the second coming
Clear!
He felt a zap, a release of pressure surging through every single muscle and crevice in his body as pure electricity seeped through him.
Clear!
He felt his heart beating, his blood flow returning to a normal pace as he began to feel his fingertips.
Clear!
His eyes opened, wide in shock. His entire body was on fire, like he was a flame in a burning candle.
He stared at the room around him, groggy and confused. Eyes beating down on him like they had seen a zombie burst through a coffin.
Theoretically, they had.
Because Tony Stark had practically risen from the dead.
People began to crowd his small hospital bed after he gained consciousness. He remembered that Pepper came crashing towards him first, he seemed to remember, because she stepped forward before everyone, Morgan hanging loosely in her left hand. She looked tired. Beaten down.
He didn’t remember anything else from that day, mostly due to the sleep state that overtook him shortly after he awoke, but he did remember Pepper and Morgan engulfing him in hug. He couldn’t remember the other faces that were made known in that room that day, but he could pinpoint that one specific person was absent as he asked—
“Where’s the kid?”
He never got his answer. Instead, he promptly passed out for another two days after he was already in a coma for a year.
It wasn’t really a coma. Not really, anyways. The doctors thought he was dead. For an entire year his oxygen levels were depleting day by day, barely scratching the surface to keep him alive and breathing. Pepper refused to pull the plug. Refused to let him die, even though his oxygen levels were barely keeping him afloat.
Until two days ago, when his levels skyrocketed enough that they were able to perform CPR to get his heart pumping regularly again, furthermore allowing Tony to live properly. To breathe without wires attached to every part of his body.
When he woke up for the second time, the lights in the room were too bright and the sheets underneath him felt like sandpaper. Pepper was there, this time with Happy by her side who looked like the happiest man in the world despite the bags underneath his eyes. Pepper looked better. She looked like she slept somewhat, maybe had a full meal in the time she came to know Tony Stark as not a rotting corpse in a hospital bed.
Hospital air feels stuffy, Tony decided. Constrictive, in a way. Maybe that was why Tony couldn’t utter a sentence as Pepper cried into the shoulder of his hospital gown, or as tears fell down Happy’s face whenever she did so.
Coming back from basically being dead was weird. Seeing the floods of people barging into his room and spewing their endless amounts of gratitude for his return and his actions, the faces of his friends and family, the gracious looks of the hospital staff. No, that wasn’t the weird part.
The weird part was that not one of them was Peter.
He had tried to ask about him again, later when he was back home and when he could speak again and when he wasn’t wearing a hospital gown that left nothing to the imagination. When he was rolling around in a wheelchair while his legs learned to walk again.
This time, Pepper just looked at him with mild suspicion and confusion as she made it very clear that Morgan was his only child, the only child that she knew of that he had. He thought she was crazy. Crazy for not seeing Peter as his kid.
He continued to question it, but didn’t utter another word about it to Pepper. To anyone, really.
He figured maybe Peter was off somewhere. Maybe he was in college and Pepper had failed to notify him, or maybe he was off with May somewhere. He figured there was a logical explanation for it.
Until Doctor Strange came knocking on the door of his house.
”Stark.” He said. No formal greeting.
There was a mild tone of anger in his voice, maybe annoyance, maybe fear, as he spoke. Tony thought that he came by maybe to offer condolences for his half death, or maybe for gratitude for saving the world, since all of the distant Avengers just became aware of Tony’s living presence. But that didn’t happen.
Instead, Tony wheeled his wheelchair all the way to the door in greeting, while Pepper stood in a welcoming stance towards the sorcerer, who just blankly stared.
”Sorry to intrude, but this matter couldn’t wait.” Strange said, stepping through the doorway and eyeing both Tony and Pepper. Morgan took that as her que to find her way up the stairs.
“Hello to you too?” Tony said, mildly questioning.
Strange sighed, ignoring his greeting. “What do you know about the multiverse, Stark?”
Tony and Pepper exchanged a brief look before inviting him to sit on the couch and bringing him a cup of tea. Strange didn’t so much as touch it.
”I know somewhat.” Tony answered, wheelchair seated across from Strange as he spoke.
“Okay, let me ask you this,” Strange hesitated slightly. “Do you know Spiderman?”
Tony looked at him like he was the dumbest person on earth, tilting his head to the side with an unreadable look on his face. “Peter?”
Strange mirrored his expression. “Is that his name?”
Tony scoffed. “You’ve met the kid, how do you not know his name?”
“I’ve never seen his face. And he’s never told me his name. How would I know who he is?”
What? “We fought in space together, news flash, and unless you’ve gotten a foggy memory in your old age, you have seen his face.”
Pepper looked equally confused, turning to Tony. “You know who Spiderman is?”
Tony felt like he was in a dream. “What is going on with you guys, look, I have a picture of him right here let me just—“
He began to wheel his way towards the kitchen in hunt of the picture frame that sat on his kitchen shelves of him and Peter. When he couldn’t find it, he turned around to see Strange with his arms crossed behind him.
”That’s the problem.” He said.
Tony stared at him for a second, puzzled. Strange just shook his head.
”About a week ago, I casted a spell involving Spiderman. And the problem is, I can’t remember. No one seems to.”
Tony gaze hardened at that, eyeing Strange with suspicion. Maybe it was worry, or horror.
“When did you wake up, Tony?”
”Two weeks ago.”
”Do you know the day?”
Tony huffed. “It was a Thursday.”
Strange hummed. “That explains it.”
“Explains what, Strange?” Tony snapped. “What’s going on with the kid?”
Strange leaned on the counter behind him, arms still crossed as his expression stayed the same. “I really don’t know.”
“What the hell do you mean—“
“Stark, I assure you if I knew I would tell you. This entire situation is very complicated.”
Tony thought his head was going to implode from pure annoyance. “Okay, Gandalf, what‘s the situation, then.”
“A week ago, I casted a spell involving Spiderman. One that I can’t seem to remember. The issue is, it’s apparently causing a lot of problems on a multiversal scale.”
“Which means?” Tony asked.
”Which means,” Strange repeated. “That the multiverse is bringing things here, bringing things back, that were previously lost. Are you catching my drift, Stark?”
Tony could have sworn his heart stopped for a second time. “I wasn’t dead.”
Strange hummed knowingly. “You were about to be.” He said. “In this timeline, you aren’t supposed to be alive. That’s how we won. Your sacrifice.”
Tony could barely speak. Pepper must have heard, too, because she was in the kitchen in a heartbeat. Morgan tucked away in her room.
”What do you want us to do, Stephen?” She asked. “This isn’t our problem.”
”On the contrary.” Strange said. “I wouldn’t be here otherwise.”
”This involves Spiderman, you said?” He looked back at Pepper slightly before returning his gaze to Strange, who nodded.
”What do you need?”
He heard a string of annoyance from Pepper, who didn’t see the importance of whatever Tony was agreeing to, but Tony ignored it entirely.
“You can’t even walk, Tony.” She said.
”And I was literally dead and came back to life, the limits of what I can do doesn’t depend on me at this point.” He shot back.
Strange glanced between them, lips forming in a line. “Great.” He opened a portal. “I need you to find Spiderman for me and bring him to me.”
He stepped through. “We need to have a little chat.”
As he was closing the portal around himself, Tony’s eyebrows furrowed.
”And why can’t you?” He hesitated. “Get him, I mean?”
“Because, Stark.” Strange paused, fingers drawn upwards as if he was going to shut the portal without uttering another word. “I’ve tried. It hasn’t worked. Maybe he’ll listen to you.”
He closed the portal, allowing Pepper to grab his arm in annoyance and question him further. Her face seeping with anger.
“Tony.” She spat. “You can’t just—“
She sighed, walking around the room slightly and placing her middle fingers on the corners of her eyes. “You can’t get involved with Spiderman.”
Tony’s brows furrowed. “And why not?”
”Look, Spiderman is a walking liability. The amount of trouble he’s caused Stark Industries in the past months is enough to cause us a lawsuit, Tony—“
”—What the hell are you talking about?”
She just sighed, placing her head in her hands. “You can’t do this.” Unwillingly to answer his question.
Silence engulfed them for a moment. Both equally annoyed with each other.
“He’s the kid.”
“What?”
“The one that I asked about when I woke up, and the one I asked about when I came home.” Tony said. “I don’t really understand what happened, but you used to know him, too. He’d come to the compound every weekend. He came to Christmas dinner. He’s always been there, Pep.”
He grabbed her hand.
”Let me help him.” Tony said, eyes pleading. “I get that I’m not in the state right now, but he needs my help. With whatever the hell happened.”
She held onto his hand, contemplating. “Tony…”
”Please, Pepper.”
She sighed, releasing his hand. “I can’t stop you.” She smiled. “I never could.”
She didn’t utter another word as she walked out of the kitchen and up the stairs to Morgan’s room. He took that as a sign to start his search.
He made his way to the smaller lab station he had set up in the living area before he had died, it had a smaller display, but it was fully capable of finding someone.
“FRI?”
“Yes, Boss?”
”Show me all of the information you have on Spiderman.” He said.
The A.I. hummed. “Of course, Boss.”