2015, Bern, Switzerland, New Year’s Eve Party
Tony Stark stood in the middle of a packed nightclub with his signature shades on during one of the craziest nights of the year. New Year’s Eve. People were dressed in formal attire and stood around mingling with one another, drinking various alcoholic drinks. In the back ‘I’m Blue’ started playing over the speakers.
Tony had found a beautiful woman who was standing alone so he bought her a drink and put a white and gold headband on her head to match his white and gold hat. He took her to one of the livelier areas of the club and she blew her silver noisemaker in his face making them both laugh in their intoxicated state. He picked up his glass of scotch and took a sip all while smiling at the lady in front of him.
Happy turned around, “Half hour till the ball drops,” he told Tony over the woman’s head.
Tony looked at Happy and nodded before looking back to the lady in front of him. He should really learn her name.
“Hey, do you want-“ Tony was cut off by a random partier who wore one of the most hideous outfits he had ever seen in his life. The man was wearing a blue and white plaid shirt with a brown sweater over it. Seemed like he was going for scholar but ended up looking like a grandpa. That’s not even mentioning the loafer slippers that he wore with no socks.
“Tony Stark? Great speech, man!”
Happy walked around the table to the man and gently grabs his arm to drag him away. “I got you, pal.” Happy says as he passes by Tony.
Tony grabs the woman’s left hand with his right and holds his gold noisemaker in his left hand. He turned around to address the man. “I gave a speech? How was it?”
Happy was the first one to reply. “Edifying.” He put his right hand on the man’s shoulder and guided him away from the young billionaire.
“Unintelligible.” The woman on his arm said.
“Really?” Tony asked with a smirk as he pulled her away from their spot to follow Happy.
“Mmm-hmm.” She replied.
“It’s my favorite kind, a winning combo.” Tony held his noisemaker like a cigarette, not sure what to do with it at the moment.
“Where are we going?” The woman turns to face Tony as they walk and uses her free hand to play with her brown hair.
“Uh, to town on each other, probably back in your room. Cause I also wanna see your research.” Tony used his hand that wasn’t holding onto the lady to tap Happy on the shoulder and point to someone on his left.
“Okay, you can see my research, but that’s…. I’m not gonna show you my “town.” The woman started shaking her pointer finger at the man.
“Mr. Stark.” Ho Yinsen walks away from the ladies he was talking to and makes his way to the pair. He extends his hand out to shake Tony’s, “Ho Yinsen.”
Tony lets go of the woman’s hand, “Oh, I finally met a man called “Ho.” Yinsen chuckles.
The man starts guiding Tony in the direction they came from, as he walks, he turns towards the woman and grabs her hand. “Come here.”
“I would like to introduce you to our guest, Dr. Wu.” Yinsen starts moving them towards Wu, one hand placed on Tony’s upper back the entire time and the other hand pointing towards the doctor in front of him.
Tony looks at the man and puts his noisemaker in his mouth so he can use his now free hand to shake Dr. Wu’s. “Oh, this guy.”
“Mr. Stark.” Yinsen gestures towards Tony.
“Hey,” Tony shakes hands with Dr. Wu as the man greets him in Mandarin. After a few seconds he takes his noisemaker out of his mouth and puts it back in his hand. “You’re a heart doctor. She’s going to need a cardiologist after I-“ Tony blows on his noisemaker four times before walking away with the woman.
She turns around to the two men and waves at them with a curt, “Bye.”
“Perhaps another time.” Yinsen shouts over the music and Tony gives a thumbs up without turning around.
He takes the two of them to the bar, Happy following closely behind.
After a few more drinks everyone gathers to stare at the crystal ball, getting ready to countdown to a new year.
“5! 4! 3! 2! 1! Happy New Year!” Everyone shouted and turned towards the person next to them to kiss.
Tony turned towards the woman and kissed her on the lips. Once he pulled back, he started guiding her out of the room. “Now how about we go to your room and look at that research.” Tony turns to wink at the woman he’s guiding.
-----
2016, Manhattan, New York, New Year’s Eve
A year ago, if you would’ve told Tony Stark that he would be at home with a lap full a 15-year-old kid from Queens instead of being at an extravagant New Year’s Eve Party with a random lady on his arm and alcohol in his system he would’ve laughed in your face. But that’s exactly where he was.
It was around 5:30 in the evening and Tony was sitting on his couch running his fingers through the hair of a sleeping teenager in his lap because “Mr. Stark I need to take a nap now so I can stay awake until midnight.”
The tv in front of him was playing ‘The Golden Girls’ which confused Tony, because why would a teenager be so obsessed with this show? But he didn’t want to make Peter feel self-conscious about his likes, so he never said anything. A soft snore catches his attention, taking him away from his thoughts. Looking down he sees Peter with his mouth slightly opened and one of his arms covering his eyes like the light is bugging him.
“Jar, turn the lights down to 3o%.”
The room instantly becomes darker and Tony grabs Peter’s hand to move it away from his face, planning to rest it as the kids’ side. But the kid doesn’t let go. Instead, he latches onto Tony’s hand like it’s a stuffed animal.
Tony doesn’t even attempt to pull away as he brings the fuzzy cow print blanket to under the boy’s chin, smiling when Peter relaxes further into the pillow on his lap, a content sigh leaving the kid.
A good twenty minutes later the kid stops snoring and Tony looks down to see if the kid is waking up but when he doesn’t see any movements he worries. He watches as Peter continues sleeping but now his hand is squeezing the blanket to the point where his knuckles are white, his breathing is faster with soft murmurs of no, his brows are furrowed, and he has tears coming out of his eyes.
Tony sighs sympathetically and gently squeezes Peter’s hand. The kid starts squeezing Tony’s hand to the point where it’s painful but it’s the most comfort he can provide without waking Peter up.
Suddenly his breathing gets faster if that’s even possible and his grip on Tony’s hand tightens even more. Peter starts murmuring something about May and Tony’s heart breaks because ever since he lost his aunt four months ago the nightmares seem to be an every night occurrence.
After what feels like hours but is just a minute or two Peter shoots up with a cut off sob. After a few seconds of trying to get his breathing under control, and ultimately failing, he turns his body so he’s facing Tony.
“I-I-“ He tries to get words out, but he can’t quite succeed.
“Hey, it’s okay. Let’s just breathe for a second, yeah?” Tony sits up and repositions his body to face Peter better. Neither of them ever letting go of the others hand.
Tony grabs Peter’s free hand and starts slowly bringing it up to his chest so Peter can feel Tony’s heartbeat. “I’m right here, okay? I’m going to put your hand on my chest.” Once he gets a nod from the kid, he brings Peter’s hand up to his chest. “I need you to try to match my breathing.”
After a few minutes, Peter’s breathing has calmed down. He drops his hand from Tony’s chest and looks down to see he’s holding the man’s other hand. “Sorry,” Peter says as he reluctantly let’s go of Tony’s hand.
“Do you want to talk about it?” He asks and Peter whips his head up so fast that Tony’s a little afraid he’s hurt his neck.
Peter’s eyes fill to the brim with tears and Tony frowns. “It was just a stupid nightmare.” Peter brings his knees up to his chest and wraps his arms around them but never looks away from Tony.
“It isn’t stupid, Pete.” Tony takes one of Peter’s hands, giving him another tight reassuring squeeze.
Peter shakes his head but squeezes back. “W-when my parents passed Uncle Ben and Aunt May tried to make things as normal as they could for me. They would let me open one present on Christmas Eve morning a-and then the rest Christmas morning. They said that’s what my parents used to do with me, but I really don’t remember that.” Peter takes a shaky deep breath and Tony nods in encouragement.
“And when Ben p-passed, only two weeks before Christmas, May and I didn’t celebrate that year. We didn’t really have anything to celebrate, ya know?” Tony nods because he does know. He knows the pain of losing someone so close to the holidays. “But the year after w-we started new traditions. She added an advent calendar full of little things like candy and Lego figures for me. And I made her one that had little um little trinkets I would find, or something I would make, or recipes that she could try because Aunt May always tried cooking and baking even though she was terrible at it.” Peter let out a wet chuckle and wiped at his eyes with his free hand.
He paused for a minute like he was trying to think about what to say next. Tony took that time to take in the kid in front of him. The kid who had gone through so much in his short life but was still one of the happiest, kindness, most positive kid ever.
“She kept the one present Christmas Eve morning but for our last day on our advent calendar we would do a treasure hunt because she had added in us opening a present at midnight with matching pajamas. It was always something we made for each other. Last year she gave me a-“ Peter brings his free hand back up to his eyes, “-she gave me a scrapbook that was formed like a newspaper that had all our adventures together, like going to the car wash or going to the grocery store. Because it wasn’t just another boring daily activity for her, it was an adventure. Pictures of us at the movie theater or her coming to my school events. Her holding up another one of my assignments with an A on it in front of the fridge that also had more assignments with A’s on them.”
Tony hummed in acknowledgement, “What did you give her?” He asked softly because he didn’t want to push the kid to far considering this was the first time he had really opened up since May’s passing.
Peter gave a sad chuckle but smiled at the memory. “I-I made her the exterior of the golden girls house with the greenery and everything because she loved that show. Anytime I came home from school, and she was home it would be playing. Anytime she was in the kitchen it would be on in the background. Even if she had music playing.”
That answered the question as to why Peter liked the show so much.
“After the present we would sit on the couch and watch a Christmas movie. We usually ended up falling asleep in the most uncomfortable positions. But in the morning, I would wake up and s-she would be making breakfast, the one meal she was great at. It was always the same thing on Christmas. The “Christmas Special” she called it.” Peter used his one hand to make quotes around the words.
“It was always two pancakes for us both. The bottom pancake had green sprinkles around the edge and the top one had red. We always had syrup, of course, and way too much whip cream. She always included scrambled eggs, sausage, and bacon. The hot chocolate had green sprinkles around the rim of the glass. It was always so extra, but it was nice. Then we would open presents and gorge ourselves on candy. We went to central park and just walked around in the snow afterwards, but we never changed out of our pajamas, we just threw our winter things over.”
“She always tried making Christmas dinner. A small ham, mash potatoes, macaroni and cheese, corn, stuffing, and rolls. Every year she burnt something, but we still always ate it. Last year though she…last year we were so excited, jumping around the kitchen excited, because she made everything perfectly and she said she couldn’t wait to do it next year.” Peter’s laugh was cut off by a sob.
“Oh, kid. Come here,” Tony pulled his hand away and opened his arms. The kid immediately buried himself into Tony’s chest, gripping onto his shirt.
“Was that everything you guys did?” Tony hesitantly asked as he ran his fingers through Peter’s curls as the kid hiccupped a few times.
“W-we always ordered a-a cake ahead of time instead of pie. Then at night we would go into her room and watch Christmas movies while eating popcorn that she put green food coloring in with red m&ms.” Peter sniffled and brought his hand up to his nose. “And s-she always had some activity for us to do every day the week leading up to New Years. Whether that be us going to a movie or going to the park, or library. It was always something fun. Then New Year’s Eve we would bring Ned to the apartment along with too much pizza and apple juice since she didn’t like drinking. And she always got us tickets to see the ball drop in Times Square where she would put weird headbands on us and noisemakers. We would find confetti everywhere after that. Ned would always come back and spend the night at the apartment.”
The two sat in silence for a few minutes after that. Tony was trying to think of things he could do to give Peter a sense of normalcy but to make sure the kid knew he wasn’t trying to replace his aunt. One thing was clear, there was no way he could live up to the same holiday spirit as May Parker.
“You and Happy died.” Peter’s soft voice cut off Tony’s thoughts.
“What?” Tony couldn’t hide the shock and confusion in his voice.
“My nightmare. We were in the lab, and you were working on your suit while we were talking about weird things. Then you went silent, a-and in the blink of an eye you had me pinned up against the wall by my neck and had your gauntlet pointed towards me. Happy came in and tried to get you away from me but y-you killed him and then it seemed like you came out of whatever trance you were in because you apologized and pointed the gauntlet at yourself and-“ Peter trails off and shakes his head with a shaky inhale.
“Oh, bug.” Tony pulls Peter closer to his chest, pulling the blanket up around them both. He wraps his arms around Peter and feels as the kid lets himself relax into Tony, turning his head to listen to the older man’s heartbeat. The only sounds now are the sounds of soft sobs and quiet sniffles.
“I-I know it isn’t real, but it just felt like I was losing the last few people I had.” Peter’s voice is thick with tears.
Tony doesn’t know what to say so he just holds Peter tighter and kisses the top of the boy’s head before resting his cheek on the boys curly hair.
After a few minutes, Peter whispers into Tony’s chest, “’M tired.”
“I bet, Bambino. That was a pretty nasty panic attack you had there. Here let’s get you into a more comfortable position.” Tony moves around a little so they’re back in their original position with his legs extended in front of him, pillow in his lap with a sleepy teen on top. He feels as Peter grabs onto one of his wrists and realizes that the kid is trying to feel his pulse.
He cards his fingers through the messy curls and watches as Peter’s eyes start to shut. “I know we’re picking Ned up in about an hour but if you want, I could take you guys to see the ball drop. Keep the tradition alive. I know I can’t replace May but just because she’s gone doesn’t mean we have to stop her traditions.”
“Really?” Peter looks up at Tony with half lidded eyes.
Tony chuckles, “Of course, bug. Afterwards we can get pizza and bring it back here?”
Peter hums in agreement, a small smile pulling at his lips. “And cupcakes with silver and gold sprinkles? That could be one of our traditions.”
“Of course. Would it really be a celebration without cupcakes?” Tony asks with a faux gasp, Peter chuckling at the dramatics.
He watches as Peter’s eyes fully close, but his hand never leaves Tony’s wrist, and Tony’s hand never leaves the kids hair. He blinks a few times to get rid of the tears he hadn’t realize were there. But as he looks down at the kid sleeping in his lap that’s when it truly hits him. There isn’t anything he wouldn’t do for this kid that he has only known for a short amount of time. He feels his own eyes start to get teary again because a year ago he was at a party with a woman he can’t remember to save his life. Too tipsy to really stand on his own. And now he’s at home with a sleeping kid in his lap who is getting drool all over his pillow. Yet, there’s no place he would rather be.