Space To Breathe
Peter didn’t know that you could order McDonalds and have it delivered, but that’s exactly what his parents had done. After several minutes of hugging, Pepper had taken him to the living room and sat down on the couch with him, and Tony had followed, sitting on Peter’s other side. The three of them had just sat there like that in silence for almost ten minutes, warm and comfortable and together. At some point his dad had tapped something into his phone, and then announced that McDonalds would be delivered soon.
“I promised him McDonald’s on the way here,” Tony told Pepper. She nodded, closed her eyes, and then put her face down into Peter’s hair.
“Are you sure it wasn’t you that wanted McDonalds?” she asked with a little laugh, eyes closed for a moment.
“I could go for a Big Mac,” Tony said. “It’s been a long day.” Then he paused and said, “The best day.” That morning when he’d woken up, he’d told himself what an awful day it was going to be, having to present to a bunch of teenagers, and then go to an R and D meeting he really hadn’t been looking forward to. Then he’d go back to his lab in the penthouse, turn up the music, and lose himself in his latest project: nanotech armor. He’d forget to eat dinner, stay up until three or four in the morning, and then stumble to bed and pass out, never even having said a word to Pepper. It was a routine he followed almost every day. Now, as he stared at his wife on the other side of Peter, eyes closed as she just took comfort and joy in Peter’s unexpected presence, guilt clawed its way up into Tony’s stomach. Guilt was a familiar feeling for him. He’d always felt guilt over Peter’s kidnapping, but as the years passed he’d felt more and more guilt over the distance he’d put between himself and Pepper. Pepper hadn’t only lost her son the day Peter disappeared, but her husband and best friend too. If he was really honest with himself, and sometimes he was, he’d lost himself in those four years as well. He’d wanted to.
“What do you like to eat at McDonald’s Peter?” Pepper asked him quietly.
“I dunno. Ned let me, he let me have a, have a cheeseburger last week. It was good. I’ve only had McDonald’s a couple times before.”
“Ned?” Pepper asked.
“My best friend. He keeps me safe.”
Pepper and Tony exchanged a look over Pepper’s head and Pepper said, “Tell me about him. Tell me about your friend.”
“He’s 15. He just had a birthday last month. When Flash beats me up, or shoves me in a locker, or, or puts me in a dumpster, Ned gets me out. We ride the subway and walk to and from school together. He got me, I got a, there was a box of, he got me Lego’s for my birthday last month.”
“Your birthday?” Tony asked.
“Yeah. He gave me a red sports car Lego set on our way home from school.”
“Hey, uh, Pete?” Tony asked. “When’s your birthday?”
“I don’t know really. I didn’t get birthdays. Me and, me and Ned picked a day to be my birthday cuz I didn’t know, and he got me Legos.” He looked up at Tony then and said, “They’re in my bedroom. Can we get them?”
“I’ll talk to agent Neilson and we’ll see about getting all of your things.”
“Peter,” Pepper said, and he leaned his head back to look up at her. “Your birthday is September 17th.”
“Oh, ok,” he said. “And- and I’m not- I’m- I’m not 14 right?”
“You’re 12 sweetheart.”
“That’s what dad said.”
“Peter’s in high school,” Tony supplied. “They told him he was 14. I’ll tell you about it later.” After everything Peter had said, about being lied to and always being told he was just confused about what he knew to be the truth, Tony didn’t want to tell Pepper right in front of him that Peter was confused about a lot of details.
“Ned’s birthday’s in September,” Peter supplied. “I can’t wait to tell him our birthdays are actually in the same month!” His mom was still playing with his hair. It was nice, and he felt like it was familiar, not just because his dad had run his hands through his hair earlier in the auditorium, but because he remembered from before May and Ben. May and Ben had never run their hands through his hair before. Anything involving his face or head was always violent, so he knew this familiar feeling had to have been from when he was much younger. “He got a Lego Death Star for his birthday. It’s over 4,000 pieces. We put a section of it together after school one time.”
“You have some Legos here,” Pepper said.
He rocked his head back to look up at her again. She looked down into his face and her breath caught. She hadn’t expected to be staring down into her baby’s brown eyes today. She’d expected to come home, exchange a few words with Tony, eat dinner across from him in silence, and then spend the evening by herself because Tony would be in his lab. Now suddenly she was sitting on her couch with her son and husband both right beside her. It was jarring, but so good.
“I do?” Peter asked.
“Mm hm. Every year on your birthday and Christmas I buy you new toys and put them in your room, for when you came home.”
“I, I have a room?”
She nodded. “Would you like to see it?”
Peter leapt off of the couch so suddenly that it made Pepper and Tony both feel cold from the gap he had left in between them. It caused both of them to stand up too. Peter rocked on his heels nervously. “Can I, I mean, I didn’t know where- can I see it?”
Pepper reached out her hand and Peter flinched away, but then he took it hesitantly, and she led him to the right side of the living room to a door that was closed. Tony always kept it closed because he couldn’t stand to walk past it and see the room and know that Peter wasn’t there. Sometimes Pepper had gone in to just sit on the bed, or to put new clothes and toys in there and had left the door open. Tony suspected she often left Peter’s bedroom door open if he was away on business or not home. He always closed it if he passed it and found it open. Now the room represented something entirely different to him… not the empty place in his heart, but the full space Pepper had kept in her heart, always believing Peter would come back to them. Thanks to that belief, Peter now had a space that was ready for him to occupy with toys and clothes for a 12 year old boy.
Pepper pushed the door open and flipped the light switch on and Peter peered inside. “It’s ok, you can go in,” she urged gently.
Peter took a tentative step in, letting go of her hand, and Pepper and Tony followed. There was a full size bed in the center of the room, covered in a dark blue comforter, and two pillows with dark blue matching pillow cases. There was also a soft dark blue rug on the floor beside the bed. On the wall on the left there were two shelves on the wall low enough for Peter to reach. One had books, the other had a few toys, including an Iron Man action figure and a red model car… the same one his dad had once had that he and Peter had worked on together.
Pepper pointed at an open door next to the shelves in the corner of the room and said, “There are clothes and toys in the closet Peter.” His eyes snapped up to hers, and then his gaze followed to where she’d indicated, and landed on the closet. He took a few tentative steps towards it, looked inside, and then quickly retreated back to his parents, pressing himself right up against Tony.
“Whoa, ok?” Tony asked. He’d felt a flash of fear across the link, but only for a brief moment.
“Yeah uh, yeah, yup, ok, I’m uh, can we- is the, is the uh, I mean, when will the food be here?”
“Any minute.” Tony backed out of the room, Peter hot on his heels.
“Peter?” Pepper asked when they’d walked back into the living room. “Is everything ok sweetheart? Did you not like the colors in your room?”
“Blue is good, it’s good, blue, blue is good. I like blue,” he rambled. “And red, bright red, like dad’s race car. I- I liked the uh, I liked the race car, on the shelf. I remember working on the race car.”
“You do?” she asked.
Peter nodded vigorously. Red was his favorite color, mostly because that memory of handing his dad tools beside the red car stood out in his mind. He was sorry now that he hadn’t grabbed the red model car before racing out of the room. He was too old to play with toys, at least, that’s what the kids at Midtown jeered at him if he mentioned toys. Ned played with Legos though, so Peter knew he wasn’t too old to play with the interlocking bricks. There had been more than a dozen boxed Lego sets in the dark walk-in closet piled on the floor. Peter ached to see what they all were, but there was no way he was going near that closet again. Not when he could easily be shut inside and locked away for days on end.
Tony’s phone dinged, and he left Peter and Pepper where they’d settled in on the couch again to go to the elevator. Peter turned to peer over the couch and watched curiously as the elevator door opened and Tony stooped down to pick up several paper sacks with the McDonald’s logo on them. Whoever had delivered them had put them in the elevator and sent them up. How odd.
“Dinner’s here,” Tony said. Peter leapt off the couch again, eager to eat and to see what his dad had ordered. “Stay there, I’ll bring it to you.” Tony came over to the couch, settled in next to Peter again, and set the bags on the table. He opened one up and began pulling things out. “I didn’t know what you liked, so I ordered all of it.”
“All of what?” Peter asked.
“Everything I could think of you might want to eat.” And he really had, because as he kept pulling things out of the first bag and then moved to the second and then the third, Peter found hamburgers, cheeseburgers, french fries, chicken nuggets, and other things spread around him. There was also a drink carrier with three drinks. Tony handed him one and it turned out to be a chocolate milkshake, which Peter accepted readily. It wasn’t that he never got to eat junk food, but May and Ben didn’t often buy takeout or fast food because it was expensive. Also, things like ice cream and milkshakes were only for the summer, and only if Peter had kept himself out of trouble for a good long while. It was a week into November now.
“I can- I mean, can I- is it ok to have ice cream?”
“Sure,” Tony said, “I ordered it for you.”
“But it’s November.”
“It’s ok to have ice cream in November,” Pepper said. “We have some in the freezer that we just got last week.”
“But I didn’t, I didn’t do anything to earn it yet.”
“Earn it?” she asked, voice quiet, flat.
“I, I mean, I’ve been good. I haven’t, I haven’t, I haven’t been in trouble for a while, but ice cream’s only- it’s only for if I did something really good.” He felt like he had done something wrong though. The FBI agent had said they’d gone to arrest May and Ben, but Peter couldn’t help but feeling like he’d somehow end up back there with them, and he’d end up locked in the living room closet by himself for causing trouble. Sitting here, getting to cuddle with his mom and dad, and having McDonald’s and a milkshake felt like something that was forbidden… it felt like the more he did that was against May and Ben’s rules, the more trouble he’d be in. He might be locked in the closet for two weeks for this.
Tony leaned into Peter and said, “Wanna know a secret Petey Pie?”
Peter looked over at him, eyes shining. “A- a secret?”
Tony nodded. “We’re Starks. Starks do what they want, ok? That means ice cream in November.” Tony took a straw, opened it, put it in the milkshake Peter was holding, and then leaned down and took a small drink of it. “See? Your mom might not let you have ice cream for three meals a day, but right now we’re having milkshakes, burgers and fries, all right?”
Peter looked down at his milkshake, mind spinning. Starks do what they want. Peter was a Stark, he knew that now for sure, but he really didn’t feel like one. He felt like Peter Parker. He brought the straw up to his lips and took a tentative sip. It was so good! Tony’s hand came up to his hair then, and Peter flinched back away from him, but then stilled and pushed his head towards his dad’s hand. Tony paused, waited a few seconds, and then ran his hand through his hair.
“Now, what do you want to eat?”
Peter looked at all the food set out before him, and grabbed for a burger wrapped in yellow paper. It looked like the one Ned had let him have weeks ago, and Peter was curious to see what it would taste like hot and fresh and not left over from the night before.
“Good choice,” Tony said. He reached for a box and Pepper reached down for a boxed salad. It was cramped trying to eat with the three of them smushed together on the couch, but Peter really didn’t mind, and he ended up turning towards his mom and leaning his back against his dad.
“Do you want to watch a movie while we eat?” Pepper asked. “We can watch whatever you want.”
Peter’s cheeks colored. He wanted to watch cartoons, but didn’t want to be called childish again. Ned didn’t watch cartoons, though he did watch some Anime. Peter had tried to watch the shows Ned suggested, but didn’t like any of them aside from Naruto.
“Pete?” Tony asked.
“Uh- uh, I uh, I dunno what to watch.”
“Did I hear you say you liked Star Wars?” Pepper asked.
“Oh yeah, me and Ned love Star Wars. That’s the best. Star Trek’s ok too but Star Wars is the best.”
Tony picked up the remote, the only other thing on the glass coffee table, and turned the huge flat screen TV above the gas fireplace on. He used it to search for a minute, and then finally found a Star Wars movie on a streaming service and turned it on. Peter ate his cheeseburger, had a few fries, finished off his shake, and then leaned back against his dad again and relaxed into him, feeling warm and sleepy as he watched the movie. It was only eight, far earlier than he usually went to bed, because May and Ben usually worked late which meant they didn’t even eat dinner until eight or nine, and sometimes on weekends after ten.
His eyes drifted shut by eight thirty, and he didn’t wake again, even when his dad turned the movie off halfway through and his mom and dad started talking quietly over him.
“Tony- how did you even- I don’t understand how you found him.”
Tony ran his fingers through Peter’s hair, and then got up, easing Peter down onto the couch gently so he didn’t wake up. He went into the master bedroom, found a small soft blanket that Pepper usually liked to wrap herself up in when reading, and came back and draped it over Peter. Then he motioned for Pepper to follow him away from the couch and to the open kitchen. They could still see Peter from there, but were far enough away that if they talked quietly they wouldn’t wake him up.
When they were in the kitchen, standing next to the kitchen island, he did something unexpected, and it surprised Pepper so much that she stiffened for a moment: Tony pulled her into him and hugged her tightly. He hadn’t initiated physical contact like this with her in a long time. They still slept in the same bed together, and he didn’t push her away if she hugged him, but this- this hug was surprising. She wrapped her arms around him uncertainly, and then like Peter had done, relaxed into him.
“I didn’t find him, he found me.”
“What do you-”
“At the high school Pep. I- I got up to give the spiel about the September Foundation, and as soon as I got up there my chest started to feel like it was being crushed… it felt like I was having a panic attack. It scared the hell out of me, because I don’t panic getting up to speak to a bunch of minors. It was just bizarre.”
He hadn’t pulled away from the embrace yet, and Pepper wasn’t about to break the physical contact when he clearly seemed to want and need it. For four years she’d watched him live in his self-imposed isolation. She’d wanted to hug him and kiss him every day, to just hold him and tell him it would be all right… for him to hold her and tell her that it would be all right… that they’d find Peter. She’d been at a total loss about how to help Tony when he hadn’t wanted the help. He’d even pushed Rhodey away, and Rhodey was his best friend. Rhodey’s best advice had been to let him work through it on his own, because Tony hadn’t just lost a son, but his soulmate. Pepper had tried to let him work through it, but then a year had turned into two, and then three, and then four. Losing Tony like that had hurt just as much as losing Peter.
“I just ignored the panic in my chest and sped through the speech. Then after the auditorium emptied I was on my way out and this kid stops me and tells me there’s someone that needs to talk to me, and he steps aside, and there’s Peter, shaking like a leaf and refusing to look at me.”
“You said he was in high school. How did he end up going to high school so young?” Pepper asked. She didn’t know how it had happened, or why, but it felt like some sort of miracle that Peter had been in the same school that Tony had gone to give a speech to.
“They lied to him and told him he was 14 and pushed him up two years in school to isolate him.”
“Who? Who had him?”
“I don’t really know. They were making Peter call them aunt and uncle… May and Ben Parker. They changed his name and everything.” Tony raced through the information Peter had relayed to the FBI, and added in his own suspicions that Peter had been mistreated because he flinched back hard anytime anyone reached out towards him, especially towards his face.
“I was angry at first when he came up to me in the auditorium. I was just going to storm out and leave him there. I thought he’d looked up information about our son and was just trying to claim he was him. But then he started to ramble off information we hadn’t ever given the FBI or the press… he remembered the lullaby we used to sing to him, and his stuffed zebra, and other things. And he kept telling me he knew his name was Peter. That’s when I realized the anxiety I had in my chest wasn’t mine, it was his. I was feeling everything he was feeling, even before he’d come up to me.”
Pepper hugged him tighter, and he squeezed her tighter in return. Then Tony pulled back, and she let her arms drop, sad that he’d pulled away. Just like that, that brief closeness they’d had, the closeness she’d been longing for for four years was gone. He took a step back and then began to unbutton his shirt just enough to show her his soul-mark.
“Look Pep, look at it. As soon as we hugged, the burn scar went away. It’s like it was never there.”
She stared at it, reached forward to touch it, and let her fingers run over the unmarred skin.
“Was he- was Peter burned too?”
Tony nodded. “His burn scar went away too. He hasn’t said what happened to his mark yet. It was hard for him to answer questions at the FBI, and I didn’t want to overwhelm him with even more questions.” Tony’s eyes came up to look at her. “You said… maybe he wasn’t following me… maybe I had to go through things to help him later on.”
She nodded. She firmly believed that Tony had been prepared over the course of his life to help their son with things he would experience, as much as that pained her to know that Peter had had to experience any hardships at all.
“I remembered what you said in the auditorium. I wanted to ask all kinds of questions, and then I remembered what it was like when I stepped off the plane getting back from Afghanistan.” He got quiet for long moments, eyes staring down somewhere past her elbow. “I was afraid you and Happy were going to ask me questions about what had happened. I was relieved when you didn’t… when you hugged me and were just… there for me.” He looked up at her. “So I didn’t ask him anything. I just sat on the floor and hugged him until Neilson got there. I know there’s things he hasn’t told me yet… or the FBI, but I’m afraid to push him.”
Pepper took a slow, deep breath, and then pulled Tony into a hug, not giving him a choice. He seemed ready for it though, after so long, and they just stood there for long moments. She knew he had tears in his eyes, but didn’t comment. He didn’t often get emotional about things. There had been times in that first month after he’d returned from Afghanistan where she would see his eyes wet. And when Peter had been taken he had cried. Then he’d locked all of his emotions down and disappeared into his lab. Now Peter was back, and he couldn’t hold his tears back any longer. Neither could Pepper, and her eyes got watery too.
“We have time,” she said, pressing her face into his neck. “A lot of time.” When Peter had been missing, it always felt like they were running out of time. Running out of time to find him before the kidnappers did something awful. Running out of time to find him before they took him to another part of the country, or another part of the world. Running out of time to find him before he grew up without them, or disappeared for good, not to be seen again. Now he was here sleeping on the couch, and it felt like a weight had been lifted off of her. It felt like she could breathe again after four years of not being able to draw in a strong breath. Peter was home, safe, and they suddenly had time to spare.
Tony and Pepper didn’t want to be without Peter on that first night. Tony ended up waking Peter up and asking if he wanted to go to sleep in his room, but Peter shook his head with wide eyes. Then he gave Peter the option of sleeping in bed with him and Pepper, and Peter had agreed to that. Pepper retrieved brand new pajamas from Peter’s room for him, and after he’d changed in the master bathroom, he wedged himself between Tony and Pepper in the huge bed in the master bedroom. He was asleep before Tony could even ask if he was comfortable. Pepper fell asleep next, despite that it wasn’t even ten yet, and that just left Tony. He watched over Peter as he slept, still completely in awe that his son was home.
The last time he’d seen Peter, he was just a little boy. He was still a child, but he’d grown several inches taller now. He’d grown past the cartoons younger children liked to watch, grown past a lot of things. Tony felt sad about that, but sad was a lot better than the emptiness he’d been feeling so fully for four years.
He got up out of bed and crossed the dark room, going out to the living room and then turning to go into Peter’s room. This was only his second time in here, and he wasn’t sure where anything was. He knew Pepper had kept some of Peter’s old things, but wasn’t sure where in here they would be. He flipped on the light, blinked several times at the brightness of the room, and then moved for the closet.
The walk-in closet was big. Clothes hung on both sides, and there were brand new toys piled on the floor, including several Lego sets. Up on a shelf he spied three big boxes and he reached up to pull the first one down. It had a photo album and old clothes Pepper had kept as keepsakes. Some of them were baby clothes.
Stuffing that box back onto the shelf he reached up and pulled the second one down and pulled the cardboard flaps back. Sitting right on top of some of Peter’s old toys was his prize: a faded stuffed zebra. They’d gotten it for Peter as a baby, and he’d slept with it ever since. It was one of the things Peter had told him he remembered. “And- and there was a stuffed zebra.”
Tony didn’t know why Peter rambled and repeated himself. It wasn’t something he’d done before he’d been taken. It might have just been because he was nervous and full of anxiety. It had been a trying day for him. Tony put the box back on the shelf and ran his fingers over the stuffed animal, looking down at it. Peter had carried this everywhere with him until he was five. Then he’d only cuddled it when he was upset or sleeping. It had lived on his bed. Tony had sat and held the stuffed zebra for days after Peter had been taken, just sitting on the edge of Peter’s bed in the house in Malibu. Then his soul-mark had been set ablaze and Tony had left the zebra on the bed and refused to go back into Peter’s room. He was glad Pepper hadn’t been quite as broken as he had been then and had thought to pack it away. He knew that wasn’t right though… Pepper had been broken too. The difference was, Tony had stayed that way, and she hadn’t.
He flipped the light off in Peter’s room and went back to his own room and got back into bed. He lifted Peter’s arm up, tucked the zebra underneath, and then stared at his son in the darkness. He was 12 now. He might not want to cuddle the stuffed animal anymore. Tony didn’t know, but this felt right, having the zebra there. He closed his eyes, and was finally able to sleep. It felt like it had been forever since he’d been able to drift off so easily.