May tenses next to him. Instead, he feels the moment her muscles seem to solidify as she holds her breath— waiting.

Mr. Stark scoffs, a dry, humorless sound. When he speaks, he doesn’t yell, but the room shakes from the intensity of his words. “You nearly bled out like an extra in a Tarantino movie—face-down in a back alley—while I was on my second glass of whisky feeling sorry for myself, and you give me ‘oh’?”

“Tony,” May interjects, a quiet warning. She looks at him expectedly but Mr. Stark refuses to catch her eyes, seemingly unable to tear his gaze from Peter.

He pushes a hand through his hair— motion rough, painful— and laughs without mirth. “Kid, yo—” Mr. Stark doesn’t finish. He chokes on ‘you’, the word lodging in his throat— a thought refusing to be addressed.

Embarrassed and a little frustrated, he presses his lips into a thin displeased line. His eyes shine again, they don’t water but gleam in a way that says he’s fighting off the tears. He exhales shakily, his body seems to tremble with the effort of holding everything in.

It strikes Peter then that this is the most expressive he had ever seen the man. Not behind a mask or a camera or a layer of bravado—but raw, unfiltered, entirely human. For all his usual deflections and polished charm, Tony Stark looks wrecked. And isn’t because he lost a fight, or betrayed by the ones he called family—it’s because of him.

“Mr. Stark…” Peter calls, voice small and uncertain— stunned.

But the man looks away, overwhelmed.

May clears her throat, then shifts slightly, folding her arms in that way she does when she’s trying not to wring her hands. “Let’s just…” she trails off, uncertain. Her eyes flicker between them, flashing between sympathy and understanding. “Let’s just take a deep breath. Okay?”

Neither one of them speaks. Peter is too caught up staring pleadingly at the man. While Mr. Stark stands there, jaw tight, eyes fixed on the blank spot where the wall meets the floor— refusing to acknowledge him.

Undeterred, she tries again, voice light, as if the air isn’t suffocating. “We’ve all been through a lot,” she pauses, thinking, “emotions are high— well, and a certain spider boy,” May chuckles and when no one reacts—her smile falters.

She sighs, suddenly drained. The fight seeps out of her body, leaving her exhausted. She reaches for Peter’s hand, feels the warmth of it in her own, and squeezes gently.

“He’s awake,” she says, voice unsteady. Her eyes turn red, hot with unshed tears. “That’s... that’s everything.”

Peter squeezes back, but his eyes remain on Mr. Stark. He holds his breath, his chest burning from the strain. He can’t breathe, only waits.

Mr. Stark nods, eventually. The movement is small, mechanical. “It is,” he whispers, voice gruff— thick with emotions. His eyes, red-rimmed and bloodshot, find Peter’s. “It’s everything,” he echos.

Peter breathes.

The medbay lights are low, that sterile twilight blur between morning and night. The setting sun paints the room in orange hues, shadows of amber clinging to the three bodies haunting the space. Machines hum in soft rhythm, a steady heartbeat matching Peter’s own.

It’s the only sound that ripples through the stillness of the air.

Peter’s propped slightly on the hospital bed, the faint tremor of effort just beneath his skin. An ache still throbs across his body, bones rattling and muscles pulled tut, only now with a slight less viciousness. He’s awake—eyes dull with exhaustion but alert enough to track movement.

Mr. Stark stands a few feet away. He doesn’t sit or lean against the wall exceeding perfectly cultivated aloof confidence— his signature. He hovers. Like gravity hasn’t decided what to do with him yet.

May sits close, now clad in one of Mr. Stark’s old band t-shirts and the smallest sized Stark Industries issued sweatsuit they could find in the lobby’s gift shop— a compromise to not leave his side and go home to take a proper shower and a change of clothes.

Her hand is a silent weight on Peter’s ankle over the blanket, the faint motion of her thumb tracing the round bone through the fabric is soothing. Her other arm rests on the side rail. Her fingers coil around the metal in a vice-like grip— desperate. She watches him breathe. Her brown eyes tracking the rise and fall of his chest with great care. Not like it’s a miracle, an anomaly of some sort. Instead, like she’s making sure he still is.

Just when the silence becomes unbearable, the door hisses open.

Dr. Helen Cho steps in, tablet in hand, face composed but softer than protocol might demand.

"Good evening," she says gently, gaze sweeping the room before settling on Peter. “How are we feeling?”

Peter’s voice is papery when he speaks, a rough drag of syllables “Like I lost a fight to a paper shredder.” Then, quieter, with breathy humor and strained pain “And my shreds were set on fire— shready and burnt.”

Helen smiles, brief but kind. “Fair assessment.”

Mr. Stark lets out the ghost of a chuckle but doesn’t move.

May doesn’t smile.

Dr. Cho shifts her stance slightly, sensing the electric current in the air, and glances at the chart. “Vitals are holding steady. No new bleeding. Oxygen saturation’s stable, and we’ve weaned off one of the sedatives. That’s why you’re more awake now.”

May nods once, but her voice is razor-sharp: “And the internal trauma?”

She turns the tablet slightly so only May can see it. "The stab wound punctured his left kidney. The laceration was deep, about six centimeters. We almost lost him before we even got him on the table. He coded three times."

Peter stiffens under the blankets— wincing at the soreness in his muscles.

Mr. Stark’s breath catches in his throat, a quiet hitch that’s impossible for Peter to miss in the quietness.

“We managed to control the bleeding,” Dr. Cho continues, calm but unwavering. “His healing factor did most of the heavy lifting initially but at some point he burnt through his reserves. Too much blood loss, too much trauma, too much exhaustion— it was beyond what his body could handle in the state it was in at the time of the injury. Frankly, despite that, it’s what saved him. His healing factor kept him alive long enough for us to do the rest.”

She meets May’s eyes. “He’s stable. His healing factor is, thankfully, back. However, sluggish. We expect his recovery to be longer than what Peter is used to. Weeks, not days. Bed rest for at least another seven. After that… very limited mobility. No swings. No fights. No suits.”

Peter tries not to shrink into the bed, to pull the blanket over his head and hide. But his anxiety bubbles under the surface and all that nervous energy has to go somewhere. So he settles with fidgeting with the blanket, twirling a loose thread between his fingers.

May doesn’t miss it, she takes a hold of his hand and gives it a reassuring squeeze. “Any permanent damage?” She asks, the hopefulness in her voice echoes loudly across the room.

Dr. Cho hesitates, and that hesitation says everything.

“The kidney’s intact, but scarred. We won’t know full function until we run more tests. We’re hopeful. But—” her voice dips, softer now “—it was close. Too close.”

It’s back again.

Silence folds over the room like a sheet, crisp and tightly fit. Not suffocating, but smothering in the way truth always is. It lingers, looming over them, dark and dreadful. A promise unfulfilled— broken. Its mendability is an unspoken threat— a could’ve that sounds eerily like will.

For a beat, no one dares to disturb the stillness, the quietness. Afraid death will backtrack, return to deliver on its unspoken threat.

Eventually, May’s voice— choked, strained— breaks it. “You’re saying this could’ve killed him,” it’s not a question, but an apprehensively stated fact.

Dr. Cho doesn’t flinch. “Yes.”

May barely stifles a sob at the confirmation, her hold on Peter’s hand tightening. Mr. Stark sucks in a shuddering breath, his body as still and rigid as a statue.

Peter’s mouth opens, but nothing comes out at first. He blinks, surprised to register the familiar heat behind them. He swallows, hard. Then, with all the certainty of someone who hasn’t had it shaken yet:

“But it didn’t.”

His words, spoken with innocent confidence, set the room on fire.

Mr. Stark makes a frustrated sound, a hysteric scoff that threads on uncontrollable rage. “You’re not getting it, kid,” he says, tone measured. His voice is tight, strained by the effort of keeping his anger from erupting— burning everyone, everything. “You came real close to—” he stops, unable to speak the word. “Real fucking close.”

Peter turns his head to him, eyes locking with Mr. Stark’s. A storm is raging within them. Flashes of rage strike like lighting, shining across his eyes. Followed by the loud echoing of raw hysteric fear as it thunders. But the rain never falls, his tears cling stubbornly to him. His eyes water, turn red-rimmed as they burn with the need to cry— he doesn’t.

“But you didn’t let me,” Peter whispers, soft and quiet. Exhaustion creeps into his body. His vision darkens at the edges, blurring. He blinks it away, squinting to sharpen his vision. “I came close,” he says slowly, his words dragging out. Drowsiness returns to claim him, beckoning him into peaceful slumber. “And you pulled me back,” his voice slurs a little, a drunken honesty woven into every letter uttered.

He doesn’t say it like a compliment or in gratitude. Peter says it like a fact. The way physics is. He says it like it’s gravity, a force unseen but felt. Like it’s the thing he’s most certain of, more than the Big Bang or General Relativity— concrete and undebatable.

Mr. Stark’s face crumbles, just for a second. Then his jaw tightens, just slightly— holding everything in. He looks away, his rough calloused hand rubbing at his face. When he looks back at Peter, the skin under his eyes is damp—glistening.

Peter blinks slowly, unable to distinguish between reality and fragments of imagination— a subconsciously crafted dream. Each time his eyes flutter open, Mr. Stark appears to him closer and before he can excuse it as wishful thinking the man reaches for him.

There is a tenderness to the way Mr. Stark threads his fingers through his curls. A sense of safety to the weight and feel of them against his scalp. The warmth of his skin is comforting and Peter sighs a quiet content sound as it combs his hair.

Mr. Stark doesn’t say anything, he doesn’t need to.

Peter knows.

Here in the haze of pain and the lull of painkillers— he knows.

Dr. Cho glances down at her tablet, tactful enough to retreat a step. Her movement breaks the spell. Peter’s eyes glance at her lazily, heavy. “I’ll give you all a moment.”

She leaves without another word.

Peter’s shoulders sink deeper into the mattress, like the air has finally left him. He looks small again—young, in a way he hates being seen. He looks through his long lashes at the man stroking his hair, wide-eyed and innocent.

Mr. Stark looks back at him in a mixture of wonder and disbelief.

Tentatively, May lifts his hand to her lips and places a kiss across his skin. “You scared the hell out of me, baby,” she whispers, voice and face wet.

“I’m okay now,” he says, barely audible— too far gone. His eyes fall shut, his lids growing too heavy for him to keep open.

“No,” she answers. “You’re alive. That’s not the same.”

Peter hums, not in agreement or acknowledgment, but an aimless sound that escapes before sleep overtakes him.