Chapter 5
2008
2 days, 1 week, 0 months, 0 years
“Mr. Stark?”
“Yes, kid?” Tony replied.
This kid had taken to calling him Mr. Stark, refusing to refer to the older man as anything else, and Tony couldn’t deny that he was staring to find it adorable.
“Do you think sandwiches taste different if they’re in different shapes?” he asked.
Tony looked up from the lab report he was reading. It was boring and long and probably massively overdue and while he knew he was going to have to finish reading it eventually he was grateful for the distraction.
He paused and pretended to be deep in though for a moment.
“That’s an excellent question, but I can’t say I’ve thought about it before. Maybe they do. Why don’t we take a break and go put that idea to the test?”
Peter seemed to consider this offer for a few seconds before putting down the crayon he had been drawing with and giving a determined nod.
Half an hour later, the kid was settled on the island next to where an array of sandwiches were lay out. They had kept the fillings simple, peanut butter and jelly – Tony’s favourite, so that the focus was on the shapes. There were squares, rectangles and triangles, as well as stars, circles and little gingerbread men shapes that they had cut out with some old cookie cutters Tony had completely forgotten he had but had found at the back of one of his cupboards.
Peter had had a great time cutting out the shapes, peanut butter and jelly getting smeared across his hands and pyjamas. They were the same red as the pyjamas he had been wearing the night that they first met but, unlike those ones, Tony had made sure that all his new one’s would fit properly. There were gold areas and thin black lines that made them roughly replicate the shapes of his armour. Ever since Tony had shown Peter his suit and told him what it did, the kid had been borderline obsessed with his new favourite superhero.
“I want to start with the stars,” Peter announced excitedly.
Tony gave an amused hum. He’d really gone completely soft for this kid somehow in under two weeks.
“Are you sure?” he asked. “You don’t want to save the interesting shapes for last?”
The kid contemplated this for a moment.
“Well, I-”
He was cut off by a clearly frustrated red-head woman stormed into the kitchen. Her shiny black stilettos clicked fiercely against the hardwood floors and echoed slightly with each step she took
“What the fuck, Tony?!” Pepper yelled. “I’m worried out of my fucking mind and you’re chilling, making shaped sandwiches like you’re a fucking child?!”
“Watch your mouth, Pep,” Tony began.
He’d tried his best to be careful of his own use of foul language since Peter had turned up. Pepper didn’t give him a chance to continue any further.
“No,” she shouted harshly, coming to a stop on the opposite side of the island counter. “Don’t fucking start with that pretentious shit. No one’s heard from you in over a week! Not me, not Rhodey, not Happy. No one. You weren’t answering any of our texts or calls and neither was JARVIS. We thought you might have fucking died, Tony! We thought you might be dead!”
Tony looked at his hands guiltily. He had been ignoring his friends’ reaching out in favour of spending time with the kid. The kid didn’t press him to talk about what had happened with Stane like he knew his friends inevitably would.
“I’m sorry, really, I am. It’s just, something came up,” he started to explain, unsure where to begin. Normally he was so confident, but with her he felt like a kid again himself.
“It had better be really fucking good to justify the fear you’ve put me through.”
“The night I got back home, I found someone. He’s just a kid, Pepper, and he seemed so lonely.”
Pepper just looked confused and slightly sceptical.
“I don’t think she can see me, Mr. Stark,” Peter whispered. “Like JARVIS. I didn’t mean to get you into any trouble.”
The twisted look of pure guilt on the kid’s face when Tony looked over at him crushed his heart. It dragged all of his attention away from Pepper. He needed to fix this immediately.
“Hey, kid, this is not your fault. Pepper’s mad at me because I wasn’t being a good friend and I let her worry about me. That’s on me, not on you. Now, how about you take a selection of our sandwich shapes over to the sofa and give them a try while I talk to Pepper and then you can give me your report on our hypothesis later. Sound good?”
He kept his voice soft and steady, careful with his words as he watched the tension drain out of the kid and be replaced by the same excitement he had had earlier.
Tony placed two of each shape on a plastic plate (another thing he had found tucked away at the back of a cupboard – he really needed to get around to actually ordering more things for Peter now they were more sure he was going to be sticking around for a while). Tucking his hands under Peter’s armpits, he lowered the kid to the floor and handed him the plate, watching as he scampered off towards the sofa.
Pepper, who had been standing, watching what had to have only seemed like a one-sided conversation from her point of view, was now sporting a very confused and once again slightly fearful look.
“What they hell, Tony? That plate just hovered by itself! Explain.”
Guiding the startled woman over so they were sat on a couple of bar stools that gave him a clear view of this kid, Tony began to explain.
“Like I said, the night I got home after everything happened with Stane, there was this kid in my house. A young boy. I asked JARVIS how he got there but JARVIS just kept saying that there wasn’t anybody there. It was late and I was too tired to deal with it right then, thought maybe I was just seeing things, so I just put him in the guest room and went to bed.
He was still there the morning and we got talking. He’s called Peter, he’s an only child and an orphan, and he’s six or he technically he is at least.”
Tony took a deep breath before continuing at a much quieter volume.
“He’s dead, Pepper, and he knows he is. He was murdered in 1979, a few weeks before his seventh birthday. He remembers it all as well, the fear and pain of dying, and he’s been stuck all alone ever since.
I don’t know how I can see and hear him, or why, and I don’t care if you think I’m crazy but I can’t leave him, Pepper. I’m all he has anymore.”