Where are you?
As soon as Tony was awake, he stood up and started looking for Peter.
His head was killing him but he didn’t care. He had to find his kid.
Tony felt his heart pounding in his chest and he knew if he wasn’t careful then he would have a panic attack but he didn’t care because Peter could be hurt if he wasn’t already dead.
He didn’t want to think of the possibility of his kid being dead. No way. It just wasn’t an option. His baby couldn’t be dead.
Tony got a flashback of the plane tearing apart in midair as Peter separated from him on the tail end of the plane. He needed to hold his kid.
“Peter! Pete, baby! I’m here!” Tony called out for him. His throat was killing him but there wasn’t any water around and he wasn’t about to go look for water when his kid needed him.
Tony started running along the beach and for the first time since he woke up, he took in his surroundings. He was on an island which didn’t surprise him but they were flying hours off course and there were no islands close to Malibu that they could have crash landed on.
He stopped running and looked in the direction of the ocean. He could see nothing but water for miles.
It was very unlikely that anyone lived on the island because if there were locals on the island then they would have found him by now from the plane crash.
He hoped there was no cannibal eating people on the island. Then they would really be in for it.
Tony turned around and looked up at the jungle. He could see mountains upon mountains which told him that the island was massive.
That was a good and bad thing. It was a good thing because it meant that rescue was coming soon. The island would be easy to find because of the size and the black box from the plane. It was a bad thing because that meant that Peter could be anywhere and if he wasn’t close then no amount of screaming could bring Peter to him.
Tony fell to his knees in the sand out of defeat. He wanted to hold his baby boy in his arms. He was supposed to protect his kid from everything and he failed to do that.
He hoped so badly that Peter was okay and alive. He didn’t want his baby dead lying somewhere or him being injured with a broken leg or something.
He needed Peter to be okay.
Tony stood up and wiped the tears that he didn’t even notice fall down his cheeks. They should have landed in Malibu right now meaning that Pepper was waiting for them to show up but they wouldn’t be showing up.
She would contact someone and help would come within a few hours. He knew it. He hoped for it.
Right now, Tony had to continue to look for Peter.
He started walking towards the deep jungle, having no idea where he was going but he didn’t care. It was damp and muggy inside the jungle which was expected. It didn’t phase him since he had bigger worries on his mind.
Tony continued walking through the jungle, calling Peter’s name every so often but he couldn’t hear anything but the sound of birds chirping. It would be peaceful if it was any other situation and not him looking for his possibly dead son after a plane crash.
He didn’t know how long he was walking for when he stumbled upon pieces of the plane. He started following it, having no idea where it would lead him. He was absolutely terrified of finding Peter’s lifeless body in the plane wreckage but he had to keep moving on.
Tony continued following the trail of broken metal, fabric and seat cushions, among other things. Tony then found part of the plane but he could already see that it was part of the middle half, no cockpit and no Peter.
He wondered if the pilots were alive, surely they were dead considering they most likely hit first and died on impact.
Tony continued to walk towards the broken side of the plane and found a pair of Peter’s pants. He walked towards them and picked them up. He held the clothing close to his chest because it wasn’t Peter but it was something that brought him closer to his son.
There were more clothes laying on the ground so Tony kept walking, picking up all of Peter’s clothes. It must have been Peter’s suitcase that busted open which meant that Tony had all his stuff, leaving Peter with nothing.
Tony continued picking up everything and then saw the empty suitcase in the distance, hanging from a tree. He reached up and jumped to grab it, birds flying away because of the loud sound and scaring the shit out of him.
“Ah fuck.” Tony grabbed his shirt over his heart. “Okay. Okay.” He felt his heart beat slow down to a normal speed and started putting all of Peter’s clothes back in his bag.
The zipper was broken so it would be a pain in the ass to carry it back to the beach. He didn’t even know why he was bringing it back to the beach since Peter wasn’t with him. He just thought that it would make him feel a lot better if he had it near him.
Tony grabbed all of the clothes that he could find, Peter’s pants, shirts, underwear and his bathing suit as well as his pyjamas and everything else he had.
He knew Peter packed his blankie in his suitcase because he had seen him do it and then double checked before they left because Peter couldn’t sleep without his blanket.
He didn’t want it to be like the last time they went to a hotel for the night and Peter didn’t have his blanket and had to cry himself to sleep which took a painfully long time for Tony to listen to.
“No no no.” Tony mumbled to himself and continued to search for the freaking blanket. He couldn’t find it anywhere and he was starting to freak out because Peter had that goddamn thing since he was an infant and he needed it to fall asleep. “Fuck! Where are you?”
Tony didn’t know how long he searched for. He was starting to second guess himself and wonder if Peter ended up packing it because he couldn’t find it anywhere.
Out of pure anger and exhaustion, Tony picked up a stick off the ground and launched it at a tree. To his surprise, he saw the blanket hanging in the tree where he threw the stick.
He clumsy walked over to the tree to grab Peter’s blankie and gently took it off the tree, feeling himself want to cry once he had it in his hands.
Peter should be taking comfort in the piece of fabric, not him but in that moment he couldn’t help but feel relaxed holding it in his hands. He made sure to keep it tightly in his hold so nothing happened to it.
When he went to walk back to Peter’s suitcase, he saw his suitcase in the distance. It was still closed meaning that hopefully everything was still in there.
Holding Peter’s blankie tight in his grasp, he made his way over to his suitcase since that was where he put all of Peter’s inhalers. He knew that Peter would be needing them in a few hours if not now.
He opened up his suitcase and began searching for the bag he kept them all in. He always brought more than enough wherever they went in fear that Peter didn’t bring his which he usually never did.
Now his kid didn’t have his inhaler with him and neither did Tony. He put the blanket down to start ripping everything out of his suitcase, his hands sweating in the process, not just from the heat.
Tony sighed in relief when he found the bag of inhalers at the bottom of the suitcase. Something didn’t look right, “No. no no no. Please no.” Tony opened the bag up to find that two out of the five inhalers had cracked in the crash.
He had no idea how long they would be there for and three inhalers wouldn’t be enough. He had to find some extra ones that they hopefully packed. It was very unlikely that Peter packed any but he had to check so Tony put everything back into his suitcase, zipped it up and walked back to Peter’s suitcase to carry back to the beach so he could look through everything in some brighter light.
The sun was starting to set which was scary because Peter was still alone somewhere and he was scared of the dark plus he didn’t have his blankie and it hurt Tony to think about what his kid was going through.
.
.
.
Peter was sweating.
He had sweat pouring down his face and felt that he had already got sunburned because the sun was shining on him while he slept.
It took a few seconds for everything to come back to him but once his memories from the day before came back, he started to feel more tears burn his eyes again because his dad still wasn’t with him and he had slept horribly.
Peter stood up from his makeshift bed and walked down to the ocean to get another drink. It burned his throat going down and made him want to vomit but he didn’t have any other options.
He felt a bit better after drinking the salty water because his throat wasn’t that dry but he was still really thirty. Peter started walking back up the beach when he felt that he needed to go pee so he tugged his pants and underwear down as he ran up the beach and went to go water down a tree but he stopped once the pee started coming out because it burned.
“Ow. What?” Peter sucked in a breath of air and whispered to himself. He tried to pee again but it hurt a lot.
It was a burning sensation but when he would hold in his pee, it hurt as well. Peter closed his eyes shut tight and finished peeing even though it hurt so bad. He let out a whimper after he was done and kept his eyes closed shut for a few seconds until the burning stopped a bit.
He carefully pulled his underwear and pants back up and wiped the tears that left his eyes from the pain.
Peter just wanted his dad now because if Tony was there then he would make everything better.
Peter had no idea what time it was but it was bright out so he wanted to go look for his dad again because he knew he couldn’t stand another night without the man holding him.
He began walking into the jungle and for about the first hour he was fine but he started to get really hot and have some trouble breathing so he found a tree stump to sit on and rest.
Peter took his shirt off and then took his shoes off so he could get his pants off. He was already feeling better without the thick material on him. It was way too hot for what he was wearing.
He felt like he could properly breathe now that he took all his clothes but his underwear off. He put his shoes back on and continued to look for his dad.
.
.
.
Tony didn’t care how long it took, he was going to find his kid.
He knew sitting on the beach and doing nothing wasn’t going to bring his kid back so after he picked a mango from a tree that was actually the freshest fruit he had ever eaten, he was on his way.
Tony made sure to carry an inhaler with him just in case he found Peter and Peter needed it.
As he started walking, he began thinking, Tony didn’t know why no one had come for them last night. He knew they went off course but Happy saw them board the plane and Pepper was there to see that they hadn’t arrived yet.
He had no idea where his phone was so he couldn’t call anyone but it wasn’t like he would even get service where he was. He knew that after they didn’t show up, Pepper had to have called Happy and that’s when they would have found out that something was wrong but a day was still too long for no one to come for them.
That scared him a lot. He knew they couldn’t be on this island so as soon as he found Peter then they needed to leave but so far that wasn’t an option.
Tony didn’t know how long he was walking for. He would call out Peter’s name every so often but got nothing in response. It had to have been about two hours of looking for his kid when he came across the most beautiful sight in the world.
Peter.
He walked out from behind a bunch of vines and immediately spotted his kid. He couldn’t speak, it was as if his voice had been taken from him out of pure happiness and relief.
Peter was squatting down next to a tree with his back to Tony. He was doing something but Tony couldn’t see what he was doing. Peter had no shirt on and from what Tony could see, he had no pants on either, leaving him in just his underwear which was typical Peter.
Tony immediately rushed forwards, he found his voice and called out for his kid. “Peter. Peter, oh my god.”
Peter jumped at the sudden voice and fell onto his butt. He turned around and saw that it was his dad rushing towards him so he reached his arms out, feeling happy tears start to fall down his face.
Tony pulled Peter into his arms and held him tightly against his chest. “Oh Peter. My baby. Are you okay? Are you hurt?”
Tony felt Peter shaking and crying against his chest. He ran his hand up and down Peter’s back but he didn’t feel anything broken.
Peter didn’t know why he was crying so hard. Maybe it was because he now knew that he was safe because he didn’t have to worry about sleeping alone or wondering if his dad was alive.
Tony kissed Peter’s head and then pulled away so he could check his kids body over for anything. “Are you okay?”
Peter nodded his head while he looked up at his dad with a scrunched up face. “Uh huh. I-I missed you. I-I did-didn’t want to think that you-you were…” Peter trailed off with a sob but Tony knew what he meant.
“I’m okay, baby. I was so scared that you were hurt.” Tony cupped Peter’s face and bent down so they were at eye level.
Peter smiled at him weakly then reached out again because he wanted to place his head on his dad's chest but Tony stopped him and started running his hands over his head.
“Did you hit your head at all?” Tony asked him. Peter shook his head so Tony pulled his hands away and looked at the scrape on his chin. “Oh yeah? Then what’s this?”
“I-I don’t know. What is it?” Peter asked. He honestly had no idea what he looked like. He could have had a huge gash on his face and he wouldn’t know, well, he assumed he’d know if that was the case.
Tony looked at the scrape, it wasn’t deep at all so he wasn’t worried about it. He also remembered that Peter couldn’t see his own face so he wouldn’t know.
“It’s just a tiny cut. You’re okay. Are you hurt anywhere else?” Tony asked him again and checked his body over. It was easy since he wasn’t wearing anything but underwear.
“Daddy, I said I’m okay.” Peter whined out and tried to push himself into his dad's chest again and this time Tony let him. “Just want you to hold me.”
Tony couldn’t say no to that request. He lifted Peter up so he could hold Peter closer to himself. It was one hell of a day and a night but now Peter was safe and back in his arms.
Peter tried to wrap his legs around his dad's waist but he was being placed back on the ground. “Where did your clothes go? Fall off in the crash?”
Peter shrugged his shoulders. “I got hot and then I forgot where I left them.”
Tony laughed. That was typical Peter. “I missed you so much, buddy. I’m so glad that you’re okay.” Tony hugged Peter to his chest again, “Have you eaten anything?”
Peter shook his head. “Um, no. There’s nothing to eat.”
Tony tried not to think about the fact that Peter hasn’t eaten anything in over a day. He forced a smile and pointed to a tree, “We’re on an island, bud. There’s fruit in practically all the trees.”
Peter looked up at the trees and smiled when he spotted mangos in one of the trees. “Are those mangos?”
Tony nodded and started making his way over to the tree with Peter following behind him. “Yep. I’ll pick you up and you grab one from that branch.”
Peter skipped over so he was standing in front of his dad with raised arms. Tony easily lifted his kid into the air and waited for Peter to grab a fruit then put him back down. Peter held two fruits up and smiled proudly.
“Mangos. Now we just need to cut them up.” Peter handed the mango he brought down for his dad to him and looked around as if he would magically find a knife laying around just waiting to be used.
Tony laughed at his innocent kid. “We don’t have a knife so you gotta just bite into it.”
Peter’s face scrunched up. “But… the skin is nasty.”
Tony rolled his eyes. “Just do it. You’re not eating the skin, just bite it to get to the inside.”
Peter made a sound of disgust and shook his head, handing the mango to Tony. “Can you just do it?”
“Alright.” Tony grabbed one of the mangos from Peter and bit into it then spit out the skin, handing the mango back to Peter.
Peter hesitated but bit into the spot his dad had bitten into. It was by far the best mango he had ever eaten in his entire lifetime. It tasted so fresh. He looked up at Tony with wide eyes. “Mmmm! It’s so good.”
“Yeah. It’s because there’s no pesticides or chemicals going into it.” Tony explained to Peter and then bit into his mango. “We should start heading back to the beach where I came from.”
“Oh. Do you know how to get back there?” Peter asked him and sucked on the juices of his mango. It felt so good going down his throat, unlike the salt water.
“Yeah. We’ll find our way eventually but let’s get walking.” Tony knew what direction to walk in but everything looked the same so he wasn’t entirely sure he would be going in the right direction the whole time.
He turned to start walking but then Peter was running next to him and grabbing onto his hand. “I want to hold your hand.”
Tony smiled down at his kid. “You can. You haven't held my hand in so long. I thought you were too cool for that.”
Peter shrugged. “Yeah, well… I missed you so I’m allowed to hold my daddy’s hand if I wanna hold my daddy’s hand. Are you too cool to hold your kid's hand?” Peter playfully pushed against his dad.
“Never. I’ll hold your hand all the time if you let me.” Tony meant that. He would hold his son's hand twenty years from now if Peter let him.
Peter took the last bite of his mango and held up the skin. “Can I throw this on the ground?”
“Yeah, bud.” Tony told him. He still couldn’t get over how he made such a perfect little human being.
They continued to walk in comfortable silence. Peter would jump onto a log and jump off, using Tony’s hand to jump higher. Tony was content to have his kid back so he didn’t care that Peter was about to rip his arm out of his socket from swinging off of him.
After a few minutes of walking, Peter tensed up and let go of his hand. Tony stopped to stare at him. “What’s wrong?”
Peter resisted the urge to grab between his legs because he suddenly needed to pee but he had gone two times since the first time and the burning feeling seemed to be getting worse each time.
“Peter. What is it?” Tony could tell that something was wrong but he had no idea what it was.
“Um… my-I need to pee.” Peter practically whispered out.
Tony sighed in relief. He didn’t know why Peter was acting shy about it, he knew Peter was everything but shy around him for anything.
“That’s okay. Just go pee over there and I’ll wait here.” Tony told him, he walked a bit away to give Peter a bit more privacy as well but Peter didn’t make a move.
“I um…” Peter didn’t want to go because he was scared of the burning coming back but he didn’t want to tell his dad.
“Go, bud. Look, if it makes you feel any better about going pee in the jungle, every single animal here does it.” Tony tried to make Peter feel a bit better and smiled once Peter turned around and walked up to a tree.
Peter hesitated. He didn’t want to go pee because it hurt too badly and he knew he had to tell his dad and now he was going to get in trouble for drinking ocean water.
He started to cry both from fear of the pain inevitably coming back and from getting in trouble. He brought his hands up to cover his face as he started sobbing.
Tony was immediately making his way over to Peter’s side. He was starting to get worried since maybe there was something wrong with his kid internally and he had no way of knowing. That scared him so badly.
“Hey, what’s wrong?” Tony sat himself down on a fallen tree that was right in front of Peter. He gently grabbed Peter’s hands away from his face and held them in front of him.
Peter sniffled. “I-I can’t pee.”
Tony didn’t understand. He thought that maybe Peter felt bad for peeing in the jungle but he knew Peter understood that they didn’t have any other options and that was okay.
“Why can’t you pee, baby?” Tony asked him slowly. He hadn’t seen Peter in almost a full day so he’s assuming that Peter went pee in that time.
Peter moved one of his hands away from Tony’s hands to wipe the tears on his face. “I-I… it hurts. I can’t.”
That scared Tony now, so something was wrong with his kid. “What hurts, Peter? You have to tell me so I can help you.”
Peter hesitated and looked away from Tony to look down at himself. “It hurts. I don’t know.”
Since Peter was wearing underwear, that was the only part of his body that Tony couldn’t see so he had no idea if that was where Peter got hurt during the crash. Maybe he was bleeding out and he had no idea.
“Does it hurt on the inside or the outside, Pete?” He asked him slowly and watched as Peter tried to think about it but then Peter was crying harder.
“I-I don’t know. It just hurts.” Peter squeezed his dad's arm to help with the pain a bit. He didn’t know why he was crying so hard now but he figured it had something to do with feeling safe because his dad was there and was going to take care of him.
“Does it just hurt when you pee?” Peter nodded his head at Tony’s question. “But it doesn’t hurt anywhere else?”
“No. But when-when I pee, it burns and it hurts so badly.” Peter explained and tried to stop crying because he didn’t want to seem like a baby.
“Did you drink any water since we got here?” Tony had an idea of what this was. He’s had many in his life but Peter has yet to have one.
Peter hesitated and looked away. “Um… yeah. But-but you’re gonna get mad at me.”
“What? Why would I get mad at you, Pete? I promise I’m not gonna be mad but you have to tell me.” Tony had no idea what Peter had done while he was alone but he couldn’t be mad at anything he did.
“I was really thirsty and I know I shouldn’t have but I couldn’t help it so I drank the ocean water.” Peter rushed out in a quick sentence that had Tony laughing a bit even though it was a serious situation.
“Oh, buddy. I’m not mad at you but you know that would never quench your thirst.” Tony ran a hand over his face. “It’s way too salty so it would only make you thirstier.”
Peter nodded his head.
“So you have a bladder infection now.” Tony told him simply. He wasn’t going to dance around the fact. If they were at home then he would immediately be taking Peter to the doctors to get him what he needed but they weren’t at home so it was Tony’s job as a father to take care of his kid.
Peter let out a whimper and shook his head. “No. I don’t.”
“You do, baby. So I know it’s gonna hurt but you need to go pee now so it doesn’t get worse.” Tony slowly explained to Peter so the problem didn’t get any worse. He wondered how much ocean water Peter actually drank for him to get a bladder infection because of it.
Peter shook his head. He didn’t want to go pee and experience that again but his dad was there to make everything better so he pulled down his underwear to go pee, Tony turning away a bit to give him some privacy but also staying to give Peter the comfort he needed.
It hurt more than before but it helped that he had his dad there to help him this time.
Tony waited until he was done to speak. “It’ll get better but you need to drink lots of fresh water now and sometimes fruits.” As Tony said that, he stood up to grab another mango from a tree for Peter.
Peter wiped away his stray tears now and reached back for his dad's hand. “I miss Pepper. She always rubs my belly when I don’t feel good.”
That broke Tony’s heart. He knew how much of an impact Pepper had on Peter’s life even if he wasn’t her biological son. She still loved him just as much and the two of them had such a strong bond together so Tony knew how hard it was for his son who already had a bit of separation anxiety to be away from the woman.
“I know, baby. We’ll be home soon and she’ll be back to rubbing your belly.” Tony pulled Peter closer to himself so he could press a kiss to Peter’s hair, not caring that it was all sweaty.
They continued walking for a while, Peter finishing his mango and Tony grabbing him another one since he needed Peter’s bladder infection to go away before it gets any worse.
Peter let go of Tony’s hand and started running up a bit. He saw something in the distance and had to go find out what that was.