They were at the lakeside cabin which apparently, is now only used for holidays. It’s secluded but tricked out enough with tech to serve their purposes, and only family and Avengers knew of it. The Avenger’s facility has yet to be fully rebuilt because, in the years since he died there was apparently ‘no need’. He doesn’t really buy that.
In the euphoria of his return, who could have blamed him for not asking sooner? Of course the family came first. And then people just kept putting things in front of him; questions mostly starting with ‘how’ and eventually “What now?” It’s not like he knew something was wrong.
But once things were set aside and Morgan was dozing off in his arms, he finally asked.
“So, where’s the kid?”
“What kid?” Pepper asks.
Tony looks at her questioningly before expounding. “Pete.”
“Pete? You mean Pietro?” asks Clint.
Tony passes Morgan gently to her mother as he gets a sinking feeling.
“What? No! Peter! Spider-man.”
The shocked faces before him exacerbate his anxiety, the questions make them worse still.
“You know Spider-man’s true identity?” asks Rhodey.
“Should you be telling us this?” asks Sam.
“What are you talking about?” Tony asks, being careful not to shout with Morgan still in the room.
Pepper moves to take Morgan to bed as Sam elaborates.
“I mean he’s got that whole secret identity thing going on. He’s been a pretty solid guy so we just respect his choice.”
“What? But we all know him!” Tony’s voice is getting louder now.
“No, we don’t.” Rhodey tries to say as calmingly as he can.
“He was in the fight at Leipzig. He fought Thanos with us at the compound. He was on Titan!”
“Well, yes. But we didn’t know who he was under the mask. We just knew him as Spider-man.” Bruce explains.
“But…”
Rhodey attempts to calm him with a hand to his back and says “Tony, you’re probably just confused. It’s been a long day. Take a breath…”
“NO!” Tony shakes of Rhodey’s hand and moves to stand away from them. “He’s my…He’s been my intern since Leipzig. He’s the reason…What is going on?!?...FRIDAY! Find Peter.”
“Can you be more specific, boss?” says disembodied voice.
“What?” Even his own tech doesn’t recognize the name and he’s getting sick of this. “FRIDAY! Peter. Parker.”
“Woah!...Tony!...We just said that’s a secret.” Says a flurry of objecting voices. He’s no longer paying attention to who’s saying what.
“Well, you knew before! I’m just setting things right.” Says Tony as he focuses on the holograms showing him a variety of search results.
“Do you have any other details to narrow down the search, sir?” asks FRIDAY.
“Aunt, May Parker. Goes to Midtown High.”
“Tony, he doesn’t want people to know this stuff! Wait, he’s in high school?” says Rhodey.
FRIDAY chimes in again.
“I have a Peter Parker who went to Midtown School of Science and Technology. Freshman at MIT. Aunt - May Parker - deceased.”
The shock hits hard and Tony drops onto the coach.
“May’s dead?” he asks, his voice audibly shaken as he stares at the surprisingly limited information floating before him.
Where’s the academic decathlon team, graduation photos, and the goofy photoshoot they did for the September Foundation? Why does the photo of Peter before him lack the light that was once ever-present in the young man?
“Where is he?”
“Cambridge, sir. He has an apartment in town.”
“Call him…No wait! This is gonna be a bit of shock over the phone. FRI, get a jet ready.”
Pepper returns from upstairs just as he says this.
“Tony? Where are you going?”
Rhodey grabs his arm and says “Tony, no one knows you’re alive. We have to take this slow. You can’t be seen yet.”
“I’ll be careful.” Tony insists as he shakes of the hold and walks towards the basement hangar.
“Why is this so important? Can’t you just wait a bit?” Pepper calls after him.
“I can’t!” He turns back to look at them. “That kid was an Avenger last time I was alive! I brought him into all of this when he was way too young. Now, no one knows he’s Spider-man, his aunt is dead, and none of you know how this happened. I need to see him.”
They let him go but Rhodey calls out and says “FRIDAY, ground him.”
“Apologies, Colonel. But there are protocols in place that gives Mr. Stark prime user override at the event of a resurrection.” Says FRIDAY.
“Of course, he does.”
Peter walk up to his door and pauses. He can sense someone inside his apartment and takes the time to put on his web shooter before he slowly opens the door. There’s a man and he immediately webs his hand to a wall as he closes the door
“Hey, Pete.” Says Tony as he turns to face him.
At least by the shock on the young man’s face, Tony knows Peter recognizes him, but he doesn’t put down his web shooter equipped arm.
“Who are you? Are you from another dimension? Is this an illusion? What is this?” Peter asks in that rapid, nervous way that’s all too familiar, but with an unfamiliar threatening undercurrent.
“Woah. Kid, calm down. It’s me. It’s Tony. Like, it’s actually me.” He says with his one free hand up.
Peter takes the time to frown, using his senses to feel the man out, before saying “Prove it.”
“You call your AI Karen.” Tony says without missing a beat.
The tension from Peter’s shoulders fall away, as does his backpack which drops to the floor. He then moves towards Tony to free him from the web.
“I called my AI Karen.”
Peter takes a seat on the dining chair, offering the more comfortable bed for Tony.
“What do you mean?” Tony asks, dreading the answer.
“You’ve been away a while.” Peter says, lips quivering.
“That explains the new haircut but not how none of the Avengers know you’re Spider-man.” Says Tony.
Peter gives a miserable shrug and says “No one knows I’m Spider-man.”
“How did that happen?”
Peter sighs.
“I asked Dr. Strange to make everyone forget. So, now my best friend, my girlfriend and all my superhero allies don’t who I am.”
“You have a girlfriend?” Tony teases halfheartedly, and immediately regrets the attempt.
“Had.”
They sit there in silence for a moment before Tony bites the bullet.
“May? How did she…?”
“She got killed in the mess. There was a big fight. Turns out the multiverse is real and Spider-man’s got a lot of enemies all across it. One of them killed her”
The lack of tears as Peter explains is unnerving.
“Strange did this?” Tony asks, his temper flaring.
Peter defends the man right away. “He did the right thing. And he doesn’t remember.”
“Only you?
“Yeah.”
“He sounds exhausted.” Tony thinks and then asks “Why?”
Another shrug.
“I got outed. There was this guy. He did a bunch of bad stuff and I stopped him. But before he died he revealed who I was to everyone and framed me for the shit he did. It got really bad and the people in my life were suffering the consequences.” Peter says as if that’s all the explanation required.
“Where does the multiverse come into this?”
Tony pushes on with his questions, but receives something worse the aborted sobs and those wretched shrugs for his troubles. A disenchanted chuckle.
“Well, I initially botched Stephen’s spell because I didn’t want the people closest to me to forget me along with the rest of the world. And that let a bunch of bad guys from other dimensions here. We were gonna send them back but I found out I was sending them back to their deaths. So, I naively postponed that until I could make sure they wouldn’t die. I actually had help from Spider-men from other dimensions. That was pretty cool. But ultimately we had to redo the spell to save reality. No caveats this time.”
Peter smiles at him after his little anecdote. And Tony frowns in return. The Peter he knew had been through a lot but he wasn’t cynical. He can understand why he would be from what he’s been told, but Tony just can’t accept it.
“So, you’ve been alone since then?”
“I’ve made some friends here.”
“Do they know the real you?”
“No.”
“So, you are alone.”
Peter pauses before giving a dejected nod.
“When did this happen?”
“Uh, like three years ago.”
“But you’re a freshman.”
“I didn’t exist. I had to make up a believable enough identity to actually get into MIT. Took a while even with my hacking skills but I did get lucky a few times with people just accepting that there were mix ups because of the Blip. But I had to do that in between two jobs and doing Spider-man things.”
Finally, he gets a more appropriately sad expression from the young man, but he hates that that is somehow better.
“How are you?”
“Coping.”
“Really?”
“I’m still here aren’t I?”
That answer terrifies Tony, thinking there was a chance Peter wouldn’t be ‘here’.
“You’re not alone anymore.”
Peter inexplicably rolls his eyes at this.
“It might be better that I am.”
“What? Don’t be ridiculous! I’ve just come back from the dead. We can make this work for you too.”
“People get hurt when they get close to me. It’s better this way.”
“Well, too bad! Because I told the Avengers who you are.” Tony lets some frustration out.
“So, tell them not to tell anyone else. They’re Avengers. They all have secrets.” Peter says with and arched brow.
“Peter, you can get your life back!”
“WHAT LIFE?! May’s gone. The relationships I had with my friends have been erased and I’ve seen that they’re better off. I’ve been tempted to tell them but people can’t just be told that they loved me” Peter takes a calming breath before continuing with a disaffected tone. “I would appreciate a bit of help with some more public records though. Since, you’re already working on your stuff anyway.”
“STOP!” Tony stands to then kneel by Peter’s feet. “You can’t just give up.”
“I haven’t given up! I’ve build a different life for myself with what I have. I’m not the only one who’s had to do that since the Blip. Just let it be.”
Peter stands, leaving Tony on the floor. Heading for the fridge to grab a beer.
“Want one?” he offers.
“Underage drinking.” Tony remarks.
And Peter replies with a smirk. “Fuck you.”
“Yeah, I’ll have one.”
They sit in silence for a while. Just drinking their beer three feet from each other in their respective seats.
“Why the shitty apartment?” Tony finally asks.
“Can’t stay at a dorm and be Spider-man, but this is all I can afford.” Peter explains.
Tony looks at him dubiously. “But you can afford MIT?”
“Scholarship.” Peter simply says.
“With a fake identity? Bit ruthless.” Tony’s shock is immediately eclipsed by awe.
“I’ve had to be.”
Tony can’t believe he’s encouraging this but he’s never been a paragon of morality.
“Why not hack a bank to get a better apartment?”
“I don’t take more than I need.” Peter says with a roll of his eyes.
“Not so ruthless then.”
“I take more and people come looking.” Peter expounds.
Tony nods before saying “You can still get caught with the scholarship. I could take over.”
“With what? Your daughter’s money?” Peter teases.
“The estate is reverting back to me.”
“Wow. Just like that.” Peter says wistfully. “Must be nice having easy fixes when your rich.”
“It’s easy when your ex-wife and daughter aren’t assholes.”
“Ex-wife?” Peter is surprised by this.
“Pepper’s seeing someone.” Tony explains with a sigh.
“That must be awkward.”
“Well, at least she remembers me.” Tony gives him a pointed look and Peter groans in response.
“I don’t need you to fix my problems, Tony.”
“I probably can’t considering what you just told me. Just trying to ease the load.”
“Well, don’t.”
“Why not?”
They’re shouting now.
“I don’t know if you’re sticking around, Tony.”
“I am. You can trust me.”
“This is not about trust! You just got back from the dead. I can’t get used to you ‘easing the load’. Turns out I can’t get used to anything. Not even May, and I’ve had her my whole life. So, I’d appreciate getting a few of my records fixed but that’s it.”
“Peter…” Tony begins to protest.
“What is it Clint says?...an exercise in managing loss.” Says Peter as he stares at his near empty bottle of beer.
“Clint Barton has a family, Peter.” says Tony.
Peter shrugs again. “Maybe, I’ll get there someday.”
Tony looks at him mournfully. “Why wait?”
“I’ve lost too much in a very short amount of time. Guess I’m still waiting for things to settle down.”