On Our Way To Nowhere

“Do you have everything that you need?” Tony asked his son who was extremely forgetful and constantly needed to be reminded to do things. He definitely got that trait from himself. 

Peter groaned and flopped onto the couch. “Yes. You’ve asked me that over a hundred times. Can we go now?” 

Tony rolled his eyes at his kid. “I’m just making sure. Last time we left, you forgot to pack underwear and you ended up going commando for a week.” 

Peter sat up on the couch to glare at his dad. “Hey, don’t judge the commando lifestyle. I’d choose that any day.” 

Tony lifted up his suitcase and tossed Peter’s jacket at him. “Alright, monkey, let’s head out.” 

As Tony walked into the elevator, Peter looked at the jacket in his hands. It was a thin raincoat but he didn’t feel like carrying it to the car so he tossed it on the couch and skipped into the elevator with his dad. 

He couldn’t wait to get to Malibu since it was still pretty cold out in New York, it being early May and all. He skipped to the car once they arrived in the garage and ran around to the back to put his suitcase in the trunk. 

“Can we go swimming as soon as we arrive?” Peter asked excitedly. It was his favourite thing to do, immediately change into his swimming trunks and jump into the pool. 

Tony lifted his suitcase into the trunk along with his other bag. “If that’s what you wanna do.” 

“Is Pepper gonna pick us up from the airport?” Peter asked once they both settled into the car. Peter buckled himself into his car seat and kicked his feet in his excitement. 

“Yep. Just like she always does.” Tony started the car and backed out of the garage. He could not wait to get to warm weather and spend some time with his fiancé and his son. 

The car ride to his private airport was spent with Peter chatting away nonstop about one thing or another. Tony wanted to think it was just because he was excited about getting on a plane and going to their second home but he knew that his kid was always like this no matter what. 

Tony pulled the car up on the runway and turned it off. “Hey, Hap.” Tony said to his best friend and bodyguard as he got out of the car. 

“Leaving me for warmer weather I see. And you’re taking my nephew away from me.” Happy faked his annoyance which caused Peter to laugh and make his way over to Happy to squeeze him in a hug. 

“I’ll see you in two weeks, Happy. Don’t be sad.” Peter wrapped his arms around the much larger man and started laughing again when Happy lifted him up. 

“Take care of your dad for me. You know how he gets.” Happy joked while he carried Peter around to the back of the car where Tony was. 

Peter nodded in understanding as Tony playfully smacked his friend. “Hey, don’t turn my kid against me. Put him down and make him grab his suitcase because I’m not doing it.” 

Happy let go of Peter, causing the boy to slide off the man and land on his feet. Peter walked over and attempted to grab his suitcase out of the trunk but Tony had to help him so it didn’t scratch the paint from Peter dragging it. 

They all walked to the plane together, Happy taking the suitcase from Peter so he could carry it up the steps of the private plane for him. 

Happy helped Tony secure the suitcases down so they wouldn’t be rolling around when they take off and land. Peter was already making himself comfortable on one of the seats. 

“Alright, well, you guys have fun in the hot weather. I’ll pick you up here in two weeks.” Happy said and gave Tony a quick pat on the back then walked over to pull Tony’s kid into another hug before he was getting off the airplane and the door was being shut. 

Tony went to sit across from his kid. “You excited?” 

Peter was already vibrating with excitement. Tony loved how his kid still appreciated everything in life, even the little things. No matter how many times he has taken Peter on a private plane, his kid is still so excited every time. Maybe that’s just because he’s a hyperactive eight year old boy. 

“Uh huh. I want to try out my new water gun too. I didn’t get to use it last time since it didn’t come in the mail yet.” Peter was kicking his legs back and forth on his seat in his excitement. He could not wait. 

They were about five hours into their plane ride which was always hard for Peter to sit still once they hit the four hour mark. Tony was doing his best to keep Peter occupied and it was working for the most part but now Peter was getting up and jumping over all the seats. 

“Come sit and we’ll finish our board game.” Tony told Peter but he was sitting on the back of one of the seats and looking out the window. Tony had attempted to make Peter go to sleep by shutting all the plane window blocks but it didn’t work. 

“No. I want to look outside.” Peter tried to see what was under the clouds. It looked like water but that seemed unlikely because they never flew over water when they went to Malibu since there was no need to. “It looks like we’re above water, dad.” 

“We’re not.” Tony told him without looking up. He knew they weren’t since there was no big open waters on their travels. 

“But we are. I can see the ocean.” Peter said, somewhat excited. 

Tony looked up at Peter confused and then opened up one of the airplane window blockers since he had closed them all in his failed attempt to get Peter to nap. 

He looked out and saw that Peter was right. They were above the open ocean. That wasn’t part of their journey though. He couldn’t see any land around them for miles either. 

Tony got off his seat and went to find out why they were flying above water. He knocked on the cockpit door and waited for someone to open it. 

“Mr. Stark, what can I do for you?” The first pilot opened the cockpit door to say. 

Tony leaned against the doorframe. “We’re flying above water and that’s not in the route.” 

The pilot was holding a map up in the air and circling points aggressively. “We were forced to go a bit off course, Mr. Stark. I can assure you that we will be back on course in a few minutes. Please go back to your seat.” 

Tony didn’t like the sounds of that. They were forced to go off course, he knew that wasn’t good. “What’s going on? Look, I’ve taken this route over a hundred times and this has never happened before so why are we going off course?” 

The pilot sighed but continued to circle points on the map. “There- there seems to be some kind of electoral magnetic pull pulling us in a different direction. Everything will be okay, just go back to your seat.” 

Tony looked at all the points that the pilot was circling and saw that it was in the shape of a complete triangle with three strong points but that didn’t make any sense. 

Before he could say anything else, the door was being shut in his face. He stood there for a few seconds to try and think about what the hell was going on but then Peter was walking up to him. 

“Did they say why we’re flying above the ocean?” Peter asked but Tony knew he couldn’t scare his kid so he turned him around and guided him back towards their seats. 

“They just said there’s a bit of a storm up ahead so we had to fly around it. We’ll be in Malibu soon.” Tony lied and shoved Peter into his seat. He could tell that Peter didn’t believe him so he tried to distract him. “Hey look, I was in the lead.” 

A grin appeared on Peter’s face as he reached for the dice to roll again. It was Tony’s turn but he’d let Peter take it. 

After a few more minutes of playing, Peter felt that he needed to go pee again. “I need to pee. Don’t roll until I get back.” 

“You got it.” Tony told him and watched Peter jump up from his seat and run into the bathroom. 

He opened up the window again and looked out. He couldn’t see anything but water still. He tried so hard not to worry about it but something didn’t feel right. 

They hit some turbulence which caused the plane to rock side to side and shake a bit but it wasn’t particularly bad. He’s had worse. 

He was about to stand up to go get Peter when suddenly the plane dropped a few hundred feet in the air. 

It took him a few moments to catch his breath and figure out what the hell just happened. If he wasn’t sitting in his seat and wearing a seatbelt, the turbulence would have sent him flying up but that would be a different story for Peter. 

“Peter.” Tony called out to his kid. He felt his heart beating so fast in his chest and all he knew was that he needed to get to his kid. 

Tony tried to take off his seatbelt but then the plane started to fall again which had him being pushed back into his seat and unable to move from the pressure. 

Tony tried to get his seatbelt off so he could get to his kid but he couldn’t move his hands. “Peter!”

The plane continued to fall and things were flying up everywhere. Their board game was long gone, somewhere lost on the floor but Tony didn’t care. 

He closed his eyes shut so hopefully everything would be over soon but then he heard a deafening cracking sound. 

When he opened his eyes, what he saw would forever haunt him. The sides of the airplane were breaking in half and splitting apart. Before he even had the chance to react, the plane was spitting in half and the side of the plane that Peter was on was falling out of the sky. 

Tony forced his hand up out of pure willpower and screamed at the top of his lungs. His baby was being ripped apart from him and he could do nothing about it. 

Tony watched as the back half of the plane fell down until he lost sight of it. He shut his eyes and tried to take in a breath but the air was gone. 

He wasn’t sure if he was having a panic attack or he simply couldn’t breathe because he was falling thousands of kilometres a minute in a ripped apart airplane. 

There was too much pressure that Tony was feeling himself start to lose consciousness. He prayed that he would be with his kid now and that was his last thought before everything went dark. 

.

.

.

Peter sat up with a gasp of air and a pounding head. 

He lifted his hand up to his head where it was hurting and pulled his hand away to see if there was any blood. There was a bit of blood but it wasn’t much and that still made him panic. 

He looked around for the first time since waking up and felt his heart drop. He was in the middle of some jungle. He couldn’t see anything but tropical trees and bamboo sticks. 

Peter let out a whimper. The last thing he remembered was going to the bathroom on the airplane and just after he pulled up his pants, there was turbulence which caused him to hit his head and that’s all he remembered. 

With another whimper escaping his mouth, Peter pushed himself to his feet. He had to grab onto a tree to support himself since his head spun and his vision went black once he was standing but after a few seconds, his vision cleared. 

“Daddy? Daddy, where are you?” Peter called out for Tony. He wanted his dad so badly. 

Peter tried to listen for him but he heard nothing. He started walking forward and his walking quickly turned into running until he was sprinting as fast as he could in the jungle with no idea as to where he was headed. 

He saw a bright light and pushed through the trees until he was on a beach. It was rather peaceful in any other situation. It looked like the beach that him, his dad and Pepper spent one summer on a few years ago. 

Peter paused and then started running down the beach to look for his dad. “Daddy! Daddy!” 

Peter spun around, his heart was pounding so loudly in his chest but he couldn’t see or hear his dad anywhere and that scared him so much. He fell to his knees and started crying. 

“Daddy. Daddy. Where are you?” He said to himself. The sand was hot and soft so it was nice to sit there even if he was freaking out on the inside. 

He tried to take a few calming breaths because he knew if he started freaking out too much then it would send himself into an asthma attack and since he didn’t have his inhaler on him, he couldn’t risk that. 

Peter took a few calming breaths the way that his dad taught him and then he laid down on his back the same way that he woke up, only minutes before. 

He felt the soft sand on his back and looked up at the blue skies. The sound of the waves in the background had him relaxing but it was almost too peaceful. 

Maybe he was dead? There was no other option it seemed like. He hit his head too hard when the plane hit turbulence and now he was dead. 

He didn’t want to be dead though. He wanted to live. There was still so much he wanted to do like have a water gun fight with his dad and fall asleep on the couch with his dad some more. He wasn’t ready to die yet, especially if that meant he would never get to see his dad ever again. 

Peter sat up with a sob. He didn’t want to die. He hadn’t even turned nine yet. There was still so much he wanted to do but he didn’t get the chance to yet. Like riding the Leviathan at the amusement park that he was still too short for. He wanted to learn how to ride a bike without training wheels and go on long car rides with his dad and Pepper. 

Peter felt the tears start to run down his face. He didn’t want to be dead. It was scary. He wanted his dad. 

He brought a hand up to wipe the tears off his face but that ended up getting a bunch of sand all over his face. Peter groaned in frustration and pushed himself into a standing position. 

“Daddy! Daddy! I’m here! Where are you?!” Peter yelled as loud as he could yell. His dad had always said he had the lungs of an opera singer because even as a baby, he could cry for hours and hours without showing signs of stopping. He guessed he still had that gift. 

“Daddy!” Peter screamed, drawing out the word for about ten seconds. He tried so hard to listen but all he could hear was the sound of the waves and the tropical animals in the distance. 

He took some more calming breaths and started to walk down the beach. He had absolutely no idea where they were but it had to be close to Malibu so maybe it was a small island near there. 

Maybe there would be some locals that he could find and possibly ask them for a phone to use to call someone. 

Peter began walking down the beach a bit. It was weird that he didn’t come across anything. No footprints or sign of civilization, no plane or plane parts even. If they crashed on this island and he woke up there then the plane or parts of the plane had to be close. 

There was a loud sound in the jungle, it sounded like a tree fell or something but that could be his plane or maybe it was his dad and he needed his help. 

Peter took off in that direction. “Daddy! Daddy, I’m here. I’m right here!” 

Peter continued to run through the jungle, jumping over fallen trees and trying not to trip on any rocks or branches. He started to feel his chest heave so he had to stop running in fear of having an asthma attack without his inhaler. 

He sat on a rather wet and slimy rock but he didn’t care. He needed his inhaler but most importantly, he needed his dad. 

Peter didn’t know how long he was sitting on that wet and slimy rock for but he didn’t care. He was scared and he was alone and had no idea where his dad was. 

He didn’t want to think of the possibility that his dad was dead but it was a huge possibility. Peter felt more tears burn his eyes so he stood up and started walking in the direction of the beach again. 

It took him a lot longer to get back to the beach. He wondered if he was even headed in the right direction but then he heard the sound of the waves and started to pick up his pace. 

Once Peter got to the beach again, he noticed that the sun was starting to set. He didn’t want the sun to set because he didn’t want the nighttime to come without his dad. 

He was terrified of the dark in his bedroom so never mind the dark on some random island all by himself after a plane crash.  Peter let out more whimpers that soon turned into crying but he didn’t care how loud he was. 

He wanted someone to hear him. 

The ocean water was so teasing to him. He was starting to get hungry now that he had nothing else to think about and he was kinda thirty too now. 

He knew the ocean was salt water and that he shouldn’t be drinking it but a few sips to quench his thirst wouldn’t do anything. Especially if he just did it once. 

So Peter walked down to the water and squatted down in front of the ocean. He loved the ocean and had always been a water baby right from the start but the last thing he wanted to do right now was to be in the ocean. He just wanted his dad. 

Peter felt the waves splash his butt, soaking him in the process but he didn’t care. He leaned down and started drinking some of the water, knowing that his dad would be so mad at him for even thinking about drinking some of the ocean water. 

His dad wasn’t there so he didn’t care. 

After Peter was done, he stood up and wiped his mouth. It tasted exactly how you would expect salty ocean water to taste and he hated it but he couldn’t help it. 

It made him remember all those times he had accidentally swallowed ocean water and he would spit it out but now he was willingly drinking it. 

Peter wiped the tears that were freely falling down his face. If only his dad was here to make everything better and keep him safe. 

Peter thought about being in his dad's arms where nothing could ever hurt him as the sun started to go down. He dug a small body sized hole in the sand so he could keep himself warm and make it feel like his dad was holding him against his chest. 

He was without his dad and he didn’t even have his comfort blankie to help him sleep so he was in for one hell of a night by himself. 

Peter wanted it to be morning so he could continue looking for his dad and feel safe.