Heartbeats
There’s someone in the room with him.
There is always someone there.
Peter has made it a habit to get a feel for the room before he fully wakes up- or at least, let’s them know he’s awake. The easiest way to tell who and how many were there, was for him to listen for the sounds of heartbeats outside of his own. Picking out the heartbeats over all of the other noises of the room has been a silent grounding technique for himself, helping him come back to the present after a nightmare.
It was never not a nightmare anymore...
He remembers thinking it weird to listen to people’s heart beats, and it was one of the first things he taught himself to tune out once he got more control of his senses. But now, it was one of his favorite things to do - the most calming thing to do. He had even begun being able to tell a couple of the heartbeats apart from each other. Could tell who exactly was in the room before he even opened his eyes. (Normally he’d also be able to use scent as a factor, but they all were starting to smell like Wakanda- at least, that’s what Peter was assuming.)
Mr. Stark’s unique heartbeat (Peter assumed based on his actual heart condition) was the easiest heart beat to tell apart from the others. The hardest to tell apart from each other was Fitz and Jemma. Especially when they were together. But the way the two of them had been so in sync in every other aspect of their lives for so long- it shouldn’t be surprising that their hearts were also in tune with each other.
Of course, there were the times he woke up screaming, and silently scoping out the room first went completely out the window.
But thankfully this was not one of those times.
“You’ve been avoiding me.” He accused, his eyes still closed as his fingers curled around the edges of the sheet.
“How do you do that?” The indignant sputtering coming from Mr. Stark’s voice had the corners of Peter’s lips quirking. It was so faint though that Tony really would had to have been looking to see it.
”You didn’t answer my question.” Peter said instead, slowly peaking his eyes open to look at the man sitting in the chair closest to him, and there was something in the intensity of his gaze that made Peter think his mentor didn’t miss a thing.
“You didn’t ask me a question,” he pointed out, his arms folded tightly across his chest, almost as if he was trying to muffle the sound of his heart even as he leaned towards Peter, his eyebrows raised. “But counter question- how the hell am I avoiding you, kid? I’ve barely left this room.”
That was true. He was there as often as he was allowed to be, and Peter knew from overhearing conversations that he never went far when he wasn’t in the room. That he barely even used the room that T’Challah had given him. But he was hardly there alone. There almost always someone else there with him - sometimes Rhodey, who talked to Peter more than Tony did when they were there together, giving him updates about the world - sometimes May, or Fitz.
Peter just let out an annoyed huff and flexed his fingers against the sheets, allowing his eyes to slide shut again.
”You barely talk to me,” he pointed out, and he hated that it had come out so whiney. But he’d already brought it up, so he pressed on. He’d been so sure that Tony was mad at him, had even brought it up to Fitz once (he didn’t dare bring it up to May, who seemed annoyed with Tony herself for some reason) but Fitz had just said the man was tired and worried about him. But he couldn’t shake the feeling they were all keeping something from him.
Tony’s lack of response just further proved Peter’s point.
”Can’t even -“
“I have a daughter.”
Peter blinked his eyes open, before turning to stare wide eyed at Mr. Stark as if he’d grown another head. If his hearing wasn’t so enhanced, especially lately, he would have sworn he misheard. He’d said it so suddenly, and he tried to root through his muddled memories of his time in Wakanda for something he may have missed. How was he just now hearing about this? And why did Tony seem this scared to tell him?
“What!?”
”Her name is Morgan. She’ll be five in a few months,” Tony continued, and he had started fiddling with his hands in his lap- going between clicking his phone on and off and fiddling with the hem of his t-shirt.
“Oh.” Admittedly, Peter wasn’t sure why he was reacting so weirdly to hearing this. Was he agitated that Mr. Stark didn’t want to tell him until now, or was it something else? “That’s kind of big news to wait so long to-“ He started, sitting up in the bed - now fully awake.
”She wants to meet you. But we haven’t let her come to Wakanda yet. But not to try and keep her from you. It’s just...” Tony sighed and fidgeted with his phone again for a minute before deciding to just set it on the table next to him.
“Just?”
“I have a son too.”
Okay, for some reason, that hit like a punch to the gut, and Peter actually let out a shattered breath as he blinked once at the man he’d always looked up to before tearing his gaze away to stare at his closed window instead. “Well, damn, Mr. Stark. Me and half the world disappear so you decided to get busy repopulating it?” He laughed, but it was humorless and he knew his attempt to make a joke out of it fell flat.
He couldn’t make himself look over again, but he heard the way his breath hitched and the way his heart picked up pace. It normally would have been enough to make Peter stop- to look over at him to make sure he was okay. Instead, his mouth was moving again before he could stop himself.
”What are you doing here then, Mr. Stark? Why aren’t you home with them? If it’s guilt, you have nothing to be guilty about. I made my own decision. I may not love all this-“ he waved his hand around at the room and then himself “-but I stand by what I did. I’m not sorry I did it and you shouldn’t be either. And actually -“ he raised his finger up in the air, his voice starting to grow a little stronger, and a little louder the more he spoke. Even as he was internally yelling at himself to shut up more things just kept bubbling up.
“Actually- I would have been even more angry with you if you had done it- if you’d died than I would have already- after I found out that you left your kids -“
”Peter!” Mr. Stark’s own voice was raised, and the pain in his tone finally did manage to shut him up. Peter snapped his mouth shut and whipped his head to stare at his mentor again, tears glistening in his eyes. He was shocked to see tears shining in Tony’s eyes too - and Peter had to think if there was ever a time he’d actually saw the man cry. Through everything on Titan and coming back and being in that hospital, he was fairly certain he never saw him cry.
“I’m sorry.” He whispered, face crumpling but Tony was already shaking his head at him before he could say anything else.
“Peter - I didn’t have two kids while you were gone. Just Morgan. Who I promise you're going to love. My son is... He's a little older,” Tony stood from his chair and made his way over to the bed - hovering in a way Peter had caught him doing a couple times when he thought he was asleep -or when he'd been in the room when Peter woke up screaming. His eyes wandered the room for a minute, and his arms sort of waved in front of him uncertainly until he landed on resting a hand on the headboard of Peter's bed.
"I'm not following, Mr. Stark... You never..." Peter didn't realize it, but he was wearing the same pinched expression that Mr. Stark was.
"I never talked about him. It was too hard- something I buried. I don’t think it’s a secret that my coping mechanisms haven’t always been the healthiest. A total of three living people ever knew about him. Happy, Pepper, and Rhodey. His mom was run off the road, and they landed in a river just before his second birthday. Her body was found - but his never was and he was pronounced dead.Said he more than likely was washed away in the current." Peter's chest tightened as a few tears slid down his cheeks. Guilt rushed over him for snapping at Mr. Stark - for acting like he had somehow been wronged. He didn't even know why he'd gotten so upset in the first place. Why he was still sort of upset, and he still didn't know where this was going - why he was telling him this now of all times. Tony brushed the pads of his thumbs across Peter's cheeks, wiping away the tears - and it was so gentle that it caught Peter off guard.
He gasped at the contact and closed his eyes. He opened his mouth to apologize again but Mr. Stark cut him off. "I found out a few days before we ended up in space that he was still alive. That my son was still living and then I lost him again."
Peter opened his eyes again to look at his mentor, meeting his gaze. "Mr. Stark - why--"
But then a sudden memory popped into his head - a memory that had mostly been buried by everything traumatic that had happened literally minutes after.
“Because you’re my damn kid. You’re my responsibility. You said it your yourself back on the ship. It’s my fault you’re here. If something happens —“
“Mr. Stark, please. You know I didn’t mean it’s actually your fault. I know you like to look after me and everything and I appreciate that, but it doesn’t fall on you every time I get a scratch.”
“This isn’t a typical neighborhood mugger or bank robbery, kid. This is big time. This is end of the world, big time. I don’t think you realize what we're dealing with here, and it is my responsibility to —“
"Mr. Stark. You're not my dad. I'm just a kid - a guy - that you needed and then took pity on or something, I don't know."
He remembered how weird Mr. Stark had been on the ship - Peter had just chalked it up to how messed up the entire situation was. It was easy to brush it off. They were all freaking out a little bit. But deep down, Peter knew something was wrong - something was different. But what Tony was trying to tell him - it didn't make sense. It wasn't possible.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Stark - I don't think - I think you made a mistake - I'm - I'm not - I don't think I understand."
Mr. Stark retracted his hand from Peter's cheek, stuffing both hands into his pockets with a deep sigh. "I've been trying to figure out how to have this conversation with you, and then -" He paused, seeming to reconsider something and shook his head. "But mostly I just wanted to make sure you were going to be okay - you really know how to keep a guy on his toes - what you did - it was... it was incredibly brave, but also incredibly stup-"
"Mr. Stark."
"Right. Sorry. Not the point of this conversation." But he gave Peter a pointed look that made it clear he still meant it. “I ran tests on some of your blood work - to find out what made you sick that day in my lab, you remember?"
Peter's head was starting to pound, and he squeezed his eyes shut, even as he nodded. He wasn't sure if it was the conversation, or the way Mr. Stark's heart sounded like it was thundering in his chest. Or maybe it was just his pain medication wearing off again and the still everlasting effects from the stones on his body. Maybe it was a mix of all three combined.
"Well... Me being well... Me... I decided to do a full work up on your bloodwork - see if I could find anything else of importance that might help keep you safe in the future and well, Friday found a DNA Match in the system. A match with me."
"But I have parents. My parents are.. Mary and Richard Parker." His eyes were still squeezed shut, but he heard Mr. Stark rustling next to him, and then felt a dip in the pillow next to him, and he assumed Tony had sat his hand there.
"It's a long story - A story I don't have all the details for yet either, but... I'm not going to tell you that they weren't your parents- even if... Like I said. It's a long story. But long story short, they adopted you, they didn't know - at least, I'm hoping they didn't know - who you actually were - and I didn't - Pete - hey - look at me, okay?"
At some point, Peter's breaths started to hasten again, his own heart racing in a way that almost matched Tony's. His head was pounding. It didn't make sense - He didn't understand, and it was all incredibly overwhelming. He didn't know what to think - what he should be feeling. Did May know? Had she known all along? How did she expect him to react? The last thing he wanted to do was hurt her - he was pretty sure he was already failing at not hurting Tony with his reaction. Hopefully he could apologize for that later.
"Underroos. Breathe. We can talk about this later - or - or not at all if you want. Whatever you want. Just breathe. Do you need me to leave? I'll get May or whoever you want."
Peter hadn't heard that particular nickname in a while, and for some reason, it did the trick to help him calm his breathing at least a little bit. It was something familiar that he could latch onto. His hand flew up to find Mr. Stark's and he gave it a squeeze as he shook his head.
"You don't have to leave. I'm sorry," He whispered. "Just... give me a minute. I just... I just need a minute."