‘TONY STARK ALIVE? SECRET LOVE CHILD FOUND?’
The YouTube video seemed to show Tony Stark alive, wandering through a homeless shelter asking for ‘his kid’. Most people in the comment section didn’t believe it was him. There were a lot of people who had recently returned from the blip that were homeless right now. There were a lot of people still looking for their missing kids… missing parents and siblings and loved ones. This could have been anyone. Sure, this guy had a goatee like Tony Stark. Sure, he sounded like him and talked like him too. But the world knew Tony Stark had died fighting Thanos four months ago. This guy didn’t even have the scars or burns that Tony had reportedly suffered.
Then again, this was Tony Stark they were talking about. Iron Man. An Avenger. A genius who often came up with life saving technology and pushed it out into the market. If anyone could have had some crazy life saving tech in place in case he was grievously injured, it would have been Tony Stark, and commenters on the two videos that had surfaced on YouTube were quick to point that out. Also, if someone was going to fake their own death while they were recovering, it would be Tony Stark.
The newspapers were all over the videos and were already theorizing. By the morning after the videos had been posted online, the world woke up to headlines about Tony supposedly being alive, and about some kid named Peter Parker that no one had ever heard of before.
‘WHO IS PETER PARKER AND WHAT IS HIS RELATIONSHIP TO TONY STARK?’
The world was losing their mind with the news.
* * *
The February air was chilly as Tony led Peter out of the homeless shelter. Peter didn’t have a coat or a sweater, but Tony had come prepared. He led him to the car, one of many Tony had left in the tower parking garage after moving to the cabin upstate, and as soon as they were both inside, he pulled his old MIT hoodie out of the back seat and handed it to his kid. Peter had always liked wearing this, and after he’d turned to dust on Titan, Tony hadn’t been able to bring himself to wear it ever again because it hurt too much to look at. He’d left the hoodie at the tower, along with almost everything else that reminded him of Peter.
“Here, put this on.”
Peter was shaking, and Tony wasn’t sure if it was because of the cold, or because Tony was practically a ghost that had shown up to collect his kid and take him home.
“Mr. Stark-”
Tony cut him off with a look as he dropped his hands from the key he had been about to turn in the ignition. “I think we’ve been through enough together at this point that we should drop this Mr. Stark business.” He’d tried for almost a year before Peter had been dusted to get him to call him Tony.
Peter just stared at him. He was pale and looked like he could use a hot meal and then sleep for a week.
“I don’t- uh… I don’t know what to-”
“Tony. Dad. The best Avenger. Literally anything other than Mr. Stark.”
“You want me to call you-” Peter didn’t finish the sentence. The street light flickered above the car in the darkness, highlighting Peter’s pale features in even starker contrast as Tony looked up and met his eyes again.
“You were gone for five years.” His throat was tight. When Peter had turned to dust in his arms, Tony had almost died right there with him. He’d never told the kid that he loved him… had come to love him like a son. He’d thought it every time he saw the kid for a lab day or movie night, but he’d never told him. He’d never told him because Howard had never said it to Tony. Tony had made sure not to make that mistake with Morgan, because losing Peter had shown him that you could never be certain how long you had with someone before they were gone.
Those five years had been rough… hellish at times. He’d survived, but only barely, because of Morgan and Pepper, and because in the back of his mind he’d always planned on getting Peter back somehow. He’d died in the process, but it had been worth it. It had been worth it until he’d been brought back hours ago by the infinity stones and had been informed that he had failed… that he hadn’t really saved Peter from being erased at all. He still didn’t fully understand it, all he knew was that he was finally facing his kid, not in the middle of a battle, but in the silence of his car on a back street in Queens.
“I never told you I loved you,” Tony said. He was surprised to find tears prickling at his eyes. It had to just be that he was overwhelmed with the last several hours of his life. From his perspective, four or five hours ago he’d been fighting Thanos on a chaotic battlefield… snapping his fingers to erase Thanos so he could protect Peter… taking his dying breath as Pepper and Peter cried over him. Then he’d suddenly found himself in his lab in the tower, unable to find any records of his kid. “I never said that, and then you just-” he couldn’t bring himself to say ‘turned to dust’ because he didn’t want to think about it. Holding Peter as he died… as his kid begged for life… that had haunted his dreams and waking memories for five years.
He looked back at Peter. The kid was hanging on his words, tears pooling in his own eyes. “I don’t know what happened since the- the uh, battle kid, but I know for some reason no one remembers you. There’s no records of you at all. And I know that something happened to May.”
Peter took in a deep shuddering breath at the mention of May.
“We’re going to figure it out though, and from now on you’re with me. You live with me now.”
“But Pepper and Morgan-”
“They might not remember you, but I spent four years telling Morgan bedtime stories about her older brother who is Spider Man. She was looking forward to meeting you someday. It’s gonna work out ok kid. You’ve gotta trust me on this one.”
“I do,” Peter said, voice small. “I- I do trust you.”
“Good. Now I need you to tell me everything. I watched the few videos there were that people caught of you at the Statue of Liberty five days ago. I know Doctor Strange was involved. Does this have anything to do with him?”
Peter cleared his throat. “He said there was only one way to fix this.” He held up his pointer finger like Doctor Strange had done to Tony on the battlefield months (hours) before to let him know that Tony snapping was the one way Strange had seen to put an end to Thanos.
As Peter told Tony about the funeral… about Mysterio, being under house arrest and living with Happy and May, about going to Doctor Strange for help, and then losing the few people he had left that he could have gone to for help because no one remembered him, Tony grit his teeth and kept his mouth clamped shut. He was getting a clear picture of just how he’d failed to keep Peter safe. At some point during Peter’s explanation as the story got worse and worse, Tony had put his hand on Peter’s shoulder and left it there so Peter knew he wasn’t mad at him and that he wasn’t alone.
Tony squeezed Peter’s shoulder again.
“Have you been back to see the wizard yet?”
Peter shook his head. No, what good could that possibly do? Tony knew what the kid was thinking just by the expression on his face.
“That’s our first stop then.”
“But Mr. St-”
“Don’t say it kid.”
Peter clamped his mouth shut.
“Trust me.” He turned the key in the ignition and the engine purred to life. Tony pulled away, leaving the homeless shelter behind them, and they drove through the city that was just settling down for the night and towards Bleecker Street.
“He’s not going to remember me,” Peter said as they neared the Sanctum Sanctorum. “He said he wouldn’t.” He’d said Peter would be all alone. It’s what was demanded of him as Spider Man though… as an Avenger, even if the other remaining Avengers wouldn’t even remember that he was one of them when all was said and done.
“He’ll remember me,” Tony said.
As they pulled up in front of the Sanctum, Peter said, “Won’t he… you know, freak out? Because you’re here, and you’re not uh…”
“Dead?”
“I was gonna say supposed to be.”
Tony pulled the keys out of the ignition and looked at Peter. “I’m right where I’m supposed to be.” He wondered if Strange would know that. He’d gone ahead to thousands of different timelines and seen all kinds of things, and in the end had told Tony there was only one timeline where they could defeat Thanos and things would work out. That meant he’d seen this timeline. There was a possibility he’d seen Tony alive after the battle as well.
“Come on.” They got out of Tony’s black Audi and Tony led Peter up to the front door. There was a heavy brass knocker and Tony used it to knock, the residual banging sound echoing throughout the sanctum. It was several minutes and two more attempts at knocking before the door opened to reveal Doctor Strange. His eyes flitted from Peter to Tony, and then lingered on Tony. He was quiet for long moments as he tried to work out why a dead man was standing (very much alive) on his doorstep. Finally he stepped aside and motioned for them to enter. “I’ve got to hear this,” he murmured to himself.
After the door was shut, he led Peter and Tony through to a sitting room where there was a fire going in a large ornate fireplace. He spun on his heel to face them, held up his finger, dropped it, and asked, “Do I really want to know? I’m assuming you’re here from some alternate reality and need my help to get back.”
“Not an alternate reality,” Tony said. “This one.”
“Not possible. I saw you die. I saw them put you in the ground.”
“Not important. We’re not here for me. We’re here because you fucked things up for my kid.” Tony tilted his head slightly to the side towards Peter, eyes angry as he watched the wizard look Peter up and down.
“You don’t have a son.”
“Yes I do, this one.” He left no room for argument in his tone, though he knew the wizard liked to argue.
“And how is it that I’m supposedly involved in whatever- this- is?”
“Two weeks ago Peter approached you and asked you to do some sort of spell that would make people forget that he was Spider Man.” At the mention of Spider Man, Strange’s eyes flashed to Peter again, but he didn’t respond because Tony was still talking. “That spell went wrong and opened up portals to alternate dimensions where alternate versions of Spider Man came through, along with criminals they were fighting. Then five days ago you told him there was only one way to fix it, which was to make the entire world forget him… his friends, his family, everyone.”
Instead of addressing Tony, Strange turned to Peter and said in a stern voice, “What were my exact words to you?”
“There’s only one way to win.”
“Those were my exact words? One way to win?”
“Yes sir,” Peter mumbled.
Strange turned and met Tony’s eyes again, both of them sharing a knowing look. That was what he’d said to Tony on Titan after he’d gone forward to look at future scenarios. "How many do we win?” “One.”
“Even if what you say is true, I would have needed Peter’s permission to complete the spell.”
“He’s a kid,” Tony bit out angrily. “He’s 16. He doesn’t get to make decisions like that, and you should have known better.”
“Perhaps I did know better,” Strange admitted. His eyes flashed up to Tony again in question and understanding. “I told you there was one way… and you died to see that come to fruition. Then I supposedly told Peter there was one way, and just a few days after the completion of the spell that made people forget about him, you show up… alive. You said you being here wasn’t important. I think it might be.”
“How is that?”
“I need to know how you’re here and not dead. You said you weren’t from an alternate reality. How can you be sure?”
Doctor Strange’s magic cloak came up behind Tony then and nudged him in the back towards one of the ornate looking chairs. Tony turned and glared at it, but then sat down, dragging Peter gently with him by his sleeve. Peter sat down on the arm of the chair and pressed himself into Tony’s side. Strange sat down in another chair in front of the fire, facing them.
“FRIDAY said four months had passed. In my perspective, it’s been four or five hours since I died. As I was dying, I kept hearing voices talking to each other… voices in my head. I didn’t understand what they were talking about then… it didn’t make any sense. They kept saying that I hadn’t saved Peter, but he was standing right in front of me with Pepper. Then I died, and the next thing I know, I’m standing in my lab at the tower a few hours ago and being told by FRIDAY that there’s no records of Peter anywhere. I found him living at a homeless shelter. He told me what’s been going on the past few months, and then we came straight here.”
“And did you figure out who the voices were?”
“The stones. I don’t know how, but it was the six infinity stones.”
Peter was staring at Tony, mouth hanging open. Tony wrapped one arm around him and pulled him towards him. Peter leaned back into the warmth again.
“The infinity stones brought you back,” Strange said. It wasn’t a question.
“Yes.”
“To save Peter?”
“They said I hadn’t saved him from being erased, but we could fix it. They kept repeating that over and over again… ‘we can fix it, we can fix it.’”
“And now you’re here… alive.”
“I thought we established that!” Tony said, irritated to be talking in circles. Doctor Strange didn’t respond though. He was looking down and seemed to be in his own mind, trying to work things out. The silence stretched on for long moments, and then minutes as he worked things over. As Strange was trying to figure things out, Tony’s mind was whirring, his only distraction Peter pressing into his side.
Tony was dead. Then he’d found himself alive again. Because he’d needed to save Peter. Because he’d failed at saving Peter before, even though he hadn’t realized he’d failed until after he’d died. He’d failed Peter a lot before that though… he’d failed him when the kid was trying to get his help to fight the Vulture. He’d failed to save him on Titan. And after his death, everyone around him had apparently failed him too, because the kid had found himself having to approach the wizard for help, and the wizard had royally fucked things up for him. That was when Tony had been sent back… because Peter still needed him.
His mind halted in its tracks. He was here… alive because of Peter. Tony turned to look at Peter, who was staring into the flames of the fire in the grate. The stones had brought him back to life because of Peter. Without Peter, Tony would still be dead. Funny he thought, he’d always told himself he would save Peter’s life during those long five years without him. He hadn’t expected it to be the other way around.
When Tony looked back across the sitting room to Doctor Strange, he found the man staring at him, a shared understanding in their eyes.
“You’re alive because of Peter.”
“What?” Peter squeaked.
“The stones brought him back to take care of you,” Strange told him. “I must have seen this on Titan… the way I told you there was only one way to win… I must have seen that erasing the world’s memories of Peter would somehow result in you showing up on my doorstep alive with him. And then my memory was erased along with everyone else’s.”
“You sound a little full of yourself. That’s quite a savior complex you’ve got going on there,” Tony said, motioning towards Strange with his hands. Strange only gave him an irritated look.
“In the meantime, what about Peter? There’s no records of him ever existing. He has friends and others that care about him and they don’t remember that.”
“There’s only one spell I know of that could make an entire planet forget someone existed, and there’s no way to reverse it, not even on myself.”
“There has to be something,” Tony said, voice low and threatening.
“There isn’t. I’m sorry,” he said, directing his apology to Peter. Tony was pinching the bridge of his nose, eyes clenched shut.
“Ok,” Tony said, “ok, we can work with this.” He turned to Peter, pristine new left arm still around him. “You’re not starting from scratch kid. You’ve got me, and I remember everything, ok? We’re going to figure this out. I can make records up for you, and we’ll talk to Pepper and Morgan, and then everyone else.”
Peter just stared at him, eyes still unbelieving.
“We can fix this,” Tony said, repeating what the stones had said again and again. “Do you believe me?”
Peter really didn’t know what to believe. He’d always trusted Mr. Stark. He’d trusted him all the way to the end. Just an hour ago he’d been lying on a cot at a homeless shelter wishing for Mr. Stark so he could tell Peter what to do so that Peter wouldn’t have to worry about it anymore. Now here he was in front of him telling him it would all work out somehow. He didn’t know if it was going to work out or not, but Mr. Stark had said they were in this together… that wherever he was, was Peter’s home…
“You don’t have a son,” said Doctor Strange. And then Tony had responded, “Yes I do, this one.”
“You’re not starting from scratch kid. You’ve got me.”
“We can fix this. Do you believe me?”
When he’d lost May, he was sure that was it for him… he’d never have a home again. But now he had Mr. Stark back, and for the first time since he’d lost Mr. Stark on the battlefield, Peter believed things would be ok.
Tony was still watching him, waiting for him to answer. Peter couldn’t answer though, at least not with words. Instead he leaned forward and wrapped his arms around Tony, and Tony was ready for him. “We’ve got this,” Tony whispered into Peter’s hair. “Time to go home.”
* * *
Doctor Strange had offered to send Tony and Peter straight to the cabin through a portal, but instead Tony had asked him to send them in the car to the little town thirty minutes away from it. This would allow Tony to stop off and get Peter something to eat, and give them a few minutes to themselves driving to the cabin before they saw Pepper and had to explain things to her.
The portal dumped them off onto a country road just outside of town, and Tony drove to a McDonalds and gave the teenage kid working the late shift a good scare. He hadn’t bothered to put on the baseball cap or put his hood up, and the kid had been so shocked to be handing a bag with burgers and fries out the drive-through window to Tony Stark that he started sputtering and babbling. He’d even called out to his co-workers to come see, but Tony had already sped off.
“You doing ok over there Underoos?” Tony asked as Peter ate his cheeseburger quietly. “I know my memory’s getting a little foggy after all these years, but I remember you rambling more.”
“M’ok,” Peter said quietly.
They drove for a few more minutes down the dark country road when Peter cleared his throat and asked quietly, “Do you think Happy will be there?”
“Probably not this late.”
“He’s- when he finds out who I am… he’s… he’ll be mad. He won’t want to see me.”
“Why?”
“He and May… they were- they started dating a couple months ago. It’s my fault she’s gone.”
Tony turned down the long dirt driveway to the cabin and then stopped, engine still running. “I know you think that, but it’s not your fault.”
Peter was quiet, and Tony could see the little light that there was from the instrument cluster in the dash reflecting the wetness in Peter’s eyes. “I’m the one that wanted to save him… the Green Goblin.”
“Sometimes bad things happen,” Tony said, thumbs running over the steering wheel as he stared out the windshield and down the dirt lane. “Sometimes people do bad things, and no one can stop them.” Tony couldn’t stop Thanos… couldn’t stop Peter from turning to ash in his arms.
“I could have done more.” Peter’s voice was barely above a whisper, and Tony could hear the pain getting caught in his throat.
“Do you blame me?” Tony asked, his own voice thick with guilt.
“What?” Peter turned to look at him, confusion in his eyes.
“For what happened on Titan. For getting dusted. Do you blame me?”
“No, Mr. St- just, no. I would never-”
“But I could have done more.” Tony turned to look at him. “I spent five years feeling like I could have done more… blaming myself for not being the hero you needed. Not having you there with me… thinking I could have saved you, and that I didn’t… it almost killed me.”
Peter looked like he was trying to say something. His mouth was moving, but no words were coming out.
“Like I said kid… sometimes people do bad things, and there’s nothing you can do to stop them. It took me five years to figure that out,” hell, he was still grappling with it… grappling with losing Peter for that long. “This is one of those: do as I say, not as I do moments. Learn from my mistakes instead of going through them and learning the hard way. You didn’t cause her death, and she wouldn’t blame you for it. She loved you, and you loved her, and she knew it. That’s all that matters.” That was a lesson hard learned on Tony’s part as well… because he had loved Peter, but Peter had died not knowing that.
Tony took his foot off the break and let the car roll forward again as they continued towards the cabin in silence.
It took another minute to get down the long driveway before they popped out of the trees and rolled up to the house. There was still a light on downstairs, which meant that someone was still awake despite that it was nearly midnight.
“Do you want me to wait out here?” Peter asked.
“Never kid. Come on.” They’d both been away from home for long enough.
Tony didn’t have his key, and the front door wasn’t controlled electronically by FRIDAY, so he had to knock on the door. He knew it would startle Pepper having someone at the door this late. He almost expected her not to open it and to have to call her on the phone. He really didn’t want to reveal himself to her that way though.
The door swung open, warm light spilling out from inside into the cold night, and Pepper stood there, shock on her face when she saw who was standing on the other side.
“T- Tony?” She blinked hard several times, and tears started spilling out of her eyes, despite that she clearly didn’t believe he was there.
“It’s me Pep.”
“But- but- wait, but how? You can’t be- this is-” she couldn’t finish the sentence.
“Honey, it’s a long story, and I promise I’ll tell the whole thing to you, but could we come in to tell it?”
Pepper’s eyes left his face for only a moment and noticed that Tony wasn’t alone for the first time. She didn’t ask who Peter was, though she noted he was wearing Tony’s MIT hoodie. Peter thought she might step aside and let them in, but instead she threw herself into Tony’s arms, burying her face in his neck and crying hard. Peter was freezing, but he didn’t dare interrupt their private moment by asking to go inside or by trying to slip around them, so he just stood back and stayed quiet.
“You’re not a dream, are you? You’re really here?”
“I’m here.”
“I don’t understand how you can be.”
“Let’s go inside honey.”
She didn’t let go, but she let Tony maneuver the two of them inside. “Come on in Pete,” Tony said, and Peter came in behind him and shut the door. Tony and Pepper stood in the warmth of the entryway for several more minutes holding each other. Peter couldn’t tell if Tony was crying too or if it was just Pepper, because Tony’s back was to him.
“Tony, I know you just came back from the dead but, who did you bring back with you?” She sniffled and then gave a little laugh like she didn’t care who it was.
“Actually, he brought me back. Honey, this is Peter, our son.”
“What?!” She let go of Tony, eyes finding Peter again, scrutinizing him from his hair down to his toes. “What are you- Tony, I need you to be serious with me. A few days ago there was an incident in New York… portals were opened from other realities. You didn’t come through one of them did you?”
“You’re making headlines everywhere aren’t you kid,” Tony said to Peter, but Peter hunched in on himself a little, trying to make himself as small as possible.
“Let’s sit down, ok? There’s a lot to go over. I promise you we’re not from another reality.”
Tony and Pepper sat down next to each other on the couch, Pepper refusing to let go of Tony’s hand and still wiping at her tears which didn’t seem to want to stop, and Peter sat on the edge of a brown leather chair.
“Pep, this is Peter Parker, also known as Spider Man.”
“Spider Man?” she said, and her eyes flickered up to the second floor balcony that overlooked the living room, though Peter didn’t know why because as far as he could tell, there was no one up there. He could hear Morgan’s steady heartbeat from where she slept in a room upstairs, but there was no one else.
“He was part of the incident in New York at the Statue of Liberty. Doctor Strange was involved. The wizard did something stupid and decided that to close the portals to other realities, he would erase Peter from the memories of everyone on the planet, and Peter agreed, didn’t you kid? You’re grounded by the way. Never do that again, not even to save the world.”
Peter hummed his acknowledgement. Being forgotten really sucked, though if what Doctor Strange had said was true, that that decision had brought Mr. Stark back, then Peter might do the same thing again under the same circumstances.
Tony pointed at him. “Never again. I can see the wheels turning in that genius brain kid.” Peter gave a small nod, and Tony turned back to Pepper.
“Pete was with me on Titan… after Thanos snapped, I lost him.” He gave a much abridged version of the events, including what Doctor Strange had told him before he disappeared about them having only one chance to win. Peter got the feeling Tony had told Pepper this before, because she nodded along like she already knew.
“Apparently that plan didn’t end with me snapping on the battlefield a few months ago.” He pointed to Peter. “The moment I took my last breath there, the reality stones decided I wasn’t done and sent me forward to here… to today.”
“Oh my God,” she said loudly, as if just realizing something. “You were in your lab at the tower!”
He tilted his head sideways a little as he looked at her with a frown. “How did you-”
“Tony, there was an alert about someone in your lab tonight. Happy’s been over there for the last five hours trying to figure out who broke in and if any technology is missing.”
“Just wait until he finds out I took my favorite car from the parking garage.”
“But I don’t understand… the stones sent you here? Did you- was that part of what you did when you snapped your fingers?”
He shook his head. “It wasn’t me Pep. They sent me to save Peter. When I snapped, I intended to get rid of Thanos so Peter couldn’t be erased again. The stones… I don’t know, they made that happen. They made our reality into one where Peter wouldn’t be erased. But then the wizard made his twisted deal with the kid five days ago to erase him from the memory of the planet. So the stones decided I needed to be here to fix it. We stopped by to see Strange, but he said he can’t undo the spell. He’s certain this is part of the ‘one way to win’ he told me about on Titan, even though he doesn’t remember Peter either.”
“So… you’re alive- because of Peter?”
Tony nodded.
“And- he’s our son? I forgot about my own son?”
Tony scrunched up his face for a moment, not sure how to answer that. “The you of five days ago would have known the answer to that question. He’s- look, it’s complicated and it’s not. Short answer, he’s my son. He’s my kid… he has been for a long time now. Long answer, I took him to Germany to fight Cap, and then he was my intern for a while and-”
Pepper stood up, cutting Tony off, and faced Peter. She gave him another scrutinizing look, though her eyes were soft this time as she took in his bruised and cut up face, his messed up hair, and the scared look in his eyes. Then she surprised both Peter and Tony by kneeling down in front of him and pulling him into a hug.
Peter was confused. Tony had just explained that he wasn’t really their son, but she was hugging him like he was. She was hugging him like she had after the funeral, where they’d just sat on the couch and cried and Rhodey and Happy and a few others that had stuck around after the funeral tried to ignore them as they sat with their grief.
“I don’t-” Peter said, but she cut him off too.
“Thank you,” she said quietly, tears in her eyes again. “Thank you so much for bringing him back to us.”
Peter wasn’t sure if he was allowed to hug her back, so he didn’t, even though he wanted to. He wished she remembered. Right now, he was just a random kid to her. When she pulled away, she reached up and ran her fingers through the right side of Peter’s hair though like he wasn’t just some random kid.
“Peter,” she said quietly, and Peter looked her in the eyes. “Tony said your name is Peter Parker. Was May your mother?”
Peter took in a shuddering breath and shook his head, eyes moving down to his lap. “My aunt,” he croaked.
“She was taking care of him,” Tony said, watching them from the couch.
“I’m so sorry sweetheart. You were there at her funeral yesterday, weren’t you? Back in the treeline?”
Peter nodded, throat too tight to speak. “We wondered who you were and why you had come to the funeral but hadn’t come up to sit with the rest of us.”
Just being at May’s funeral had been a lot. Being at the second funeral of someone he loved in four months had been too much. Not only had he not wanted to go through the agony of being questioned by everyone at the funeral of how he knew May and them not understanding his answer or who he was, but he’d spent the entire ceremony vacillating back and forth between ugly crying and having a panic attack.
She pulled him into another hug, this one gentle, and Peter fought the tears that still wanted to spill out from yesterday, and from the day before, and from the day before that. It had been hard enough in the last few months fighting the tears that still threatened to overwhelm him on a daily basis over losing Mr. Stark.
When she pulled away, she said, “I’m going to make us some tea.”
Peter swiped his arm across his eyes, getting the sleeve of Tony’s MIT hoodie damp, and cleared his throat, jumping up quickly. “I’ll make it.” He moved past them to the kitchen, and pulled open the cupboard with tea. He clearly already knew where everything was, so Pepper didn’t say anything about it.
“He was here too,” she said softly, coming back to the couch to sit next to Tony and leaning into him. “At your funeral. He must have been, because May was here.”
“I’m so sorry Pep,” he said.
“He lost everyone, didn’t he? I can’t- I can’t even imagine. It was hard enough losing you. How much time did we spend with him in the last four months? Some? None?”
“You’ll have to ask him. He looks ready to fall over though. I need to take him up to his room.” He met her eyes and said quietly, “Should I wake Morgan?”
“You’re not going to disappear are you? You’ll still be here when she wakes up in the morning?”
“I’m not going anywhere. Not again.”
“I feel like there’s a lot more you need to tell me… so I can remember him.”
“After he’s in bed,” Tony said.
“I’m going to go up and check on Morgan then and get ready for bed myself.” She gave him one last long look, eyes drinking in the face she never thought she’d see in person again… the familiar wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, the goatee which looked like it could use a trim, and the flecks of light brown in his dark brown eyes. She put her hand up over her mouth, and Tony took it gently, pulling it away and then kissing it.
“I’ll still be here,” he said.
She nodded, gave a look over her shoulder to Peter, who was boiling water in a kettle in the kitchen, and then went up the stairs and disappeared from sight.
Tony sat back on the couch and stared into the small fire Pepper had going in the grate before they’d arrived. A few moments later, Peter brought over two cups of hot tea and handed one to Tony.
“I uh, I didn’t know what kind you liked, and Miss Potts left.”
Tony sniffed the mug and took a sip. “This is fine. Tea’s more of Pepper’s thing, but I’m not allowed to have coffee after seven PM, so I’ll take what I can get.”
Peter sat back down on the chair he’d been using earlier and sipped on his own tea, staring into the flames. They sat in companionable silence for several minutes, each lost to their own thoughts. Tony was surprised that Peter broke the silence first.
“Mr. Stark.”
He turned towards him. “Kid, you gotta come up with something else to call me. We’ve been over this.”
Peter swallowed hard, and nudged the floor with the toe of his shoe. “Dad,” he whispered.
Tony’s heart felt like it was going to beat out of his chest at hearing the kid call him that. He’d suggested it… wanted to hear it, but he wasn’t sure Peter would ever be ready for that… that Peter was there yet, or would ever be.
“I knew,” Peter said quietly.
Tony frowned and looked up at him. “Knew?”
“Earlier… in the car, you said- you said you never got the chance to tell me you loved me.” Peter took a slow breath and said, “I knew you did.” He was silent for a moment and then said quietly, “I love you too Mr. Stark. I missed you so… much.”
The kid looked exhausted. It looked like he’d lived the five years that he’d been gone during the blip since Tony had last seen him briefly four months ago. Tony stood up from the couch, pulled Peter up from the chair and wrapped his arms around him again. They’d hugged more in one night than they would have before in a full month before the snap. They’d spent a lot of time together in the months before the blip working in Tony’s lab and watching movies. Sometimes Peter had even stayed the night in a guest room in the penthouse. Tony had hidden behind the, ‘I’m not good at emotions,’ excuse instead of readily showing Peter the love and affection he deserved. Raising a young child had changed him though. Like Peter, Morgan had changed Tony for the better. He wondered briefly if he had changed Howard for the better at all, though he doubted it.
“C’mon, let’s get you to bed. You know, there’s a room with your name on it.”
Peter pulled away from him a little and frowned. “There is?”
Tony took him up the stairs and down the little hall that all the bedrooms were off of. They passed Morgan’s closed bedroom door, and Peter noted that her name was on the outside of the door in pink and green wooden letters with little ladybugs painted on them. The next door down had a painted wooden sign in red and blue letters that read, ‘Spider Man’, with a black web painted across portions of some of the letters.
“Damn,” Tony said. “That spell Doctor Strange did was thorough. The last time I saw this, it said Peter.”
He pushed the door open and flipped the light on. There was a full size bed with a Spider Man blanket and a pillow with an Avenger’s pillowcase. There was also an MIT flag on the wall above the bed. Tony had insisted the room be ready for when they got Peter back, but at the same time he had always kept the door closed so he wasn’t reminded of him. This room was like all the things he’d left at the tower that reminded him of the kid he’d lost. The kid he’d failed.
“This… you did this for me? But when?”
“When we built the cabin.”
“But I was gone.”
“I always planned on getting you back. I just didn’t know how until they came to me talking about time travel.”
Peter looked around the room. It was bare, but it was clear they’d made an effort. Peter hadn’t seen this room before now. He’d been to the cabin for the funeral, and then he’d spent some time with Pepper and Morgan in New York in the month directly afterwards, but she’d never mentioned this room or shown it to him.
“Are you sure about this?” Peter asked.
Pepper came out of the dark hall and wrapped her arms around Tony from behind, resting her chin on Tony’s shoulder. “We’re sure Peter.”
“But you don’t remember me.” His words hung there in the room between them, and Peter was sure she’d come to her senses and tell Tony he could stay the night but that he’d have to take him back to the homeless shelter in the morning.
“You’re family Underoos,” Tony said, “that was decided a long time ago. Like I said, your home is wherever I am.”
Peter sat down on the edge of the bed, his legs feeling shaky. Home. Life had been crazy… his life had been dumped into a box and thrown down the stairs, and then the contents had spilled out all jumbled up and topsy-turvy, but somehow, because of Tony, and Pepper and Morgan, who had found him again… because of his family… he was finally home.