Peter yawned and flicked to the next page of his book. Jack gave his ankle a squeeze where it was resting in his lap. “Tired?”
Peter shrugged. He had gotten sleep last night, but the sun's warmth through the window and the quiet hum of the fan was doing wonders in trying to put him to sleep. “Kind of.”
“Boring book?”
Peter dropped the book lower to give Jack an affronted look across the top of it. “It’s about the fusion of chemistry and mechanical engineering in public urban development.”
“I don’t know why you or Harley still try,” Jack said. “Because those words in the same sentence will always sound boring.”
“Says the one who was helping Pepper go over business reports yesterday.”
“They were finance reports, you little shit,” Jack said, tickling the bottom of Peter’s feet.
Peter shrieked and yanked his feet back out of Jack’s hold, his socks a terrible protection against Jack’s evil fingers. There was no way he was going to let Jack get a good grip on his ankle because once he did, Peter was done for. It was like a steel clamp.
“Peter, do you need to be rescued?!” Aunt May called from the kitchen, the laughter evident in her voice.
“Yes!” Peter shouted back, giggling as Jack made another swipe at him. “I’m being attacked!”
“Are we staging an intervention or an assault?”
Peter thought about it for a quick, critical second while Jack kept trying to sneak attack his feet. As much as he wanted May to just swoop in and rescue him, he also wanted someone to help him bring some revenge on Jack for a second. And May always had his back, so this would be easy.
“Or maybe we can negotiate a peace treaty,” May added wryly, peeking her head into the living room. “Try and settle this like gentlemen.”
Peter blinked, the smile still frozen on his face because that wasn’t Aunt May. It was Pepper. It wasn’t Aunt May. Why had he thought it was Aunt May? What was wrong with him? Pepper was still smiling at them like nothing was wrong, and Peter needed to move his face before he looked like an idiot.
“Alright, I concede,” Jack said, and Peter forced his face to laugh and his body to sink back into the couch because he was fine. Pepper rolled her eyes and ducked back into the kitchen with a laugh, which sounded like May’s in a way that hit him right in the chest.
“Put your feet back,” Jack said. “We’re at a truce.”
Peter put his feet back and stared at where Pepper had disappeared. He had never forgotten May was dead before. Every time he had remembered her, it had been in a pang of loss. It had been missing her hugs or the way she tried to teach him how to do the cupid shuffle before his first school dance. He had never forgotten she was dead.
Peter looked down numbly at his book. She had died because of him. She had gone off in that stupid car because of him and now he was in a fancy penthouse mistaking Pepper for his aunt. It hadn’t even been a year since she died. What would she have thought if she knew he had replaced her already?
“Peter.”
Peter looked up at Jack’s voice, blinking a few times to get rid of the blurriness in his eyes. “Yeah?”
“You alright?”
“I’m fine,” Peter said weakly, offering what he hoped was a convincing smile. “Just trying to understand the book.”
Jack nodded and gave Peter’s leg another squeeze. “Okay.”
Peter looked down. Pepper laughed again from the kitchen and something around his heart squeezed tight and didn’t let go. It hadn’t even been a year. What gave him the right to sit around in clothes that were worth more than him, with people who loved him more than he deserved, and not think about the person who had raised him?
He managed to sit on the couch for another hour before he pretended he was too tired to read any further, extricating himself from Jack’s grasp. He felt oddly detached. Like all of a sudden he had been pulled out of his body without any way to re-enter. He wished his Aunt was here. If the iron grip around his heart would loosen up, he was sure he would be feeling the loss with more pain.
Harley was in the room when he climbed into bed, and he looked a bit confused at Peter’s early bedtime, but he didn’t say anything. He turned the big light off and turned on the lamp so Peter could sleep, which meant nobody could see Peter’s face as he tried not to cry. He was asleep before anyone came into the room.
======================================
“Oh this one is going on the fridge for certain,” May gasped, spinning the paper around to present Peter with the front and its A circled in blue. “It’s a rare specimen indeed.”
Peter rolled his eyes but didn’t try and hide the giant smile on his face. It was the lamest long-running joke they had, her pretending to be shocked every time he came home with his test grade.
“Are you sure there’s room?”
May spun to address the fridge situation, which was truly almost covered in an eclectic assortment of papers and odd magnets. Over half of it was Peter’s school work, report cards overlapping his tests, and school pictures. She pretended to muse over the situation before pulling off an English essay he had gotten an A+ on. “This one’s the oldest I think.”
Peter grinned and took it from her, leaning over to let it float into the trash. He had hated writing that essay anyway. Though it wasn’t the oldest, there was a chemistry test up there from over a year ago. He was almost curious to see how long it would last.
May threw her hands up with a laugh and spun around before tossing them around Peter’s shoulders, pulling him into a swaying hug. “I’m so proud of you, Peter.”
“I always get an A,” Peter said, his arms around her back.
“I’m not proud of you because it’s an A, you silly goose,” she said, pulling back to kiss him on the cheek. “I’m proud because you tried.”
“That’s the sappiest thing I think you’ve ever said,” Peter said. “If we were in public I’d have to pretend I didn’t know you.”
“Oh, yeah?” May laughed, letting go to give him a swat on the arm. “That’s all it would take to embarrass you?”
Peter didn’t think it was possible to be embarrassed about his Aunt, she was Wonder Woman, but he liked messing with her. “I don’t know, I think the way you dress might do it.”
May gasped and grabbed the towel from off the counter, brandishing it at him. “You take that back, Peter Benjamin Parker. I am both fashionable and hip.”
“Keep telling yourself that,” Peter giggled, leaning out of the way as she swung the towel at him. “Wait, that towel is still wet. May, stop! Nooo!” He grabbed his damp shoulder where the towel had hit him. “I’m wounded.”
“You’re on dish duty tonight you little jerk,” May said, tossing the towel at his face.
Peter caught it before it hit him and grinned. “Jokes on you, I always do dishes.”
==================================================
The water was running and Peter awoke with a sudden realization. It was the faucet. Somebody was using the sink in the bathroom. The light was coming in through the bottom of the curtains which meant it was morning.
He could hear May’s voice in his head. And feel how strong her hugs had been. Something punched its way through his chest. Hard. Fast. Like it was searching for vengeance. It hurt, deeper than anything he had ever felt before. He wanted his Aunt.
He tried to breathe properly and tried not to think about the hole in his chest. He wanted to cry but there was something in his throat that was stopping him. He closed his eyes and tried to force everything back down, wanting to go back to sleep and not wake up until something inside of him was fixed.
But nothing had changed. It was the weekend, and he usually got up at this time. He usually helped with breakfast. And he couldn’t just lay in bed like something was wrong.
“I’m borrowing your shirt, Peter.”
“Hey, stop. Don’t wake him up.”
“He’s already awake,” Harley said. “He’s breathing differently.”
“Freak,” Peter muttered, rolling over to look at his two brothers. “At least Rian cares about my well-being.”
“You went to bed early last night anyway,” Harley said, and he was indeed wearing one of Peter’s science shirts. “You better not be sick.”
“M’not sick,” Peter said, shoving the sheets off of his legs. “What time is it?”
“Eight,” Dorian said. “The same time you always get up.”
So he couldn’t go back to sleep. This was when he got up. He usually helped with breakfast on mornings when he didn’t have school, whether that was setting the table for Bernie or helping flip the pancakes Tony or Pepper were making. And none of them had done anything wrong, just because he was ungrateful to his Aunt didn’t mean he could be ungrateful to Tony or Pepper either.
He stumbled out of bed with zero grace, intent on going through the motions of the day until the gaping hole in his chest went away. It was cold outside of the bed, with chilled air conditioning on his shoulders as the heat of the blankets tried to draw him back in.
“You can sleep you know,” Harley said, pausing by the door. “If you want to. You don’t have to get up.”
“M’not tired,” Peter mumbled, pressing the heels of his hands against his eyelids.
“Yeah, except he didn’t say anything about being tired,” Dorian said wryly, propping his arm up on Harley’s shoulder.
“Nobody asked you,” Peter pointed at Dorian, passing into the bathroom to splash cold water on his face. “It means the same thing, you pedant.”
“I don’t even know what that means!” Dorian called back, the click of the door letting Peter know that he considered the conversation over.
Another day he might have followed his brothers out into the hall to jump-attack them from behind, seeing how long he could hang on before Dorian managed to shrug him off. Now it felt like it would take energy he didn’t have.
He breathed in deep and gripped the edge of the counter, holding his breath until the lack of oxygen expanded in his chest big enough to drown out the ache that was already there. He let it out when he had to and felt the edges of the emptiness recede, leaving the ache as present and constant as it had been before.
He forced himself to let go of the counter. He needed to head out to the kitchen now before anybody wondered where he was. He grabbed one of Harley’s shirts to wear, partly out of revenge for taking his own shirt and partly because he wanted the comfort. It was a little too big for him, which let him hide slightly in the length and too-large shoulders.
Bernie was in the kitchen that morning, and Peter hated himself for the relief he felt at it not being Pepper. Bernie was playing Stravinsky from the overhead speakers, low enough to linger within the boundaries of the kitchen. Jack had asked him, once, if he felt like he needed to help out in the kitchen, some replication of how he had to help Montez, seeing it the same. But it wasn’t.
He knew this wasn’t Galgani’s, and he liked the quiet, manual factor of it. He had liked working with Montez at Galgani’s anyway, not just because he was kind and gentle and never violent. It was familiar in a good way, not in a traumatic way. And he thought he had communicated that well enough because Jack hadn’t looked concerned.
Bernie gave him a warm smile when he shuffled into the kitchen, the little lines at the corner of his eyes crinkling. “There you are. Do I have your help this morning?”
“Course you do,” Peter smiled, shuffling further into the warmth of the kitchen. “Pancakes?”
“You know me too well,” Bernie said, grabbing a mug from one of the hooks hanging below the cabinets. “English Breakfast or Earl Grey?”
“Coffee?”
“Do I look like a terrible influence to you?” Bernie retorted drily, plucking a satchel of English Breakfast out of a tin. “Tony needs to stop feeding you caffeine.”
“Coffee helps you live longer,” Peter said, leaning over to look into the bowl of batter sitting on the counter.
“Coffee stunts your growth.”
Peter scrunched his nose. “But—”
“Peter, if you quote a study at me you won’t get to decide what goes in the pancakes.”
Peter closed his mouth and accepted the mug of tea Bernie placed in his hands, side-stepping sideways to access the cream and sugar. He was nowhere near adult enough to drink it plain like Bernie did. If he couldn’t have coffee he could at least have happiness.
“Chop up what fruit you want in the pancakes so we can mix them in.”
“Bananas?” Peter asked rhetorically, grabbing the bunch from the fruit bowl.
“Five should do it.”
“Yeah, but there’s always a pancake that doesn’t get any bananas in it. If we do six then we don’t have to worry about that.”
“The problem isn’t in the number of bananas,” Bernie said, looking up from his pastries to shoot Peter an exasperated look. “The problem is your measurements and ability to ration the bananas you already have.”
Peter wasn’t sure if he had anything to argue against that with. He tended to forget about trying to make sure the bananas were evenly distributed until it was too late.
“Good morning kiddo.” A hand ruffled his hair and Peter didn’t have to turn to know it was Tony. “Banana pancakes?”
“Yep,” Peter said, dropping the bananas onto the cutting board and taking a sip of his tea. “Save me some coffee.”
“Do you want Bernie to kill me?” Tony asked, placing the pot back under the machine. “I don’t think so.”
Peter made sure to mutter something about the unfairness of it all as he grabbed a small knife from the block and set down his tea to start peeling the bananas. Tony just rolled his eyes and gave his hair another ruffle as he passed by him for the cream and sugar.
“You’re making bacon, right?” Dorian interjected, swinging abruptly into the doorway. “For breakfast?”
“Good morning to you too.”
Dorian flashed a sheepish grin. “Good morning Bernie. Bacon?”
“Indeed I am.”
“Can you make one of them really crispy and another one sad and limp? I’m proving a point.”
Peter rolled his eyes and pointed his half-peeled banana at Dorian. “You know, you could just come over and help him cut the bacon slab so you can cook them yourself.”
Dorian shrugged his shoulders and held up his hands. “I’m not allowed to touch the kitchen tools. Or even supposed to be in here. It’s out of my hands.”
Tony raised an amused eyebrow over his mug of coffee. “Oh yeah? And who decided that?”
“Uh, you did. Remember? I was officially declared unfit for kitchen work,” Dorian drawled, and Peter could hear the smirk in his voice clear as day.
Though looking over at Tony’s stricken expression he wasn’t sure he could hear it too. He looked back at Dorian to see the same realization, his faux-irritation melting away into a mild panic.
“I said that, didn’t I?” Tony said thinly, setting his mug down with a thunk. “When you first got here? I said that to you?”
“I was just kidding with you,” Dorian said, his eyes flicking over to Peter and then Bernie as if they could get him out of the situation. “It’s fine, I know I’m allowed in the kitchen.”
Tony shook his head. “It’s not fine. I can’t believe I said that to you. I’m so sorry, Dorian.”
Dorian winced awkwardly and brought up a hand to tug at his ear. He looked over at Bernie, probably assuming—for good reason—that Peter couldn’t help him here. “Bernie, tell him it’s fine.”
“Absolutely not,” Bernie replied, waving his hand in the air as if to rid the suggestion from his immediate vicinity. He crossed his arms. “It is always a good thing for Tony to apologize.”
“Holy shit,” Tony whispered, pinching the bridge of his nose with his fingers. “I can’t believe I never apologized for that.”
“Apologized for what?”
Peter turned his head to see Pepper in the doorway and his heart twisted as it sank. She was wearing Tony’s sweats and t-shirt, her hair pulled into a messy bun. She looked like home and it hurt in a way he didn’t think he could describe.
“Nothing!” Dorian exclaimed, pointing at Tony. “Tell him not to apologize for stupid things!”
Pepper looked at her horrified husband and then back at Dorian’s uncomfortable exasperation, a look on her face that was half-amusement, half-heartache. “What’d he remember doing?”
Tony and Dorian launched into an explanation at the same time, their voices overlapping. Everyone’s attention was on the pair, including Pepper’s, which meant now would be a perfect time to step backward out of the kitchen. Breakfast wouldn’t be ready for another 20 minutes at least, and he just wanted to find somewhere dark and quiet where he could just sit for a bit. Just to push everything down under control.
He hadn’t actually done anything in the kitchen to help out, not besides putting half-unpeeled bananas on a cutting board, but it’s not like he was truly needed in there. Bernie would be completely fine without him, just as he had been completely fine before Peter got here.
There was an armchair in the extra office down the hallway, a big blue thing with giant armrests and cushions that sucked you in, and he felt like getting swallowed at the moment. Nobody would be in the office before breakfast, Pepper would probably bar entry if she found any of her kids leaning towards workaholic tendencies. But he wasn’t working, he was just sitting.
There was a basket of blankets in the corner, instated once Jack had started using the office to do his GED studying, and he snagged one off the top to huddle under. He swiped one of the novels off the bookshelf as an alibi, as he was well aware that whoever came to call him to dinner would be concerned if he was just sitting in silence doing nothing. Reading was always a perfectly excusable action.
May had liked to read.
Peter slammed the heel of his palm against his forehead to remove the thought. He couldn’t do this right before a family breakfast. He couldn’t do this right now. He opened the book and stared at the title page, determined to remove all images from his mind. The words were swimming and blurring together across the page. When Jack came and got him for breakfast he hadn’t flipped a single page.
The further the week dragged on, the heavier the weight in his chest grew, the pressure starting to crowd out all other feelings. The further he tried to run from May the more she showed up in his dreams. Nightmares? They left him wide awake and reeling, but he couldn’t fathom labeling May as a nightmare. All the dreams ever did were remind him how much he had lost in the blinding instant two cars collided.
He started to avoid Pepper, feeling guilty over it but terrified he would look at her and see May instead. Terrified he was going to implode in front of her and make her feel like this had anything to do with her. He couldn’t imagine either her or Tony wanting to hear about the Aunt he had all but killed, hauling up the past he hadn’t quite buried and dragging the dirt all over their home.
One night he dreamt about May’s most recent birthday, the one where he had baked the chocolate cake himself and slathered fudge icing on top. For a present he had made her a necklace out of metal scraps he had slowly collected over his years of dumpster diving, having put aside all the finely made pieces for later use. He had used a magnifying glass and tweezers to make the silver chain and two agonizing weeks were spent figuring out how to twist together metal into an intricate geometric pattern he had sketched in the back of his English notebook.
The dream had been about the moment he had given it to her. It had been after she had blown out the candles and laughed at his attempts at writing her name in frosting, and he had been almost as nervous as he was excited. She had cried when she opened the box, wiping away tears between her exclamations of her love for it.
The dream was as accurate as the memory, down to the shade of the metal of the necklace. He could see her hands as the chain dangled between her fingers, and he could see the little drop of salt water on the table from where one of her tears had dripped off her chin.
It was her face that was wrong. It was blurry. Shifty. He couldn’t tell the color of her eyes and it was like her face went fuzzy when he tried to look at her. He leaned forward and she was so happy, he knew she was, but he couldn’t remember what happy looked like on her face anymore.
He woke up still straining forward, trying to see what color her eyes were. All he saw was the darkness of the room and the shadowy echo of the ceiling fan. His shoulders shuddered and he closed his eyes, needing to be able to see her face. She had brown hair. What color were her eyes?
He needed to see her eyes.
He didn’t know where his pictures of her were. Oh God.
He had brought them to Galgani’s with him; they were the only thing they had let him keep, but between that moment and now, he didn’t know what had happened to them. They had been in the desk in the room at Galgani’s last he could remember, but he didn’t remember packing them. Were they still at the desk when they had moved here to the tower? Had he left them behind? Had one of the Brothers taken them?
He had lost her picture. The one thing he had of her. He was going to be sick.
The office was just down the hall, and the dim lights that glowed softly from under the baseboards were enough for him to see by. His feet were cold and the carpet was soft. He turned the light on when he slipped through the office door, his fingers shaking as he sat in front of the computer. There wasn’t a password on it, they didn’t care if Peter had access to the outside world, and he thanked the heavens that there wasn’t one more barrier to all of this.
He paused momentarily once he had pulled up the internet, suddenly unsure where he was supposed to start. Where was he going to find a picture of May? He stared at the blinking cursor in the search bar as the heaviness sunk its claws in further.
He typed her name into the search bar and clicked the images section, a sea of unknown women staring back at him. He began to scroll almost religiously, his eyes searching each woman’s face for his aunt. What if he didn’t recognize her? What if he had forgotten what she looked like?
He found her in a group picture. A company picture of all the nurses at the hospital, with May third from the left on the second row. He zoomed in as far as the computer let him, her pixelated face smiling back at him from the screen. He reached forward and touched her face with his finger, the smooth plastic of the screen warm and unforgiving against his skin.
He cropped the picture so it was just of her face and sent it to the printer, terrified of losing the picture and forgetting once more what she looked like. The printer whirred to life at the same time he heard a cabinet close in the kitchen down the hall and his heart stuttered. He logged out and lunged for the light switch on the door, plunging the room back into darkness. The sound of the printer was barely audible over the sound of his heart racing.
It felt wrong, spilling his internal mess into the office like this, and the thought of being caught with his heart in the printer felt shameful beyond understanding. May’s blood was already on his hands, he didn’t need to stain the carpets of his new home with it as well.
His fingers were shaking as he pressed his ear to the door. He could hear someone walking towards the hall, light on their feet, and a low creaking let him know they had stopped. He prayed that they hadn’t seen or heard anything, or if they had, that they would leave it be. The footsteps retreated and Peter silently slipped out of the office, needing to get back to his bed before the person decided to come back.
His heart was pounding loud enough to hear it in his ears, and he felt horribly exposed, like he had ventured too close to the raw, singing nerve that lay buried in his chest. He crawled back into bed with May’s smile in his mind, the little crinkles at the corner of her eyes so distinctive he couldn’t believe he had forgotten their patterns.
====================================================
Pepper frowned and picked up the paper on the output tray of the printer, flipping it over to get a look at the picture. She hadn’t been sure what the person was doing when she saw the light coming from under the door of the office, and when it had gone off she went back to go get her bathrobe. It was chilly, and she would rather have a conversation in comfort. She wasn’t terribly shocked to see that whichever one of her boys was in there had escaped back into their room.
The picture in her hand was zoomed in and cropped, a woman’s face smiling back up at her from the paper. She was a sweet-looking woman, with brown hair and nurses scrubs. Pepper had never seen her before in her life, and it didn’t shed any light on the situation. All it did was break her heart.
She had never seen any of her boys carry around a picture of any family members, and it was clear that this wasn’t by choice. Was this Dorian’s mom? Harley’s? She tried to think about what she knew about her boy’s mothers. Dorian’s mom wasn’t a nurse, and neither was Harley’s. She didn’t think Jack’s was either, though she couldn’t be sure. Peter’s mom had died when he was young, so he lived with his aunt instead. Was she a nurse?
“Friday?” She asked, flicking the light of the office off behind her as she headed back down the hallway. “Was May Parker a nurse?”
Friday’s voice was quiet even in the quiet of the hour. “She was indeed.”
Pepper worried her bottom lip between her teeth and swept her hair to one shoulder. His aunt had died right before he had gone into the system, hadn’t she? Which was less than a year ago. Peter had lost her and been placed into foster care practically the same day. She hated that he didn’t feel like he could come to her or Tony with this. That he had felt like a blurry picture on copy paper was the only way he had to hold on to his Aunt.
Tony was awake when she came back into their bedroom, giving her a groggy yet inquisitive look. She silently handed him the picture and sat on the bed next to him, lifting the covers to slide her feet underneath. Tony sat up to get a better look at the picture, turning on the bedside lamp.
“May Parker?”
Pepper nodded and rested her head against Tony’s shoulders. “I went out to get a glass of water and someone was in the office. They were printing this. I’m assuming it was Peter.”
Tony rubbed a hand over his jaw. “He doesn’t have pictures of her, does he?”
Pepper shook her head. “I don’t think so. You’ve noticed how he’s been this week, haven’t you?”
“Quiet. He’s been quiet. Even in the lab. Has he said anything to you?”
“He’s been avoiding me,” Pepper said, looking back at the picture of May. “I’d feel terrible about it, but he doesn’t look irritated or anything, he just looks sad.”
“Shit.”
“He misses her.”
Tony put the picture down on the bedspread. “And it’s the one thing I can’t give him.”
“He needs to grieve, Tony.”
Tony didn’t answer for a minute, and he was warm against Pepper’s side, his shoulder practically burning against her cheek. The tanktop he was in was old, one of the few wardrobe items she hadn’t gotten rid of over the years, and it smelled like him.
“Do you think he wants to go visit her grave?”
“I think we should just ask him that.”
“We would have noticed if he was having nightmares, wouldn’t we? Or at least one of the boys would have?”
“He’s okay, Tony.” Pepper slipped her arm through his, rubbing her thumb across his shoulder. “He’s going to be alright. Let’s get some sleep and do this tomorrow, yeah?”
========================================
Peter was ninety-nine percent sure he wasn’t supposed to be on the roof. He had never been explicitly told this, but it was something May had never wanted him to do. Though she wasn’t here anymore, so maybe it didn’t matter if he went on the roof or not.
The cement was digging into his elbows and the tips of his shoes were warming rapidly. Lunch would have started by now, but he wasn’t hungry. He wasn’t much of anything. And nobody was going to whip him for not going to breakfast. Jack would interrogate him later for it, he was sure, but he could put that off for as long as he needed to. His feet were propped on the railing of the roof, the soles of his feet overlooking the cityscape.
He reached into his jeans pocket to retrieve the folded piece of paper with May’s face on it. He had reprinted it yesterday and made sure to fold it so the crease wasn’t running through her face. He had hoped it would stave off the heaviness in his bones, but all it had seemed to do was add more weight. It was a constant reminder now.
He held it up to the light and a cold tear rolled into his ear. He swiped angrily at his cheek, unsure when he had started crying. He didn’t know how to stop seeing her in every flick of Pepper’s hair and in each dream and piece of burnt toast. He didn’t know what he would do if he stopped seeing her.
The roof door flew open with a violent bang and Peter was startled, scrambling to his feet as Tony ran out onto the cement, that terrifying focused intensity on his face. Something was wrong.
“Dad?” the word was out of his mouth before he realized what he had said.
“Peter,” Tony breathed, reaching one hand out towards Peter. “Step away from the ledge. Right now.”
Peter blanched and looked back at the railing. He hadn’t realized how this would look. He wasn’t going to jump, he just wanted fresh air and someplace quiet.
“Peter, right fucking now.”
Peter snapped his gaze back toward Tony and took three big steps forward, wanting to remove the panic from his face. “I wasn’t going to do anything.”
“Ten more steps. Towards me, okay?”
Peter’s feet felt like lead. And he really wasn’t going to do anything, but he didn’t want to move anymore. Couldn’t Tony see how much energy that would take? The tears were threatening to make their return with a vengeance, and he didn’t want Tony to get angry at him for not listening.
Tony watched Peter’s lack of movement with the same intensity as before, his fingers trembling ever so slightly. He locked eyes with Peter and took a careful step forward. Peter wanted him to come quicker, but he didn’t have words at the moment. Tony took another step and, when satisfied that Peter wasn’t going to do anything rash, rushed forward across the rooftop to reach Peter.
Peter let himself lose tension the second Tony placed his hands on his shoulders, melting into his embrace with an ease that almost scared him. Tony pulled Peter to his chest and spun, walking them farther from the edge of the roof with an urgency. Peter didn’t fight him, the rapid beat of Tony’s heart thrumming against his ear.
“Everything’s going to be okay,” Tony said, swaying gently back and forth, the breeze tousling Peter’s hair. A plastic bag skittered across the cement and then was sucked upwards by a draft, fluttering over the railing and out of view.
“I just wanted air,” Peter said miserably, his eyes trained on where the bag had disappeared.
“Not like this,” Tony said, shaking his head. “The roof is off-limits. Especially by yourself. We can go for a walk, okay? Wherever you want. We could even go camping. We can learn how to set up a tent. I’m sure it can’t be that hard, and we can make your brothers come along if you want.”
Peter gave a choked laugh. “I’m okay. I won’t come up here again, I promise. I didn’t think about how it would look.”
“You gave me a heart attack.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Fuck, kiddo. You can’t call me Dad that close to the edge of a building, my heart can’t handle it.”
Peter flushed at the reminder of what he had said. Apparently calling Tony ‘Dad’ came out when he was panicking, and normally he would have just accepted it, but May was on the floor and he didn’t know what to think.
“Okay, I’m sorry.”
“How about we move this conversation inside?”
Peter nodded, turning his head to look at where he had dropped his picture. Tony followed his gaze, the stark white corners now slightly smudged. “Is that yours?”
“It’s nothing,” Peter said, turning his head away. “We can go inside.”
“Let’s not litter,” Tony said, giving Peter a tight squeeze before gently pulling away to collect the paper. “You can throw it away inside.”
There was no way Peter would be able to sleep at night if he threw away a picture of his Aunt. He opened his mouth to say something that would get Tony away from the picture, but it was too late and all he could do was wince as Tony unfolded it to get a better look.
“Oh, kiddo,” Tony said, his face softening.
“I’m sorry.”
Something tight flickered across Tony’s face. “Why are you sorry?”
Peter didn’t know. Peter didn’t know anything. All he knew was that looking at May made him want to cry and not looking at May made him want to cry, so he was screwed either way. He couldn’t sleep without wondering if the hugs he gave Pepper would have made her angry, and he couldn’t laugh without thinking that it should have been her laughing instead of him.
Peter shrugged, looking down at his feet. The toes were no longer as warm as before, the rest of his shoes having soaked it in via conduction. He didn’t know if it was a fair trade-off, as his feet really hadn’t been cold in the first place and he liked how the feeling of the sun on the tip of his shoes had felt. Was there a way to do reverse conduction? Maybe that would be his next project.
“Let’s go downstairs and find Pep,” Tony said softly, wrapping his arm back around Peter to lead them to the door. “Do you want some crackers or some fruit?”
Peter took the paper from Tony as he passed it back, mindlessly refolding it as he pondered the question. He shrugged again.
“Bernie got some strawberries in yesterday, so how about we have some of those.”
“We don’t have to bother Pepper.”
“We’re not bothering her, kiddo,” Tony said, keeping his arm around Peter as he opened the door to the stairs. “She loves talking to her son.”
It felt like a gut punch. He loved talking to her too. Loved when she would kiss his forehead and tease him about wearing the same outfit three days in a row. Was he replacing May? Was it that easy? To be someone else’s son? The worst part was that he wanted it desperately. There was a warmth that spread throughout his chest when Tony or Pepper called him their son like his traitorous little heart couldn’t have waited to replace May
Tony didn’t press him for any more words as they headed back down to their floor and Peter was thankful, as he wasn’t sure anything coherent would come out of his mouth. Dorian was waiting for them once Peter was herded back towards the proper location, leaning against the wall and grinning at them with that never-ending penchant for mischief.
“I can’t believe you decided to go to the roof and didn’t take me with you.”
The heaviness shed a few pounds. “Well, we both know you aren’t allowed outside without a chaperone.”
Harley cackled from the bedroom, his voice floating down the hall. Dorian’s face twisted up in irritation as he turned to holler back at Harley. “Yeah, well he didn’t invite you up to the roof either, so what does that say about you?”
“I’m not the one harassing him about it!”
“The roof is entirely off-limits!” Tony said loudly, giving Dorian a pointed look as he led Peter down the hallway. “If either of you go up there I will throw you off the roof myself.”
“Effective persuasion,” Dorian muttered, ambling off towards the living room.
“Where’s Jack?” Peter asked, glancing towards the kitchen as they passed by. He was surprised he hadn’t been subjected to a safety lecture already by his older brother, as there was no way Jack would let him get away with this un-scolded.
“He’s on a run with Happy. I can’t save you from the hellfire he’s going to unleash once he learns where you were, so I’d enjoy this blessing if I were you.”
“He’s on a run with Happy ?”
“Rian kept pulling the safety key on him when he used the treadmill, and I didn’t want him to be out running alone.”
“Maybe you should just throw Rian off the roof. Save us all the trouble.”
Tony gave Peter a light flick in the forehead before turning the handle to the master bedroom. “You know full well that Pep banned death threats six weeks ago.”
“Seven, darling,” Pepper said from across the room, a bowl of strawberries on the dresser. “Hey, honey. How was the roof?”
Peter flushed, Tony’s arm steering him towards the couch on the left side of the room. He was sat down in the middle without much fanfare, and Pepper came over to place the bowl of strawberries in his hand. He looked down to see that they were all cut into smaller pieces.
“You have to eat at least six of those,” Pepper said, sitting down next to him. “Or something equivalent.”
Peter nodded and pressed a fingernail into one of the strawberries, watching the red seep under his nail. He could do that. Maybe if he sat here and just ate them all they wouldn’t try to talk to him.
“And let’s talk about getting you some pictures of your Aunt,” Tony said.
Peter flinched. So much for that. Maybe the couch cushions would separate beneath him and he would get sucked through into some timeless portal where this conversation never happened.
“Tony,” Pepper admonished, giving him a look that conveyed a paragraph. “Really?”
“I don’t want to beat around the bush,” Tony said, sitting down on Peter’s other side. “We don’t want you to think you have to print out pictures of her like that, bud.”
The ugly lump lodged itself in his throat again. Yes, he did. Because he had been stupid enough to lose the ones he had.
Gentle hands grabbed the bowl of strawberries back out of his hands, leaving them empty in his lap. His fingers twitched and then Pepper reached over and grabbed his hands in hers, squeezing them tight.
“What’s wrong, Peter?”
Peter shrugged again, pressing his lips together as hard as he could to stop them from trembling. If she kept poking at this wound it was going to start bleeding. He didn’t want to bleed all over their bedroom. Did they want him to bleed here?
“It’s alright if you miss your Aunt, Peter.”
Peter slammed his eyes shut, tilting his head back to try and stem the tears. That was an understatement. There was a gaping hole in his chest. He tried to swallow back the ache pressing into his throat, failing miserably.
“Oh, honey,” Pepper said, her voice achingly gentle. She let go of his hands and used her own to pull him into her arms. She was smaller than Tony but no less strong, and maybe the pressure could stop him from bleeding for a moment.
He wanted to cry, desperately, but he didn’t know if he would be able to stop. He was gasping small, hitching breaths into Pepper’s shoulder, trying to slow his breathing to match her own steady rise and fall. Her hand rubbed his back, up and down in a rhythmic motion. His chest still ached.
Her hand came up to run through his hair, the same way May used to run her hand through his hair, and then it didn’t matter what he wanted because he was crying so hard there wasn’t space for thinking. May pulled him in tighter and kept her hand in his hair, which he didn’t know how to thank her for.
He near about cried all the water in his body out on the couch, if he were forced to give an estimate. There was a headache pounding behind his eyes by the time his cheeks dried salty and stiff, warning him that it wasn’t a desirable activity. No wonder Rian had never cried when Groben was wailing on him, he would have dehydrated himself a long time ago.
He registered the cushion of the couch rising as Tony up and left, and he wondered if he had bled too much. Though it wasn’t his fault, he had wanted to leave the scab alone. It hadn’t been healed but at least it was covered. At least Pepper was still holding him.
But then the couch dipped back and there was a gentle hand on his shoulder, pulling him away from Pepper’s safe, stable hold. Who the hell did they think they were? It was Tony, of course, which was the only reason Peter was allowing it. He had a glass of water in his hand, which meant he must have been able to tell Peter had no water left in him.
“Drink,” Tony ordered, all but forcing the glass into his hand. “We can push the food to later, but you need to drink at least half of that now.”
“Sorry,” Peter rasped, taking a sip of the water. It was wonderfully cold.
“What could you possibly be sorry for?”
Peter shrugged, both hands around the glass. “I don’t know. I can go back to my room now, I’m alright.”
“You should drink more water instead of saying stupid things,” Tony said drily, raising an unimpressed eyebrow.
Peter took another sip of water to avoid having to think of some answer for that. He didn’t think the idea was stupid, it would get him out of this conversation.
“Would you like to go visit her grave, honey?”
Peter dropped his hands to his lap, the bottom of the glass pressed against his legs. That had never occurred to him as a possibility. Of course, she would have a grave. They had to have buried her somewhere.
“Yes, please,” Peter whispered.
“Okay,” Tony said, placing his hand on the back of Peter’s neck and giving it a reassuring squeeze. “We can do that. Whenever you want to go see her, we can.”
“Do you remember where it is?” Pepper asked.
Peter shook his head. He had no idea where it could be. “No.”
“Do you remember the name of the cemetery?” Tony asked, giving the glass of water in Peter’s lap a tap to remind him to take a sip.
Peter shook his head. “No.”
“That’s alright, honey. We’ll find it for you.”
Peter took a mechanical sip of his water, trying to remember if someone at the hospital had mentioned anything about the funeral. Or if his social worker had said something. He didn’t think so. Maybe there was somewhere near the hospital?
“They might have buried her near the hospital,” Peter said. “Maybe. I think Mr. Owens would have told me if they buried her anywhere too far. Or maybe he wouldn’t. He didn’t like to tell me things.”
Tony’s grip tightened for a second and if he had been anyone else Peter would have been scared. “Peter, did you not go to your Aunt’s funeral?”
“No, uh, it all happened really fast. Mr. Owens met me at the hospital after I had to go make sure it was actually her. And then he just took me straight to Galagni’s, and I didn’t have his phone number so I couldn’t ask him. And I should have, um, asked him before he left or something so I didn’t really do what I was supposed to either.”
“Pep, remind me later to blacklist this Owens character.”
“What, no, don’t do that,” Peter said, looking up at Tony in concern. “It’s fine. I swear, I don’t know if I would have wanted to go anyway. It would have been a bunch of strangers and seeing her dead like that would have just freaked me out, so it doesn’t even matter.”
“You should have had the fucking choice,” Tony said, his hand on the back of Peter’s neck holding his gaze. He was angry, Peter could see it in his eyes, and he leaned into his hold like it was bracing. “And they should have told you where her grave was, so none of it is anywhere near okay.”
Peter opened his mouth to explain to Tony that it was okay, in the end, because he had been the one responsible for her death, so who even knows if it would have been okay for him to be there? And maybe she wouldn’t have even wanted him there right after she had died, maybe she had been angry in her coffin, her dead-wax skin as unreachable as her heart.
“I just really miss her,” is what he choked out instead.
“I know, kiddo,” Tony said. “I know. I’m sorry.”
“And it just really hurts,” Peter whispered, his hand coming up to weakly scrabble at his chest as if he could rip away his skin to show Tony where the hole was in his heart.
“I know it does, kid, I know.”
Peter dragged the back of his hand over his eyes because apparently, a few sips of water was enough to make his body want to cry again. “I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it.”
“We’re going to make a huge deal about it, okay? We’re going to make it as big as it needs to be so we can remember her properly, there’s no such thing as too much.”
Peter let out a shaky exhale and leaned forward until his forehead was resting on Tony’s chest. Pepper’s hand began scratching circles onto his back at the same time that Tony pressed a kiss onto the top of his head, and if it was possible to implode from the pressure of love then Peter was pretty sure he would have done so by now.
==================================================
Peter was once again sandwiched on a couch, the same bowl of strawberries in his lap. He had been making steady progress since they had relocated out here, and he was pretty sure he was going to finish the bowl. His brothers were sprawled out on the chairs and couch in front of him, a mixture of concern and incredulity on their faces.
“I would really like that,” Harley breathed, his eyes wide. “Can I?”
“Anytime you want,” Tony said, his voice thick. “Whenever.”
Jack frowned, tugging on a piece of his hair. “I don’t remember my mom’s maiden name. I don’t know if I could find her.”
Pepper shook her head. “You don’t need to worry about that. We can find her for you.”
Jack nodded, a bright look of relief in his eyes. “Thank you.”
“No need for that,” Pepper said, reaching out to squeeze his hand. “I’m sorry we didn’t think to ask you guys this earlier.”
Peter took another bite of his strawberries and leaned forward to look at Dorian. “Rian, do you want to see your parents?”
Dorian rolled his head to look at Peter from where he was slumped in an armchair, his legs dangling over the sides. “Fuck, no.”
Jack closed his eyes for a brief second and sighed. “Rian—”
“Matter of fact,” Dorian continued, raising his finger in the air. “How about you just go ahead and dig him up and drop him in the Hudson?”
“You are severely derailing this conversation,” Harley said.
“Excuse me, you little shit. This is a conversation for people who remember their fathers.”
Harley turned and flipped Dorian off with both hands. “Oh, I’m sorry. But you already interrupted the conversation for people whose fathers weren’t abusive pieces of shit.”
“Oh, that’s it,” Dorian said, rolling off the armchair. “You’re about to get maimed.”
“Sit your ass down,” Tony said, grabbing him by the arm as he passed by the couch and pulling him down next to him. “Knock it off, both of you.”
“Yeah, knock it off,” Harley said. “This is about Peter, not about your homicidal tendencies.”
Peter almost dropped the strawberry in his hand at hearing his name mentioned. “What? No, it’s not. I’m fine.”
“Classic answer of someone who’s not fine,” Dorian said, his head already resting against Tony’s shoulder. “You’re supposed to tell people when you’re grieving, you idiot.”
“I thought I had already done that when she died,” Peter muttered, throwing the flimsy excuse back at Dorian.
“Please, enlighten me on when you had time to grieve,” Harley asked, already back on Dorian’s side of the argument. “I would love to hear when you found the time.”
“We’re finding time right now,” Pepper interjected, blocking Peter’s snarky response. “Which I want to make very clear, alright? There will always be time, and I don’t want any of you to feel like you aren’t allowed to grieve someone.”
“I think only Peter was stupid enough to think that.”
“I didn’t think that!” Peter protested, fully aware that nobody in the room believed him. “I’m aware I have autonomy, thank you very much. I can think and feel whatever I want.”
“Correction,” Harley kicked his feet up onto the table. “Peter was stupid enough to think that he had to grieve in private.”
“Get your damn feet off the table,” Jack reached down and grabbed Harley’s ankle, pulling it off and practically spinning Harley sideways in his chair. “I’m taking pictures when you have to help Roberto clean it.”
Harley’s eyes widened in remembrance and he shot Pepper an apologetic smile, which he probably thought made him look like an angel. Peter thought it was the most “oops-I’ve-been-caught” smile he’d ever seen, but he wasn’t about to tell Harley that and lose the entertainment value.
“This is a you and Roberto conversation now,” Pepper said, ignoring Harley’s loud groan.
Tony cleared his throat and gave Dorian’s leg a gentle squeeze. “Let me know if there’s any family you do want to go see, Rian. Okay?”
“I don’t have any dead family,” Dorian muttered. “They’re all alive.”
There was a moment of silence as Dorian’s words sunk into the room, everyone looking at Dorian with mild surprise. Jack was the first to move, his face breaking into a wide smile. Peter looked up at Tony, expecting to see the same surprise that everyone else had shown.
Peter’s mouth dropped because Tony was crying . His eyes were shiny, and Peter watched as a tear escaped and rolled down Tony’s cheek into his goatee. Holy shit. He was hoping these were good tears because he was pretty sure that was the nicest thing Dorian had ever said.
Dorian looked up at Tony and his eyes widened. “Aw, shit. Never mind, I was just kidding! I’ve always wanted to piss on my dad’s grave, I would love for you to take me there.”
“I love you too, kiddo,” Tony said, wiping his eyes with his hands. “So much.”
Pepper leaned forward and wrapped her arms around Peter, pulling him into another hug. Harley scrambled off the couch across from them, grabbing Jack by the wrist to yank him up with him. He practically threw himself onto the couch between Tony and Peter, pulling Jack down with him.
“If we’re going to be dramatic, I at least want a hug out of it.”
“Oh, what the hell,” Dorian said, making it halfway off the couch before Tony pulled him back into a hug. Harley was swept up into the hug next to him, and Dorian made an irritated face but slumped into Tony’s arms like he didn’t want to be anywhere else.
Pepper grabbed Jack, and Jack grabbed Peter, which was practically cheating because Jack was born to give hugs. Peter buried his face into Jack’s chest while Pepper had her arms wrapped tight around the both of them, and he was definitely still going to get yelled at later by Jack for going on the roof but then he would hug him again so it was all okay.
He wondered what would happen if he started calling Tony ‘Dad’ more often.