We’re In This Together
Tony felt raw and on edge. Dreaming about the cave and the things that had happened there were one thing, but telling Rhodey about it had made it all feel fresh and new, like he’d just escaped yesterday. In the days after he’d told his best friend all the horrifying details, anxiety felt like it was clawing at his throat, making it hard to swallow, or to breathe. He didn’t know how to make it stop. What he did know was that he couldn’t just shut himself away in the lab. Rhodey had been right: the lab was a cave. It wasn’t the same cave, but it had served the same purpose: locking the outside world away and keeping Tony in. Now that he’d busted out of it… now that Peter was home, he couldn’t bring himself to do that again.
Pepper had been surprised to wake up to a work crew passing through their living room one morning. Tony was standing at the kitchen island drinking a cup of coffee, and Peter was sitting on the island cross legged next to him eating a bowl of cereal as the work crew carried tools and supplies in and out. Peter had been sticking close to Tony’s side for the past few days. Tony understood why. He knew his son could feel some of what he was feeling coming across the soul-bond between them. He felt bad about it, but Peter didn’t seem to mind, and Tony was grateful his son had insisted on being by his side and cuddling with him whenever Tony sat down somewhere.
“Tony, what’s going on?” Pepper asked, eyes following two men carrying a heavy piece of equipment down into the lab.
“A little remodel.”
“Little? It sounds like they’re jackhammering in there.”
“I uh, cleared the lab out last night and this morning. I stored all the tech in a secure lab on the 89th floor. They’re going to be working on this for the next week and I thought we could get out of town while they’re working… go somewhere. Happy will oversee the work and make sure the crew isn’t getting into anything they shouldn’t be in the penthouse.”
“That’s great,” she said. “We can go on vacation since Peter’s out of school for the week for Thanksgiving. But you still didn’t answer my question. What are you doing in there?”
Peter looked at him like he was interested to know too. Tony reached up to rub the back of his neck, and then gave Pepper a look that told her just how close to the surface his emotions had been the past few days. She gave him a concerned look and he cleared his throat.
“They’re ripping out the two outer walls and installing windows like in the rest of the penthouse.” He motioned to the wall of floor to ceiling windows to their right. “It- felt a little too much like a cave in there.” He hadn’t told her that he’d talked to Rhodey, at least not about Afghanistan, but she seemed to understand what he’d said to her nonetheless. Her face softened and she came around the island to stand next to him, reaching up to touch his face.
She gave him a kiss and said softly (as softly as she could and still be heard over the noise of Tony’s lab being destroyed), “So where are we going?”
“I was thinking about California. It’ll be warm enough to go to the beach. I thought maybe Peter might like to see where he was born.”
Peter brightened up at that instantly. “I’ve never been to the beach!”
“We used to take you all the time,” Pepper said. “I think you’re really going to like it.”
One of the benefits of being a Stark was having your own private jet. Within an hour and a half the three of them had their bags packed and found themselves on the runway in one of Tony’s three private jets. It would be a six hour flight to LA, but there was a big flatscreen TV on the jet and they had FRIDAY’s library of movies to keep them occupied.
Tony could feel Peter’s excitement and tension radiating through their bond.
“Nervous?” he asked his son as the plane prepared to take off. Peter was buckled in between his mom and dad.
“I’ve, I don’t think I’ve, I haven’t flown before.”
“You’ve flown quite a few times,” Tony told him. “There’s nothing to worry about, ok kiddo?”
“Right, yeah, nothing to- there’s not- I mean, we’re not gonna crash right?”
Pepper wrapped her arm around his shoulder, her other hand coming up to cradle his head. “We won’t crash sweetheart. What the Parker’s told you isn’t true. It didn’t really happen.”
Tony looked out the window for a moment. It was a lie. Ben Parker’s brother and sister in law had died in a plane crash just before Ben and May had kidnapped Peter. The FBI psychologist had relayed to Tony via e-mail the week before that he believed that the event had triggered the Parkers to kidnap a child and raise the child in the name of Mary and Richard. Tony didn’t know if he believed it or not. He wanted to just believe that the Parkers were evil… there was never a good reason to kidnap a child… to abuse a child.
The plane lifted off the ground, the city falling away below them, and with it: tension he hadn’t realized he’d been holding in himself seemed to fall away as well. His eyes found Stark Tower before the plane turned West. By the time they got back to New York there would no longer be a cave in the penthouse… just a lab with floor to ceiling windows overlooking the city along two walls. Part of him wondered if this would actually help him get back to work in the lab. He really didn’t know if it would or not.
“So what do you want to watch buddy?” Tony asked, turning back to his family. He unbuckled his belt and noted that Pepper had already taken hers off.
They settled on a movie that MJ had been trying to get Peter to watch, followed by several episodes of a Star Wars cartoon.
Sitting beside his wife and son, flying off to their home in Malibu… it all seemed surreal. It was real, but it felt like it wasn’t at the same time. Pepper had never given up hope that they’d find Peter, but Tony realized somewhere around the third episode of Clone Wars during the flight that he had given up hope. He’d given up hope, and then Peter had found him… had been brave enough to approach him and tell him the truth, despite all the lies Peter had been fed over the years. Had Peter given up hope too? Tony didn’t know, and didn’t want to ask.
He stared down at his son, who was watching the big screen TV with an intense stare, clearly very into the plot of the show.
“Dad?”
“Hm?”
Peter looked up at him, gaze still intense. “Your mind is all jumbled up again… like… like the ocean.”
“Sorry.”
Peter’s gaze lingered on him, but then the intensity of the stare softened, and a smile came over his face.
“S’ok, my mind’s jumbled up too.”
Tony wrapped his arm around him and tried to focus on the show so he wasn’t sending guilt and self-loathing across the soul-bond to his son.
* * *
Pepper had been back to California a couple dozen times since they’d moved to New York because she had to go back to the LA offices for work and important meetings. Once they’d moved, Tony had made it a point not to come back. He hadn’t wanted to come back to the home he’d shared with his family when he knew it would be so empty. Peter was here now though, and Tony was filled with that sense of disbelief again from the plane.
As soon as they got inside the house, Peter ran to the wall of windows overlooking the patio and the ocean. It looked like he was trying very hard not to press his hands and face up against the pristine glass. The sun was setting over the water, flecks of sunlight glistening on the ocean surface.
Tony set his and Peter’s suitcases down in the living room and watched his son, Pepper doing the same next to him. Peter was here, he was here, but this house felt like it was inhabited by ghosts.
Pepper squeezed him and Tony looked at her for a moment, before moving across the living space to the wall of windows.
“Lots of water,” Peter murmured up to him.
“Is it everything you remembered?”
Peter cast his gaze around the concrete patio just outside the window, and then turned slowly to take in the kitchen and the living room. His eyes fell on a closed door and he just stared at it.
“Go ahead,” Pepper said from behind him. “You can go in there.”
Peter approached the door tentatively and reached out for the door knob like it would sprout teeth and then bite him. “What’s in there?” he asked.
“Open it,” Pepper urged, and Peter turned the door knob and stared into a bedroom with a wall of windows overlooking the ocean.
“This is my room?” he asked, but his tone made it clear that he already knew it was. He walked inside and Tony followed, eyes taking in the room. It wasn’t what Tony remembered. The last time he’d been in here, there had been a race car bed and toys for a 7 year old. Now it looked like it matched Peter’s room in the tower. There was a full size bed with an orange and blue comforter, a shelf with books like Harry Potter, and a desk with a model car… one that matched one of Tony’s other cars. Tony hadn’t realized that Pepper had been keeping up this room too, or maybe she hadn’t. Maybe after Peter had come home just over a month ago she’d paid someone to come put this together in case they came back to Malibu.
“What do you think?” Pepper asked.
“I love it,” Peter said, flopping onto the bed. Tony noted how Peter’s eyes roved around the room looking for a closet. This room had always had a wall to wall wardrobe however.
Pepper showed Peter the rest of the house and made sure he remembered where the bathrooms were while Tony ordered dinner. Peter found a couple of board games in his room and brought them out and they played until he was ready for bed.
Hours later, when Tony found himself unable to fall asleep, Pepper rolled towards him and asked, “What is it?” Clearly she hadn’t been able to sleep yet either.
“Did you have his room put together after he came back?”
She was quiet for long moments in the dark room. “No.”
“You kept it up all this time.” It wasn’t a question.
After a long silence she said, “I needed to. I had to believe he was coming home.” When Tony didn’t respond after a minute, she said, “It bothers you.”
Tony made a noise to acknowledge her, but didn’t respond otherwise.
“Why?”
He stared at the dark ceiling, and after a moment her hand came to rest on his chest. “I gave up on him… you didn’t.”
Her hand trailed along his chest, up his neck, and then cupped the side of his face. She pulled gently until his face came close to hers, and their eyes met in the darkness. “No you didn’t,” she said.
“I gave up Pep. I lost all hope that we’d find him.” Maybe that was why he’d locked himself away. He didn’t want to be out in a world without Peter in it. “The only reason he had clothes and toys and a room to come back to in the tower… and here, was because you didn’t give up. What did I do? I locked myself away and forgot about him.” The last part wasn’t true. He’d thought of Peter every day.
“Honey-” she seemed at a loss for words for several moments. Then her hand slid up his face and into his hair where she smoothed it back. “You locked yourself away and were miserable for four years because you couldn’t give up, not even if you wanted to.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I know because I know you,” she said.
He didn’t know what to say to that. She was one of the few people that really did know him. He had given up though, hadn’t he? “You prepared for his return. I didn’t do anything.”
“You became Iron Man,” she said.
He huffed a humorless laugh. “That was- that had nothing to do with him.”
“Didn’t it? I made sure he had a room to come home to. You made sure he had a world to live in. You stayed in your lab building a suit to fight aliens and terrorists. I saw that and I just- I wanted to do something too. I couldn’t help you, and I couldn’t help Peter. What I could do was make sure there was space in our lives for him when he came back. We’re all just doing the best we can.” She ran her fingers through his hair again and then scooted closer and settled her head against his shoulder.
He’d never felt like he was doing enough… not when he was a child and Howard was putting him down for his schoolwork or projects, not when he was working with the FBI to find Peter, and not when he was building his suits and facing off with aliens. That feeling of not being able to do enough drove him forward to do everything he could do and then some. That feeling frequently pushed him past his limits until he found new barriers to break. Pepper believed he was doing the best he could though… that they both were. As she continued to run her fingers through his hair in the darkness, he started to believe for the first time that maybe he was doing the best he could, and that he had been all along. He’d survived Afghanistan. He’d pushed through the four years without Peter despite that he hadn’t wanted to. He’d pushed through talking to Rhodey the week before when he wasn’t sure he could. Howard had never told him to do the best he could, he’d always told him to be the best, like it wasn’t an option. Tony didn’t feel like the best anything, but if all Pepper wanted from him was to do the best he could… if she believed he already had been… that was comforting in a way he’d never known before.
“Pretty sure I haven’t told you lately how lucky I am to have you.”
“Mmm,” Pepper murmured, already drifting off to sleep. As he closed his eyes, he was certain she had already fallen asleep, but then she told him quietly, “We’re lucky to have each other.”
* * *
Peter’s excitement to go to the beach, even if it was a little chilly out, had rubbed off on Pepper and Tony both. There was a private little strip of sandy beach that they owned a few minutes drive from the house, and Peter had begged them to take him before they could even make breakfast the next morning.
“I remember the water,” Peter said. “I don’t, I can’t, I can’t remember the sand.”
“Well we’re going to have to remedy that,” Tony told him.
They wore coats, but Peter took his shoes and socks off and left them in the car, determined to walk barefoot the whole way.
Tony and Pepper trailed behind him as they walked down the beach, Peter practically frolicking as he ran to the edge of the water, and then ran back as a wave came in, cold water washing over his feet and ankles.
“It’s cold!” he shouted back at his parents, but there was delight in his voice.
“We’ll have to come back in the summer,” Tony told him. “Don’t get your clothes wet buddy!”
Peter gave a thumbs up instead of shouting back to them, but it was only a few minutes before he ‘pretended’ to fall into the six inches of water and came out soaked.
“Oops,” he said, looking up at his dad with a mischievous grin.
“Oh sure,” Tony said, “that was a completely believable tumble into the water, although, next time you might not wanna make it look like you’re diving headfirst to take a swim.”
Peter just grinned back at him in response.
It was breezy out, and there was no way they could keep walking with Peter in soaking wet clothes, so they headed back down the beach to the car, where Pepper pulled a blanket out of the trunk and wrapped Peter up in it before he got into the back seat and buckled in.
“Can we come back again?” he asked.
“Of course,” Pepper told him.
The rest of the afternoon was spent in front of the gas fireplace in the living room, Peter bundled up in warm clothes and a soft blanket as they drank hot chocolate and played board games.
They went back to the beach for a walk every morning for the rest of the week, even on the one day that it rained. That day they all came back to the house soaking wet and laughing, ready to sit by the fire after changing clothes and drying off.
They went to a museum, watched movies, played board games, and spent time cuddled up together as a family in the living room. As the week wore on and Tony caught himself smiling more and more, especially every time he heard Peter laugh or saw the grin on his face, or the warmth in Pepper’s eyes when he caught her looking at Peter or at him, life started to feel less surreal and more like it had always been this way. Life hadn’t always been this way, not for any of them, but Tony wanted it to be this way from this point going forward. He would give anything for his family to keep being surrounded with the love and warmth they’d felt that week in Malibu.
* * *
Construction on the lab in the penthouse was complete by the time they returned from their trip. They were tired from the flight back and Tony just wanted to have dinner and relax, but Peter was eager to see the new lab.
Tony unlocked the glass door leading from the dining room down into the lab and he and Peter went in. The sun was setting over the city and Peter’s mouth fell open at the new view.
“Whoa.”
“Not bad, right?” Tony asked.
“Look! You can see out both walls now!” With two walls being floor to ceiling windows, the lab now felt open to the world.
“FRIDAY, privacy screen in the lab,” Tony said, and all of the windows frosted over. They still let light in, but they were completely opaque now. Even without the privacy screen someone outside wouldn’t be able to see in because it was one way glass, but having the digital privacy screen meant they’d be able to block out some of the light when the sun was shining directly in at certain times of the day. “Privacy screen off FRIDAY.” The glass became transparent again, and Peter stood staring out at the city like he’d stood staring out at the ocean in the living room in Malibu.
Tony walked up beside him to stare out at the city too. It was an impressive sight… one he had never seen from his lab before and often forgot to pay attention to when he was in the rest of the penthouse. He reached up and settled his hand on the top of Peter’s head. Peter didn’t flinch back from him. He still did sometimes, but it had gotten less frequent the more his mother and father touched his hair. Tony and Pepper had agreed shortly after Peter had come that desensitizing him to being touched on his hair and being hugged would help, especially since Peter was open to both of those gestures.
“What’re you thinking about buddy?” Tony asked.
“S’like an ocean,” he said, and for a moment Tony didn’t know if Peter was talking about Tony’s mind again, or the view. Peter indicated the city though and Tony nodded.
“Yeah, I can see that,” he said. The city stretched out in all directions for quite a ways, and as the sun set, the light glinted off of skyscraper windows like it glinted off the Pacific.
“Is it fun flying over the city in your suit?” Peter asked again. The lab was still empty because Tony needed to move everything back up from the lab a few floors below, but Peter was standing right where Tony’s suits usually stood in their docking bays.
“Sure,” Tony said.
“Ned is gonna get to learn to drive soon…” Peter trailed away. “Can I uh, when I’m old enough, can I, could I learn to- to fly in your suits?”
Tony laughed and ruffled his hair. “We’ll see. You want to be Iron Man’s sidekick?”
“I want to fly over the city,” Peter said. “Like… through the buildings and, and to help people, like you do.”
“It’s a big job,” Tony said. A job that came with injuries, and enemies, and a lot of expectations. Tony hadn’t minded taking it on because it kept his mind busy, even if only for brief intense intervals.
“I’ll be an Avenger too,” Peter said. “Then- then we can go out and save people together.”
He leaned into Tony’s side and continued to stare out into the city. Tony was an Avenger. He’d made himself into one. He didn’t want Peter to ever be put in that position… to be in danger constantly, or to have an ever growing list of enemies, but he wasn’t certain he could tell his son that he couldn’t be a superhero. Not only did he not want to squash his son’s dreams like Howard had frequently done to Tony, but the soul-bond they shared meant it was likely that the same fate may also await Peter in some form or fashion. If Tony had gone through things in order to help Peter through them in the future, then he would have to be ready for that eventuality. If and when Peter became a superhero, he’d be there for him, ready and waiting to guide him through that process. He’d be there to teach him and help him. No matter what, Tony was going to be there for his son.
* * *
Pepper approved of the changes to the lab. It took Tony two days to get everything moved back into the lab and another two to get it all set up the way he wanted it with Peter’s help.
Peter had been delighted to find that his dad had set up a workbench right next to his with a stool just for Peter. He’d also bought a red toolbox for Peter, smaller than his own, and filled it with brand new tools. Peter loved to build things… had built hundreds of little things with the erector set Ben had given him, but now he had unlimited supplies to build what he wanted.
After the lab was set up, his dad had spent two days after school helping him build a brand new gaming PC. Peter had never had much of a chance to play video games, though recently he’d been allowed to go to Ned’s house after school and had played some there. Now he had his very own gaming PC with half a dozen games his dad had helped him download. His mom had bought a desk and chair and set them up in his room, and they’d moved the gaming PC in there. It wasn’t just the gaming that excited Peter, but the other possibilities the computer opened up to him. He now had a computer to use for research for school projects, and to use to chat with Ned and MJ when he had free time. Having a phone to call and text his friends was great, but using the PC he’d built with his dad felt even better.
After the PC was finished, his dad gave him an old motor to take apart and rebuild, and they spent an entire Saturday working on it. Peter was also given a box of scrap parts from his dad’s other projects, and it was like having a brand new erector set that he could build whatever he wanted with.
The workbench, the tools, the spare parts… they were all amazing, but the best part of the new lab was that he got to spend time in there with his dad after school and on weekends when his mom was busy. His dad seemed to enjoy spending time in there with him too, even if his dad’s mind was frequently still a sea of thoughts and emotions, some of which Peter didn’t always understand.
“You looking for this?” Peter asked, holding out a wrench to his dad. He’d borrowed it the day before and forgot to put it back in one of his dad’s massive tool boxes on wheels.
“Yeah, thanks,” Tony said, taking it.
“Sorry, sorry,” Peter said. “I forgot to- I just forgot to put it back.”
“Don’t worry about it.” Tony reached over and ruffled his hair and then went back to working on a piece of medical equipment he’d been developing and getting ready to send down to R and D. Peter felt a flash of happiness come across the link from his dad, but also other things all mashed together with it.
As Peter sat beside his dad in the lab doing his homework, which he needed to finish before he could go play World of Warcraft online with Ned, his own mind started to go into overdrive, feeling like its own ocean of thoughts, swirling and mashing together. Most of them were good thoughts. Things like how his mom and dad didn’t get upset with him for forgetting to put a wrench back after he borrowed it, and how he felt safe enough to make mistakes, or to do silly things like fall into the surf at the beach even after he’d been told not to get his clothes wet. He might get in trouble, though it hadn’t happened yet, but if and when it did, he knew he’d be ok. Whatever they’d do to punish him, he wasn’t afraid of it, not like before he’d found them again. His mom and dad had gone out of their way to make sure he felt safe and welcome, even going as far as walling up his closet and installing a wardrobe and dresser instead.
Peter let his eyes roam around the lab to the new windows that had been installed. He’d often felt the same dark fear and anxiety that crept up on him at the thought of the closet in his room coming from his dad when thinking of or entering the lab. He didn’t feel that from him anymore… not since the remodel.
“Dad?”
“Yeah?” Tony kept fiddling with a piece of the machine he was working on. He’d brought out a soldering iron and was working on the wires.
“I’m glad you got rid of your closet too.”
“Huh?” Tony looked up from the wires and over at Peter. “My closet?”
Peter looked around the lab again, and he felt understanding coming across the bond, along with a heavy feeling in his chest like his dad was sad, though Peter didn’t know about what.
Tony set the soldering iron down and turned it off. “Do you understand what happened to me? Do you remember what happened to me before you were taken from us?”
Peter gave a solemn nod and said quietly, “You got kidnapped… you were- you were gone for a long time… in a dark scary place.”
His father gave a nod and Peter had the odd feeling that the bond between them had been walled off suddenly… like his dad was putting up a wall of some other emotion than what he was actually feeling. Peter wondered how he was doing it.
“I was stuck in a dark cave.” He turned to look at Peter and asked, “Were you stuck in a dark closet?”
Peter shivered and gave a jerky nod. After a few moments of silence, his dad asked, “Do you want to tell me about it?”
After a deep breath to steady himself, Peter fiddled with the edge of the worksheet he’d been working on for a moment and said, “If I got in, when I was, if I was in really big trouble. Like… like when the police came asking, asking about me, because I said, because I was telling people I was, that I was- that you were my- that I was kidnapped.”
Suddenly Peter couldn’t feel the wall of false confidence and security coming from his dad because Peter was overwhelmed with his own emotions. “I was, it was small, and, and dark, and, and they locked it from outside. I couldn’t get out… they let me out for, for the bathroom, and they, they put granola bars and, and water inside, but I was stuck inside.”
“For how long?” Tony asked, voice quiet but solid.
Peter shrugged. “A long time. A- a week maybe? I, I, I dunno. Two weeks? A, a, a couple times… a few times maybe. I- I don’t, I don’t remember it all. I just tried to be good. Then I didn’t- I wouldn’t have to go into the closet.” Peter messed with the edge of his worksheet for long moments, and then looked back up at him and asked, “Did the kidnappers in the cave, did they hit you?”
“They weren’t very nice,” his dad said, but that was all it seemed he was going to say. Peter decided that it meant that they did hit him. Then his dad turned the question around on him again like Peter knew he would. “Did the Parkers hit you?”
“They’d uh, I mean, aunt May, she’d like, if I was arguing, or, or if I wasn’t getting good grades, or, or, she’d just come up behind me and, and like, smack the back of my head hard. It would sting for a while. I never, I didn’t really know when it was coming. And, and if I forgot the things they wanted me to say… my name, or, or my parents names, they, I’d get smacked in the face. Sometimes- I mean, I know things are different here… that you won’t… I won’t get smacked. It’s hard to remember that it’s different now sometimes.”
“Can I hug you?”
Peter nodded and Tony rolled his stool over to him and pulled him into a hug. He rested his face into the top of Peter’s head in his hair and they just sat like that for long moments. Into his hair his dad said, “It’s ok. Sometimes I can’t remember too.”
Peter squeezed him and his father squeezed him in return. His dad’s project and Peter’s homework sat forgotten on the workbench as they sat there hugging. It was times like this, in his parents arms, when he had no trouble remembering that things were different. In his dad’s arms he felt like May and Ben were a million miles away.
* * *
Tony hadn’t expected Peter to just open up to him about the horrible things he’d experienced with the Parkers, but he had, not because he wanted to, but because he related to what Tony had gone through. He’d known Peter was probably picking up on his anxiety over the lab before the remodel, but he hadn’t expected his son to understand so exactly what he’d been through in that cave. It broke his heart that his son did understand some of it.
He hadn’t told Peter much about his time in the cave, because Peter was too young and didn’t need to know, but Tony felt like it helped knowing that his son understood him. It also seemed to help Peter, like Pepper had said, that Tony was there and knew so exactly what it was like to be fearful even when completely safe… to know what it’s like to be scared of dark enclosed spaces and to want so desperately to go home, even when you aren’t allowed to.
He couldn’t tell Peter everything about Afghanistan because Peter looked haunted enough some days all on his own without adding Tony’s crap into the mix. He couldn’t tell Peter all of it, but after he’d told Peter some of it and then Peter had left the lab to go play an online game with Ned, Tony decided that just telling Rhodey wasn’t enough. He’d never wanted to burden Pepper with all the details, but now he felt like he had to. He needed her to understand, because even though they weren’t bonded soulmates, he still felt like they were. Telling Rhodey had been like getting his first glimpse of freedom after he’d fought his way out of the cave, but now he felt like he had to tell Pepper all of it to really get away from it. That realization came with another sinking thought on its heels that he’d hurt both himself and Pepper by just locking himself away in the lab for four years. He’d left her all alone for all that time. She had a soul-mark too… a soul-mark that would belong to a future child. He hated to think that that future child would also suffer through a stretch of loneliness like that.
“Hey Pep?”
“Yeah?” She looked up from the book she was reading, propped up in bed against the headboard. He was getting ready for bed because he needed to be up early to take Peter to school.
“Maybe on the weekend we can arrange for Peter to go to Ned’s house for a few hours.”
“Hm? Ned’s scheduled to come over Sunday and have lunch.”
“Right.” Tony was quiet for a moment as he changed his shirt and threw the grease covered t-shirt into the hamper. “Maybe Saturday though… Pete can go over Saturday.”
“Was there something he was wanting to do over there that he can’t do Friday after school?”
“I wanted to tell you something,” Tony said. He felt nervous in a way he usually didn’t… like when he’d first asked her if she’d consider going on a date with him.
She patted the bed next to her and said, “My book can wait. Come talk to me.”
He took a deep breath and let it out and then gave her a look he hoped didn’t convey just how nervous he was feeling. “I can’t. I need Peter to be somewhere else when I talk to you.” He didn’t want Peter close by feeling everything through the bond. He watched her face anxiously to see what she thought about that. Her face wasn’t betraying any of her emotions though and he wished for a moment that they really were soulmates so he could know what she was feeling.
“I’ll take tomorrow off, how about that? We can drop Peter off at school together.”
Tony gave a nod. He thought the anxiety would fade, but it was refusing to go anywhere, and it stayed until the next morning.
They dropped Peter off at school together, grabbed coffee on the way back to the penthouse, and then settled back onto the bed in their bedroom. Pepper didn’t ask him what he wanted to talk about, she just sat and waited for him to feel ready to speak.
“First, Peter told me about some things last night. Remember that he was afraid of the closet in his bedroom?” She gave a nod, face hard like she was expecting the worst. He wished he didn’t have to deliver this kind of news at all. “If he was in trouble they used to lock him in there. He’d only be allowed out for the bathroom. They gave him food and water, and he just had to stay in there until they let him out. I knew he was afraid of the closet, I could feel it coming off of him, I just didn’t know why until last night.”
“If they weren’t already in jail-” she trailed away, and he nodded. He felt the same way. If it had really been as the FBI thought, that the Parkers couldn’t have kids of their own and kidnapped one to raise, then they wouldn’t have abused him like that.
“He also said they would come up behind him and smack the back of his head when he least expected it if he’d done something wrong, and that they’d smack his face if he couldn’t remember the lies they told him about his life.”
Pepper’s face morphed into anger and Tony thought it looked like she wanted to throw her coffee across the room. “He just told you all of it last night?” she asked, eyes alight with anger, though her face had fallen into sadness.
Tony nodded. “He uh… he said he was glad I’d gotten rid of my closet.”
“Your-”
“The lab.” Tony motioned to himself and said, “Since he came back, it’s been hard to go in there. Peter can feel all of that through the bond. When Rhody came, he said-” Tony paused and ran his hand through his hair. “He said something that made me start thinking.” He said something that threw me into a fucking panic attack, Tony amended in his head.
He looked up at Pepper, took a deep breath and decided that the only way he was going to make it through this conversation was to plunge into the tumultuous sea of his emotions head first. “I want to tell you what happened in Afghanistan.” He looked up at her and found her watching him, surprised, though sadness still lingered in her eyes and on her face. “If you want to hear it. It’s- a lot.” It was a burden, and it would put a burden on her to hear it, just like he was sure it had for Rhodey. Tony just didn’t want to carry it alone anymore.
She put a hand on his knee and left it there. “I’ve been waiting for you,” she said. Waiting to hear it all. Waiting for him to come out of his lab. Waiting for him to get back from Afghanistan. She’d been waiting… waiting and willing to meet Tony wherever he was at.
“Have I told you lately how lucky I am to have you?” he asked.
She took his hand and then squeezed. “Frequently.” Tony supposed it was true. Peter had come back and dragged Tony out of his hiding spot and out into the light where Pepper was waiting for both of them. He realized every day just how lucky he was to have her and Peter. Despite how nervous he was to tell her about Afghanistan, he felt the same warmth and love he’d felt at the house in Malibu the week before settling over him. He couldn’t wait until Peter got home to share in that feeling with him, and to know that his son was coming home at the end of the day. It was the best feeling in the world.