I Am The Damn Paterfamilias
The thing people won’t tell you about adulthood is that, at a certain point, no matter how old you are, you don’t age. You may have more experience, more (or less) money, more maturity (maybe), more aches or hang-ups or trauma, but no matter what, you will feel no wiser than you did in your late-teens. And not that he thought it was an excuse, by any means, but Tony whole-heartedly believed this was the reason his first response to stress was always to flip the fuck out. (No it wasn't. Tony was adept at lying to himself. Immaturity wasn’t the reason he had such poor coping mechanisms. He was, as Lady Gaga liked to put it, born this way.)
Morgan was missing.
No. Scratch that. Morgan ran away.
Morgan ran away just like Peter ran away and was it some sort of karmic justice that Tony Stark—the inventor of running away from home (not that his parents ever once noticed)—couldn’t, for the life of him, keep his family together.
‘Nick. What did you do?’
‘Listen, Stark. If we knew it was going to get so out of hand we would have called you sooner.’
‘Sooner? You should have called me immediately. As soon as you realized it. Was he just bait to you?’
‘He’s a hero, Stark. We thought he could handle himself.’
‘You let a depressed teenager spend time with a man you knew was impersonating me for what reason? Some self-important, fact-finding mission? How’d that work out, Fury? Huh? A city almost blown up? My kid in a hospital bed, recovering from fucking torture, flinching every time I even come close to him. This is on you. You’re lucky I don’t send you back to that grave you were pretending to be in.’
‘Charming.’
‘You bastard…’
‘Tony!’
‘Tones!’
“...reathe, Tony.”
“I swear, Brucie-Bear, if you say that to me one more damn time—” Tony’s head felt twenty pounds heavier and he swayed in front of the coffee-maker where Bruce had cornered him. He heard the front door shut as Rhodey and Happy walked out of it, and turned his back to Bruce, who was looking at him all green and concerned and Tony could only huff in annoyance because if he wasn’t huffing, he’d be crying, and he would rather propose to Knock-Off Dumbledore and his Merry Cape of Horrors than cry in front of Professor Hulk and his Eyebrows of Understanding.
“You need to sit down at least. Take a nap.” His friend clucked, managing to look unimpressed and worried at the same time—something that Tony usually appreciated when he leveled it at Peter, but it was just irritating when he was on the receiving end.
Tony scoffed and turned to walk back in the living room, hoping to put eyes on Peter before sitting down with his AI to find his missing eight-year-old. It wasn’t until he almost hit the floor that he realized Bruce might have had a point about his current health status.
It was dark when he woke up. His head was throbbing and a soft blanket had been draped over him. Light was filtering through the bottom crack in his bedroom door, and he could hear muffled voices in the hallway. A glass of water and two aspirin lay on top of his bedside table. With an embarrassing groan that suited his age (not that he wanted to admit it), he sat up.
The lamp in the corner of the room slowly brightened—Friday somehow anticipating his needs. It was an ugly lamp. Pepper bought it at an estate sale they went to on a whim last year. The house apparently belonged to Robert Redford at one point and Peter kept reciting lines from “The Great Gatsby” and calling Tony “Old Sport.” The lamp had an awful velvet leopard print shade and a pull cord with a plastic elephant dangling at the bottom. Tony thought it was hilarious at the time. He couldn’t bear to look at it now.
A soft knock landed on his door and Rhodey walked in, Bruce following behind. There was poorly concealed panic behind both of their eyes, and Tony was instantly alert and wary.
“What happened?” “How are you feeling?” “Slowly, Tones”
The three of them spoke at once, Rhodey helping to steady him as he swung his legs off the bed. Bruce had a blood pressure cuff around his arm instantly. He gestured towards the medicine, and Tony dry swallowed the pills while rolling his eyes.
“You blacked out and Bruce carried you back here.” Rhodey said, just as disapprovingly as he was back at MIT that one month they vowed to never talk about again. He answered the question Tony was about to ask, “It’s been six hours.”
“Morgan—” Tony felt her name heavy and thick in his mouth. He could feel the anxiety radiating off of Rhodes and a sense of dread washed over him.
“Not yet. We’re pretty sure she didn’t head to the beach. We’re having Friday scan the traffic cameras to make sure no one picked her up on the highway.” (And Tony’s whole body shuddered at the possibilities.) “MJ and Ned and the Barton kids are looking through social media. Clint’s on the phone with Bucky and Sam right now.” He paused.
Tony knew that pause.
He hated fucking pauses.
“Peter.” Tony’s voice sounded loud to his own ears, even above the rushing of static that was quickly filling his head.
“Peter left.” Natasha was standing at the door, backpack in her hand. She tossed Tony a flashlight which he caught. Rhodey growled.
“He’s not going.”
Natasha leveled him an incredulous look as she walked over to help Tony stand. Tony himself felt as if he were swimming in molasses. Bruce looked resigned, though, and even though he could feel Rhodey judging him from behind, he still helped steady him instead of forcing him back into bed.
“What happened?”
“After getting you to bed, I went to check on Peter. He was watching a show with Ned, so I left him some painkillers in his room, and went to sit with Stephen. I was on the phone with Helen for a while.” Bruce looked at Rhodey.
“Hap and I came back a few hours ago. Ned was napping, and we thought Peter was too. I swear, Tones. Friday said he went to his room to take a shower.”
Natasha interrupted whatever Tony was about to say to Friday, “We just tried to wake him for some dinner before we went back to look for Mo. We found this."
Tony had many regrets. More than could fill the multiverse. But when Natasha handed him the empty bottle of whiskey, mentioning that it looked as if Peter left through his window without shoes or a jacket and headed towards the back of their property, he regretted nothing more than not getting him help the minute they all realized the kid had been struggling. There were a lot of things Tony could have prevented if he had been faster and smarter and better, but his mishandling of Peter’s piss-poor coping mechanisms after being snapped was one of the worst mistakes of his life. That, and not stopping the damned wizard before he stole all their memories.
“Oh.”
Bruce grimaced. “I think he took the pain medicine I left by his bed too.”
Rhodey clenched his jaw and Tony (who felt as if he were floating out of his body) wondered if he was reliving every moment of their own friendship and regretting befriending him all those years ago.
Tony cleared his throat. “Let’s go.”
“Not a chance.”
“I’m not fucking around Jim.” Tony shook off the hand Rhodey had put on his arm to stop him from pressing the button that would call his suit. (‘You’re retired, Tony, why do you need that around still?’ ‘C’mon, Pep. For emergencies only. I swear.’)
“There’s no way in hell you’re using that. Your body is still too weak.”
“He left his shoes here, Jim. My still-practically-a-child son is barefoot in the god-knows-how-cold-it-is fucking golden state Malibu wilderness trying to find my actually-a-child daughter who most likely has been abducted or eaten by a lion or tiger or bear or some shit and we’re just standing here with our thumbs up our asses talking about keeping me safe like some Rapunzel? Mother Gothel isn’t a good look on you.” Tony could hear the poison in his voice and it was only 40+ years of friendship that most likely kept Rhodey from stepping back.
Natasha, the dirty rotten traitor who should have been kicked out of his life way back when she got all needle-jabbing-in-the-throat happy, chimed in. “It doesn’t matter. If we’re going through the trails behind your house, we need to track. Your suit isn’t subtle enough or small enough for looking. You know this.”
“Besides,” Rhodey looked like a smug bastard whose face deserved punching if Tony wasn’t such a gentleman about it, “the suit is on lockdown for at least 72 more hours. The Potts is Not An Idiot protocol.”
Tony barked out a humorless laugh that made Bruce take a step back. “Pepper’s fucking dead.”
“Yes.” Rhodey was quiet, but a fierce determination covered his face. His eyes looked wet and Tony didn’t want to explore that further, but he never backed down from confrontation, so like the Stark he was, he held his gaze angrily. Rhodey pressed on. “YES, yes she is. She is and you aren’t and I will do everything in my power to keep you alive. You’re all I got. You’re all they got.,” He tilted his head towards Tony’s and took his face in his hands. Voice cracking, he continued, not afraid of the eye contact he was forcing, nor ashamed of the audience holding their breaths around them, “You are my brother. You are the only father those kids have. I promise, Tones. Hold it together for just a little longer. We’ll find them. Then we’re going away and we are healing, God damn it.”
The room was silent. Tony took a few quick breaths and nodded. He looked at Bruce. “Surely we can wake up the wizard. Can’t he find them?”
“He’s in a coma, Tony. That’s why I was talking to Helen. It doesn’t look good.”
The knowledge weighed heavy on him—heavier than he was ready to admit. He pushed aside all those implications as Clint knocked on the door. He was holding a map.
“Happy’s in the car. We’ll follow the back roads the best we can. Best we could tell, he headed west. We didn’t go too far back, but that’s what it looked like.”
Natasha nodded as Rhodey helped Tony put on some shoes and jogging pants. He put Peter’s shoes in the backpack, along with a First Aid kit, praying to Odin and Thor and all the gods and Gods that they wouldn’t need it.
It was quiet when they left. Michelle and Ned were sleeping on the couch and Laura had put the other kids to bed. Bruce was on the phone with Helen again, and they were attempting to get in touch with Wong. Tony saw Happy’s stormy face and was briefly thankful to be walking with Jim and Nat.
Time seemed to skip around after that.
It wasn’t until later, after Tony and Rhodey and Natasha followed the trail of blood Peter left with his bare feet, after they came across a dead lion (and after Morgan trembled in his arms, and after Rhodey walked an injured Peter back to the car), that Tony would remember to thank fate or magic or whatever universe allowed him to get them back.
Another day.
Another chance.
‘Get the fuck away from him, Beck.’
‘Oh ho. If it’s not Iron Daddy swooping in to save widdle Petey-Pie’s ass. As you can see, we’re a little busy here. Come back, never.’
‘Hang in there, Pete. It’s going to be ok. Hand over the glasses, Quentin’
‘See that. What did I tell you, Peter? He only cares about his tech. Not some idiot orphan who can’t even go one fucking night without crying himself to sleep. You should have heard him, Stark. ‘Come save me, Dad. Dad, I need you. Dad, please!’ It was very sweet.’
“Are you sure you’re not mad at me?”
“No sweetheart. Never.”
“T-Thank you for coming to get me, Dad.”
“Always, love bug. Never doubt it. Ready to go home?”
“Can we go to Disneyland?”
“Only if we’re just visiting. I don’t think Goofy would be a very good roommate.”
“Daaaaad.”
“I love you, daughter of mine.”
“I love you, father of mine.”
“C’mon, Nala. Let’s leave Pride Rock and make sure your uncles haven’t completely smothered your brother.”
“Ok… Daddy?”
“What’s up, Maguna?”
“Will Petey be alright?”
“I promise.”
Tony was adept at lying to himself.