I tried
Tony Stark walked into the Compounds kitchen late that afternoon, his face pulled with exhaustion, tightening when he saw Peter sitting at the table, Harley Keener and Cassie Lang on either side of him. Peter was too caught up watching a video on Harley’s phone, hunched over at the counter and trying to figure out how to navigate ‘Tik Tok’. He hadn’t had much time to delve into social media, and the last he had checked, Vine was still relevant. He was wrong.
“Peter,” His mentor called, his voice a little strained, and he nearly dropped the phone. He’d almost forgotten that he wasn’t exactly supposed to go around advertising that he was, well, alive. “And Co.,” He greeted, and Cass and Harley swiveled to face him, both cheerful enough. “Not to ruin the party here but,” He walked further in, leaning his elbows on the table and taking in the empty soda cans, bags of chips, and water bottles. “I need to steal Pete here really quick,”
Harley met his gaze, almost challengingly, and Peter looked between the two of them before the boy spoke. “Does it have anything to do with the fact that he’s supposed to be dead?” He asked, his tone light despite the ferocity in his eyes.
“Something like that,” Tony agreed, nodding casually, unaffected by the glare being thrown his way. “I would say I’d have told you about this sooner but we both know that’s not actually true, so I’ll spare you,”
Harley broke off into grumbles while Cass snickered. “Hey,” Peter said, gaining both of their attention, giving his most genuine smile. “Thanks for hanging out with me. I’ll see you guys later?”
“Of course,” Cassie promised, patting his arm and giving Harley a pointed look. “We’ll be around. Have fun talking to your dad,”
Peter whipped around, giving her an incredulous look, but she was already stepping away from the table, tugging Harley along by his arm, his gaze firmly locked onto Tony’s, stubborn and sharp. As soon as the door closed, he faced the man again, feeling embarrassed and exhausted all at once. Tony was giving him a small, fond type of look, one that he’d never seen before on the man’s face. He wondered what he’d possibly done to make him look at him like that, as if he actually was his dad. His cheeks reddened at the thought.
“Sorry for uh,” He gestured over his shoulder to where the two had just exited. “Sorry,” He finished, lamely, and Tony shook his head.
“Not your fault,” He assured, and Peter ducked his head, knowing it had been. “I’m glad you all seem to be getting along,” He paused, chuckling to himself, as if he had just told an inside joke between him and the can of Dr. Pepper. “Not that I had any doubts,”
Peter felt a warm feeling bubble up in his chest, one that he thought he’d never know again. The endearment, the fondness, the thoughtless praise—he’d lost all of it with Tony once, and then with…with May. He ran his tongue along his teeth, nervously, trying to clear his head. “I think I scared the crap out of them,” He admitted, and Tony exhaled a little laugh. “They’re…nice, though. Talking to them was nice,”
Tony rubbed at his chin, looking at him with an unreadable seriousness clouding his features. “I overheard you talking about the multiverse,” He began, almost conversationally, except the serious line of his brow.
Peter let his gaze wander, slightly, just to the left of him, where the rest of the room was, light streaming through the wall of glass at the edge of it. “It’s rude to eavesdrop,” He said, after a while, settling into his humor. He knew it was a wall, shielding him from the danger of confronting the harder things, but it was all he really knew. He needed to stick with familiarity, especially when he was so out of his element.
Mr. Stark didn’t look amused. “I think I’m allowed to make an exception, just this once,” He was giving Peter a stern look, which jump-started something in him, and he forced himself to meet his gaze.
“What do you want, Mr. Stark,” He said, and it came out more defeated than he’d intended it to, trying to keep his tone lighthearted and his words playfully annoyed. He sounded tired, desperate, and the look Tony was giving him didn’t help the nervous tickle in his throat. “A conversation on multidimensional theory? A heart to heart?” The older man continued to look at him, so soft and miserable, as if he wanted to pretend Peter was a stranger, but he kept proving himself to be the opposite. He hated it. He hated that he was doing it, too. “A staring contest?” The silence was stretching too long, even as his voice had lost its luster.
“I want you to tell me about your world,” He said, cutting right to the chase, and Peter felt his mouth click shut, his molars smacking together. “I want to know what it’s like there, and what you’ve been up to, and why exactly you’ve been looking at me like I’m a ghost,”
He swallowed. “I haven’t been—”
“You have,” Tony’s voice was firm, confident, and Peter, despite how much he’d grown, still felt his gut lurch inside him at the interruption. He had been caught. He was in trouble.
“Okay,” He agreed, knowing he couldn’t fool him. “I kinda maybe sorta have…” His gaze flitted back towards the window. “Maybe,”
Tony sighed heavily. “Peter…”
“Okay,” He repeated, leaning towards the table and cupping his hands under his chin. The air was tense, cool, and he knew both of them felt it, holding their breaths. “I think you know most about the early stuff. You asked me to fight Captain America in Germany, I stopped the Vulture from stealing your tech, we fought an alien with a giant donut ship,” There, he paused, just as Mr. Stark took in a shaky breath, his knuckles white against his chair. They both knew what had happened there, it seemed.
He kept his eyes steady in front of him, sounding his words out carefully, even as his nerves spiked. He put his hands down, cold pricking up at his fingertips as they lay on the table. “Thanos invaded. He came after the Stones,” Peter continued to look away, staring at his fingers where they lay flat against the surface. He didn’t want to look at Tony. He knew that he would find tears pooling in his eyes, too. “I followed you onto the ship. We fought him in space. We…lost,”
There was a quick exhale, harsh, and Peter glanced up through his eyelashes, watching as Tony rubbed a hand down his face slowly. “Yeah. Yeah, all of that happened here,” His eyes were dark, empty, and he breathed into his hand. “And then you…”
“I did,” He swallowed, his gaze flickering back down, but he forced himself to look up, meeting the gaze of his mentor. “For five years, I was gone. And then…I was back. I woke up on Titan, and Dr. Strange was there, and so were the Guardians. It didn’t hurt to come back, not like it did to…” He pulled at the bit of skin around his nail, pinching it between his finger and thumb. “It was just jarring. I was so confused, and then all of a sudden we were supposed to jump into a fight—another fight, the one here—and there were hundreds of us. I found you, I think, sometime during it, and you were older and…”
He squeezed his eyes shut, finding himself back in the moment, his heart thumping in his ears, the screams and thuds and gunfire all around him. The smell of blood and dust and smoke. Tony was silent, watching as he collected himself, pulling himself into the present, feeling like he would rip the marble detail off of the countertop. “You missed me, and I didn’t even realize I had been gone. I don’t know, it was nice, but then we had to move, and I had the gauntlet at one point,”
Tony exhaled, sharply, and Peter flicked his gaze over to him, wetting his lips and taking a pause, one they both needed. “I wasn’t going to help them, you know,” The older man said, into the quiet, and he turned all the way to face him. “I finally settled down, kid, I was with Pepper and Morgan…” He looked over to him, as if to give a brief explanation, but Peter nodded, knowing exactly what he was talking about. “They came and asked for me, they wanted me to work with quantum reasoning, to try and reverse time, but I knew that once I was in it, I wouldn’t be getting out,” He pressed a hand to his mouth, tired and emotionally heavy.
“I was supposed to be retired. I was supposed to be selfish. And then, I saw that dumb little picture of us, the one where you’re holding your internship paper upside-down and we’re doing the ears,” He mimicked bunny ears, his fingers moving into peace signs and waving behind his head. Peter made a small noise in question, wondering why he had kept it, and knowing exactly why at the same time. “I framed it and put it above my kitchen sink. I never wanted to forget that moment—I never wanted to forget you,”
Peter wiped quickly at his eyes, trying so desperately not to cry, not to act like the simple confession had torn him apart, not to break down at the irony of it all. “I didn’t know that. You didn’t exactly have time to tell me yourself, in my world,” He tried to force a laugh, but it came out harsh, spit nearly flying out of his mouth with the bitterness of it. “Mr. Stark…I had the gauntlet for a minute, tops. Then…”
He felt the burn in the back of his throat, his breaths coming shakily, and he fisted one hand into the sleeve of his sweatshirt. “In my world, I wasn’t the one to snap. In my world… you did,”
It was a simple confession. Barely a sentence, words jumbled together and breathed with emotion, tense and soft all at once. No one said anything for a long moment, as if the silence between them had somehow suspended time—a moment where Peter didn’t have to feel the tears fall, the sting that they brought, and where Tony didn’t have to accept exactly what he had been afraid of. Except, time hadn’t stopped, and neither of them had it in them to hold their breaths for more than a few seconds.
Peter cracked first, exhaling with a sob, trying to hide it immediately after by covering his mouth with trembling hands. As much as it ached, pulling at all of the things he had tried to keep so tightly wound and unraveling them, it also felt so good to let it out. He choked on a sob, his voice coming out squeaky and harsh, the last shreds of his dignity attempting to keep the brunt of it back. Tony looked startled, Peter could tell through the blurry mess of his vision. He looked surprised, and then helpless, and then so desperately angry.
“I’m sorry,” Peter said, through the thickness of his voice, through the tears.
“I’m sorry,” Tony said, before he could say any more. The older man didn’t hesitate this time when he reached for him, settling his hand against his shoulder, looking like he wanted to do more, but Peter was already trying to pull away. “I’m so…I’m so sorry, Pete,”
“I didn’t want to tell you,” He managed, leaning into his touch, even when he remained stiff and shaking and tired. “I didn’t want you to…I didn’t want you to have to worry about it,” Worry about me.
“Jesus, kid,” Tony blinked hard a few times, letting out a shuddering breath, keeping his grip firm against his collarbone. “This must’ve been eating you away,”
He shrugged, mutely, pressing his hands into his eyelids, wishing that he wasn’t embarrassed, that he had better control of his tears, that he was better at lying. The air hitting his lungs was cold and sharp, and he found himself gulping for a more steady breath, his chest shaking with each inhale. “I didn’t want you to feel like how I feel…” He sniffled, then coughed wetly. “I know that I’m not your Peter. I know that I’m not the same, that you want me to be but I’m not. He sacrificed himself for the whole world—he was so much better than I could ever be,” He felt his nails dig into the skin above his eyebrows, knowing he was getting hysterical but feeling the words pour out of him. “I let you die. It could’ve been me, and I let you die,”
“You didn’t let me do shit,” Tony’s voice was stern, if not a little strained, and Peter looked up from his hands. His lips were trembling, and he looked so devastated. He sat up, tears dripping down his cheeks, all of his attention caught on the way Tony’s eyes were welling up. “If I could go back and do it again, I would do anything in the world to make sure it was me instead of you. I was prepared to die, Peter, you weren’t. You were just selfless, and stubborn, and…” His voice cracked, and he let out a shuddering breath. Peter watched, almost entranced, as he began to sniffle.
“Shit,” He said, his expression breaking as he pressed his lips together, painstakingly mournful. “You were so scared,” He cried, then, into his hands, and Peter sat there, helpless to console him. He wasn’t the one who died in his universe. He wasn’t the one who stared death in the face, so certain that he would save the world. He wasn’t brave enough. He had lived.
He leaned forward, slowly, placing his hand on the older man’s arm, prompting him to look up, grief stricken and bawling. His cheeks were red and his nose was dripping, all of the lines in his face turned and pulled at his sobs. He’d never seen his Tony so vulnerable—he’d missed all the moments where he’d fallen apart.
“It’s okay,” He managed, past the lump in his throat. He tried to remember what May used to say to him, how she would comfort him on the bad days. He inhaled, shakily, trying for a smile, even when it hurt. “We both lost, but now we’re both here, talking to each other,” He pulled at all the shriveled parts of himself, rough and frayed from years of fighting and hardship and grief.
He found the smallest bit of optimism, locked away deep in his chest, thumping desperately to be known, even when Peter continued to shove it down. He let it flow through him, he let his eyes shine with tears and his teeth bare and his hands shake. “I think that’s pretty cool, right?”
Tony gripped at the hand against his arm, laughing into a sob, his voice broken and blubbering. “Yeah, it is,” He squeezed his fingers against Peter’s palm, almost instinctively, and he swallowed back another wave of tears. “It’s really cool,”
Peter wasn’t as brave as this other version had been, he wasn’t the savior of the galaxy or the mourned hero of the city—but he did know what it was like to lose. He felt his heart thud, nervous, as he got up from his chair, the pounding in his ears matching the pace of his feet. He reached Tony, his hand still on his arm, and he steeled himself before pushing forward, wrapping his arms around his frame and smashing his face into his shoulder. Immediately, he felt the older man pull him in, shakily but without hesitation.
They hugged, Peter’s legs weak against the floor, leaning his weight into his mentor and letting his tears soak into his shirt. Tony, for however much he liked to snark, let him do it without complaint. He felt the dampness at the back of his shirt, too, afterall.