I'll Love You Long After You're Gone

Peter wakes up in a soft bed in clean clothes he doesn’t recognize. His senses pick up on the distinct sterile smell of a hospital. He sits up carefully, seeing that it is some kind of medical facility but it isn’t quite a hospital. A man is sleeping next to him in a plush chair, a sling on his arm.

What the hell?

He examines his body, finding his torso is heavily wrapped along with his wrists and ankles. Aside from all the white bandages, there is an IV coming out of his right arm. He can’t remember how he got here, how he was injured, who this man was, where he is, and this all scares him. Whatever had happened, coming here must not have been his choice, he knew better than to come to a hospital and risk doctors finding out he was Spider-Man. Speaking of which, where was his suit? Carefully, Peter pulls the IV tape off of his arm and slides the needle out with a hiss through his clenched teeth. Crawling out of bed, he tiptoes past the man, making it out the door undetected.

He enters a large hallway, big glass windows connecting the ceiling to the floor and stretching down both directions. Definitely not a hospital. Everything about the place was flashy and very extra. The white tiled floor is so clean he could see his reflection, the windows don’t have a smudge on them, and the couches outside the rooms are placed evenly down the hall with a plant sitting beside each of them. He creeps down the hall, not seeing another soul in sight, passing several more medical rooms like the one he woke up in. After that is what looks like a conference room, and a break room after that. Peter’s stomach growls at the sight of the vending machines.

“Can I help you?”

Peter’s heart nearly leapt from his chest, turning around fast enough to make his head spin. A dark haired woman with a long white lab coat is standing behind him, eyeing him suspiciously. Her name tag says Dr. Helen Cho and Peter recognize her, although he’s not sure why.

“Peter, right? You’re not supposed to be out of bed.” She scolded and he notices her press a button on her pager.

His fight or flight is telling him to get the hell out of there and fast.

“Peter?”

He turns around, shocked at the sound of his name being spoken from this stranger. Only for that second, before panic sets in and Peter bolts. He races down the hallway, his ankles burning, looking for a way out and ignoring his name being called behind him. Then he sees it, an open window at the end of the hall. He easily scales the wall and leaps out the window, shooting a web to the closest building, making his wrists burn when he does so.

Why the hell is everything hurting?

He hears what sounds like small engines taking off behind him, and he frantically swings away. He’s not fast enough. He looks over his shoulder to see a red and gold suit of armour flying after him and gaining. It raises a hand and fires at Peter. The projectile hits him in the back of his neck, and an overwhelming numbness shoots through him, causing him to fall and land on the rooftop beneath him with an ‘oof.’ His vision is swimming and he feels his body shutting down. The armour lands behind him and picks him up bridal style with ease.

“I’m sorry, kiddo. I’m just trying to help, hopefully, you’ll see soon.” The unfamiliar voice inside has a gentleness to it that was slightly reassuring.
But seriously.

What the actual hell?

~~~~~~~~~~~

Peter wakes up, not remembering when he’d fallen asleep. He quickly scans the room, not recognizing where he is nor remembering how he’d gotten here. He panics for a moment when he sees the monitor showing his vitals and medical supply cart, worrying he is in a hospital. He can’t be in a hospital.

He sits up abruptly, the movement sending a rush of pain through his system.

“Good morning Peter.”

Peter jumps, causing him to grimace. He turns towards the unfamiliar voice from behind him. Is this a doctor? How did he know his name? Where was his aunt? Why hadn’t his spider sense warned him that the man was there?

“Do you know who I am?” His eyes looked hopeful.

Peter stares. The man asked with such ease, not like he was testing him, but rather like he was hoping Peter would say yes. Should Peter know who he is? Does Peter know him? He observes the man for a moment, waiting for any sort of recognition. He swallows. No.

No, he didn’t recognize him in the slightest.

Peter shakes his head, feeling guilty as the man nods in acceptance; Peter can sense disappointment in his eyes, and he looks down.

“Sorry.”

The man laughs, something Peter isn’t expecting. He frowns at the stranger.

“Are you a doctor?”

The man smiles. “That depends on if you’re going to remember this conversation or not.”

Peter frowns again.

The man seems to be debating something in his head, but whatever it was, Peter never finds out.

“Does my aunt know I’m here?” Peter tests.

“She does, yes, Though she isn’t fully aware of why.” So his aunt knows this man. That’s good, Peter supposes.

“Why am I here?”

The man’s face returns to that hesitant expression, as if trying to decide what to say. Peter furrows his brow, trying to decide whether to trust the man or not. On one hand, his spider-sense hadn’t warned him about him, which is why Peter had initially decided that he couldn’t be a threat, yet on the other hand, the man is keeping things from him, hadn’t answered his questions, had lied to his aunt, and hadn’t identified himself even after Peter admitted not knowing him. So maybe it was his senses that couldn’t be trusted; Peter eyes the IV in his arm suspiciously.

The man seems to read his thoughts. “That’s just pain medicine.”

No wonder he’s in such pain, then; they couldn’t have known about his enhanced metabolism.

“We had to give you some of Steve’s stuff to get it to work, with your Spidey metabolism. The first few times you woke up, it was terrible. We only knew it was working when you decided you felt good enough to try and run away. Do you remember any of those times?”

Peter stares. No, he doesn’t, but that didn’t worry him at all.

They know he is Spider-Man.

He has so many questions, feels so many emotions. Most of all, he is starting to feel panicked again. The beeping on the monitor slightly increases, his heart mimicking his increased breathing.

“Peter?” A hand that was probably meant to be comforting reaches out to him, but he retreats away.

“I’m not supposed to be in a hospital,” he breathes, before scanning the room, looking for a door.

He has to get out of here.

He hears footsteps outside the door and uses the opportunity to stand up and pull the IV out in one motion. As the door is in the process of opening, he darts to push past the person who is entering -- this one is definitely a doctor in her long, white coat -- but an arm catches him across the chest.

“No-“ he chokes, his voice catching in his throat as he reaches a hand out towards the door, “I have to go,” he cries desperately, as the door closes right in front of him. He looks down and pushes the arm away, quickly stepping back and away from the man who’d seemed to have read his thoughts and so was able to follow his line of thinking one step ahead of him.

Now both the man and the doctor are blocking him from the door, and Peter continues backing up to the edge of the room, looking and feeling cornered.

“Peter,” the man begins, but the doctor interrupts him.

“Stark, may I take over this time?”

‘This time?’ ‘Stark?’ Peter looks at the doctor’s name tag, and reads ‘Dr. Helen Cho.’ This name he does remember, and looking up he finds familiarity in the face.

“Dr. Cho.”

The doctor smiles; “yes, Peter, nice to meet you, though you seem to remember we have met before. And this is Tony Stark. We’re here to help you remember some stolen memories.”

Peter frowns, keeping his gaze on the woman he somehow knows and trusts. “How’s that even possible? And what can’t I remember?”

“Well, as Mr. Stark so eloquently summarized it for me, you ran into some bad guys on one of your missions, and they erased part of your memory. For the sake of my efforts to restore such memory, I won’t tell you what those memories are, but rather wait for you to tell me.”

Peter tilts his head. “Are they important memories? Will everything be okay if I can’t remember them? Is my aunt okay?”

Dr. Cho speaks in a matter-of-fact voice; Peter is glad she is answering his questions (and that she is so direct -- and also that she gave Mr. Stark a name).

“Important, yes, but vital, no. We can always fill you in if things don’t go as planned. And yes, your aunt is okay; we told her you’re here for a highly recommended week’s stay at your internship.”

He nods. “I… have an internship.” It isn’t so much a question as something he knew but had forgotten, yet he can’t quite place it.

“Of sorts; but those memories will hopefully return in due time.”

Peter doesn’t like not knowing things he should know, but the reasoning made sense, so he nods. “So how do we, uh, do that?”

“If you’ll follow me, I’ll show you.”

Peter follows the doctor out, and Tony follows Peter.

“We’ve been working this week on the machine, and we think we’ve got a way to reverse the memory loss.”

“You figured it out in just a week?”

Dr. Cho smiles; “less than a week. But that’s not surprising, noting that in addition to myself the team consisted of both Mr. Stark and Dr. Banner-”

“Dr. Bruce Banner,” Peter repeats, feeling like a piece of the puzzle had just been returned; he knows Dr. Banner. Which is so cool.

Dr. Cho nods, “Yes, and they had access to relevant information and similar technology from Wakanda.”

“Wakanda? That’s cool! Was the Black Panther here?”

Dr. Cho smiles again, “unfortunately we weren’t so lucky, this time. But we did communicate with his sister, Princess Shuri.”

“Cool.”

Dr. Cho opens a door in the hallway they were in, and follows Tony in. Tony, however, stops just in time to avoid walking right into Peter, who had frozen just inside the doorway.

“Woah, Pete,” Tony says, walking around with Dr. Cho towards the machine, and turning to look at Peter’s face.

His expression is full of fear.

The funny thing is, Peter doesn’t even know why the chair in front of him, with the removable head piece and adjustable armrests, fills him with so much dread. All he knows in his gut and by his screaming spidey-senses is that this chair must be avoided at all costs.

The adults must have read his expression, because Mr. Stark quickly steps in front of the chair blocking it from Peter’s view, and Dr. Cho kneels next to him to console him.

“No.” Peter is firm. He is not going to take that seat.

“Peter, this is to help you. This is not what you remember, think of it more like a mirror, doing the opposite.”

“But I don’t remember,” he whispers shakily.

“That’s okay. You want this, right?”

“I- I don’t know.”

Dr. Cho stands up and walks back to the doorway. Mr. Stark stays in front of him, still blocking his view and instead maintaining painful eye contact.

The space between him and Mr. Stark widens, though Peter isn’t voluntarily backing away.

“Please don’t run again, Pete.” Peter hates being the cause for the pain he sees in Mr. Stark’s eyes as he speaks, even if he doesn’t know why it was there. He hates the ‘again’ Mr. Stark referred to, when Peter can’t remember that time. He hates the pain that is flowing throughout his body when he doesn't know the cause. He hates the familiarity the man has when addressing him, whereas both the name and face of ‘Stark’ are foreign to Peter. Most of all, he hates the machine that is now present in the room with them.

“Let’s go back to your room, then,” Dr. Cho says, “and let you think it over some more.”

“I don’t want to think it over,” Peter raises his voice. “I want to know now if I really need to sit in the chair, because I don’t want to.”

Mr. Stark opens his mouth to say something, but Dr. Cho answers first from behind him. “Technically, no. All your scans showed that you are otherwise completely healthy. The memories they took from you neither impacted your health as Peter Parker nor your abilities as Spider-Man.”

Peter isn’t comfortable talking about his alter ego in front of people he didn’t know, but if Dr. Cho trusts Mr. Stark, then apparently he can trust him with this, too. Taking note of that trust, however, Peter noticed how much the doctor’s diagnosis hurt Mr. Stark, and Peter realized that his missing memories probably contained whatever interactions Peter had with this man in them.

Peter pursed his lips. “And what do you think, uh, Mr. Stark?”

The man — Mr. Stark, looks torn. He shrugs almost nonchalantly, though his expression reads ‘heartbroken.’

“Honestly, although what doc is saying is true, you’d want your memories back.” Dr. Cho gives a warning “Tonyyy” from behind Peter, but Mr. Stark dares on; “and I promised you I’d do my best to help you, like you expected me to do and I said I would. And trust me when I say I know what this chair threatens, because I know that too.”

As to what exactly the chair threatens, Peter doesn’t know, though, and that worries him even more. For a moment, he wonders if these were even the good guys, or if he is being tempted to give in to some evil scheme against his own knowledge.

He finds himself nodding in agreement, however, and the room goes silent.

“Okay,” he whispers, “I’ll do it.”

Strapped into the chair, he watches Dr. Cho’s lips as she speaks under the humming of the machine. He watches her count down, “three… two… one…” and promptly passes out.

~~~~~~~~~~~
Tony is now sitting, leaning back against the wall, and monitoring Peter in the medbay; they’d finally gotten the pain dosage to a level where Peter could stay asleep and hopefully heal.

Although he’d been expecting it since they had taken the kid from the room back in their cells, it hurt Tony more than he would ever admit when Peter didn’t recognize him. He’d grown so accustomed to the boy’s admiration, trust, and even his love, that there would have been no way for Tony to prepare himself for Peter running in fear of him. And the more Peter had started acting like his normal self, the more Tony felt like he would go crazy if he didn’t get this fixed. Yet just by putting the kid in the chair and causing Peter pain, Tony felt like he was doing nothing but hurting Peter.

He is definitely outside of his comfort zone on this one, and honestly doesn’t know how much more of this he’ll be able to take.

Peter awakens with a gasp, causing Tony to jump and almost fall out of his seat. He doesn’t care, instead he stands up to rush over and calm the boy.

“Peter, how are you feeling kid?”

Peter looks first around the room then finally up at him, confused, and Tony watches his face as he processes what he sees, searching and hoping for some sign of recognition. Peter doesn’t pull away from him, which Tony decides is good, but after a beat he is ready to give up hope on this attempt too, when Peter speaks.

“Mr. Stark?”

Tony’s heart freezes, and then he almost bursts into tears, practically falling towards the bed and wrapping Peter in a hug.

“Oh my word, kid, I swear you’re trying to kill me!”

“No, I’m not!”

Tony laughs, “then why do you do the things you do?” Tony extends Peter to arm’s length, all smiles.

Peter tilted his head, a curious smile playing on the edge of his lips; “what did I do?”

Tony rolls his eyes, “the famous last words of Spider-Man.”

But Peter’s expression turns to shock, and even Tony could tell he isn’t faking it.

“How- I’m not Spi- why would you think that?” he nervously stutters.

That wasn’t right. This was eerily like the first time Tony had met the kid.

Tony’s face fell, and he quickly dropped his hands. “C’mon, kiddo, you don’t know me?” He can’t hold the rising tearful emotion from painfully choking his voice.

Peter’s expression shifts again, and Tony doesn’t know what to expect from this almost embarrassed expression that now resides on the boy’s face, but it definitely wasn’t what comes next.

“Of course I know you - everyone does, you’re Tony Stark!”

“Do— Have we ever met?”

“Not yet, I would’ve remembered; trust me, Mr. Stark.”

“I do, kiddo.”

Tony is relieved he doesn’t have to introduce himself; he hadn’t been able to bring himself to do it last time, though he’d tried. He was thankful Dr. Cho had thought to do it for him, maybe understanding his predicament.

“So I’m not in a hospital, then?”

“Nope. You’re at the Avengers compound pumped full of Cap’s pain meds.”

Peter turns toward him, eyes wide with excitement; “Captain America?! These are his? Then why aren’t they working? Is he coming here?”

Tony supposed it makes sense that removing Tony from the kid’s memories would make the details of those surrounding him fuzzy. Peter’s question regarding the pain finally registered, and Tony opened his mouth to ask about it, but the med bay’s door made a sound and Dr. Cho was suddenly next to him.

“Why is it that I again have to look for the change in vital signs to alert me when my patient is awake?” She questions Tony, before turning to Peter and speaking in a much gentler tone of voice, “Hi, Peter, I’m Dr. Cho.”

“I know,” he says.

“How do you feel, Peter?”

Peter still has his eyes on Tony, his expression a mix of awestruck, embarrassment, and confusion. But he pauses to think about the question, which from past experience is a red flag to Tony that the kid isn’t fine.

“I’m fine,” Peter finally says, confirming Tony's suspicion that he isn’t.

“What’s the last thing you remember?”

Peter glances at Tony and shrugs.

“Would you like Mr. Stark to step out of the room?”

Peter sits up straight, his slight grimace from invisible pain not passing Tony’s attention. “No thank you ma’am, it’s okay!”

Dr. Cho turns her attention to Tony as well. “Anything you’d like to share, Mr. Stark?”

Tony sighs. He remembers the plan of not telling Peter what he needs to remember, so he’ll need to avoid that somehow, so he addresses Peter in an attempt to ease his worry. “I know you’re Spider-Man, bud, I’m just here to help. Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone. And Doctor, the kid’s in pain.”

“Who told you about- about, you know?”

“About your red and blue alter ego?”

Dr. Cho interrupts. “We’ll discuss this later, Peter, but we’re actually trying to help you finish recovering from a mishap on your last mission.”

Peter frowns. So Dr. Cho spends the next few minutes catching him up in a similar fashion as last time, adjusting his pain regimen while she does so. Also like last time, they find themselves at the entrance to the memory machine’s room again.

“Do you feel better now?”

“Yes, thanks.”

“And do you have any other questions?”
Dr. Cho had again answered Peter’s questions as Tony had stood by and watched as Peter unknowingly debated whether to bring Mr. Stark back into his life or not. But Tony is starting to see that while he is now back in the kid’s life regardless, the decision was pretty much whether Peter would bring himself back into Tony’s life.

“No,” Peter says, with the look of determination Tony was coming to hate. “I’m ready.”

Tony is glad Peter is unconscious within seconds of starting the machine; he can only hope Peter won’t remember the extreme pain he went through during those long seconds.

~~~~~~~~~~~
When Peter wakes up again, he is sitting in a soft chair with a headset on and padded cuffs on his wrists. The man from earlier -- wait is that Tony Stark? -- is talking to a doctor next to him.

The initial shock resides, and the seat and head placement ring a bell in his memory: pain. Pain, fear, and the urge to do anything he can to get out of the chair with the headset.

“Let me go!” Peter shouts, terrified.

“Hey, you’re alright Pete, we’re gonna help you.” He offers.

“I don’t want your help! Let me go!” He thrashes against the restraints.

“Don’t do that, you're gonna hurt yourself!” He sounds genuinely concerned.

Peter ignores him, panicking. If he couldn’t get out of the restraints, then that meant he was drugged, or they knew he was Spider-Man and were using something he couldn’t break through. Or worse, both.

The doctor appears in front of him, and though he recognizes the voice, he doesn’t pause to listen. He just has to get out of the chair before… before… well, he doesn’t really know what, but he knows it will hurt him.

“Peter,” the doctor says, “we have to do this now, it may be the only chance we’ve got.”

“Help me! Let me go,” Peter repeats, sweat dripping onto his chest and shoulders from the strain. Or maybe those are tears. “Please, let me go.”

“Let him go,” says the man in front of him, gently and quietly, his eyes wide with worry and stress.

Peter pauses, hopeful to see what the doctor will say.

“Stark, we agreed to this. He agreed to this. I’m sorry, but this might be the only shot we get. All the information we have available say it’s now or… or we may have to start over and hope we get this opportunity again.”

The man wordlessly stands up, and starts taking steps away from Peter. No.

“Okay, Dr. Cho, start the procedure.”

What? No.

No.

No, no, no.

Peter starts thrashing, pulling even harder this time. The restraints must have been made for him, because he can feel the adrenaline rushing through his veins now, yet the restraints never yield. The doctor urgently says something to him about sitting still, but he doesn’t bother to listen.

This chair is bad. Pain. And according to his spider-senses, it also represents something much worse, but he can’t remember what.

His spider-sense flares up even more, but he is only able to flinch away a couple centimeters before he feels a prick in his neck. He knows he is drugged at this point, as his muscles involuntarily relax and all he can do is take deep breaths. The last thing he is able to see before unconsciousness finally takes him, are the tears running down the face of the man in front of him.

He awakens, and it couldn’t have been very long because the man is still in front of him, only closer this time. Peter weakly tests the restraints, just to find that they were removed. The drugs must still be in his system, though, because his hand falls back down, just barely missing the armrest and falling awkwardly on the other side of it.

The man notices, and lifts his hand up, touching Peter’s shoulder before resting Peter’s hand back in a comfortable position in his lap. “It’s okay, Pete.” He says in a reassuring voice, but Peter has no choice but to sit there while he waits for his strength to come back.

It is quiet for a moment, until a slight hum fills the room, and Peter feels a tingling in his head as a buzzing noise starts, seemingly sourced from his own mind. His senses dull for a moment as his vision goes blurry, causing him to freeze and hold his breath. Suddenly, he's flooded with visions. Sounds. Feelings. Emotions.

Memories.

Visions of ice cream shops, 24-hour diners, movie nights, car rides, road trips... everything featuring this man before him. Then came the feelings, washing over him in waves. Admiration, joy, pride, then love conquered all. Suddenly he feels safe and… Oh my god.

“Mr. Stark?” His vision clears, and he stares at his mentor.

“I’m right here, kid, right here.” He sounds like he might cry.

But something still doesn’t sit right with Peter, and for a moment he frowns and runs through the last things he remembers in his mind.

The kidnapping. The drugs. The ropes. The choice, and most of all his decision.

If he remembers Mr. Stark, then they didn’t keep their promise.

Peter clumsily jumps out of the chair in a state of panicked worry, forgetting about his weakened state, and he staggers into Mr. Stark’s arms, not noticing his concerned face or protesting stance.

“Mr. Stark are you okay? They lied - I remember, you- You- I remember you! Do you remember me? Did they hurt you instead?”

“Of course they didn’t, kiddo, I’m okay. They didn’t hurt me, we got out of there soon after the- after they took you... But you’re okay now, I promise.”

Peter remembers now, they took him, they took his memory, they put him in the chair. He doesn’t remember anything after that. But that doesn’t matter right now.

They embrace, and Peter starts to cry.

“I was so scared.” He hiccups.

“Don’t you ever pull any shit like that ever again. Do you hear me, Underoos?” He sniffles, and Peter pretends not to notice.

Peter nods into his chest, knowing damn well that if it ever comes down to him or Mr. Stark, he knows his choice.

“Peter?”

“Yeah?”

“I love you too.”