The World Aches
Peter’s eyes widened as the room seemed to go still. It was clear his friend’s malicious tone was directed not towards him but to the older man seated beside him on the stone steps. The two both backed up nervously.
“MJ, I can explain,” Peter shakily began, his palms facing Michelle in a gesture of mock-surrender. “Mister Stark wants to help us on our escapade, he’s not going to hurt y-”
“Not. Another. Word.” Each syllable that passed Michelle’s lips was laced with the chill of suppressed fury. She inched around the man still seated on the stairs until her shadow blocked the hallway, as well as the dim amber light faintly glowing from behind it.
“You were supposed to stay away from him.”
Peter took a breath. “I said that I would trust you, not that I’d refuse someone who’s freezing in the rain.”
“You said you would refuse him,” Michelle replied bitterly, fingertip still rigidly pointed in Mr. Stark’s direction. The older man said nothing and instead kept his eyes focused on the floor. All fell silent until the shuffling of feet caught Peter’s attention and he turned to see Ned, who had just arrived from his late night shift at the factory, discreetly making his way back outside.
“I’ll leave you three to talk,” he murmured as the words were engulfed by a midnight breeze.
Peter turned his attention back to Michelle, who had stormed forward and grasped a seemingly absentminded Mr. Stark up by his collar. An audible gasp escaped the brunette’s mouth before he could clamp it shut, but Michelle paid the sound no mind.
“You are the root of all evil,” she spat. The man in front of her did not recoil- in fact, a flicker of what seemed to be agreement with her statement flashed across his face. Peter watched wordlessly, trying to make a connection between his dear friend’s hatred of the man he had so abruptly come to know and trust.
“You took my mother’s position, you gambled it away,” Michelle tightened her hold on the fabric around Mr. Stark’s neck, though it did not hinder his breathing. “The lover I would meet on nights like this, sworn to stay a secret by my side, she left me thanks to you.” The lack of clemency that dripped from those cold words was nothing short of chilling, as Mister Stark slowly inhaled and hung his head as if accepting defeat. This did not, however, quiet MJ’s vitriol, and only seemed to feed her inner fire.
“You are a monster. You don’t deserve to live. If we picked apart the things you’ve gained from piggybacking off of citizens in poverty, you would have nothing.” Michelle’s eyes narrowed like knives, her nails leaving red crescents in Mr. Stark’s skin, blazing and bleeding like her temper.
“MJ!” Peter shouted suddenly. “That’s enough!”
Tony turned his head to look at the boy who was on his feet, having formerly been beside him. Peter was breathing heavily, chest rising and falling with every exhale, his hair mussed from every angle. A look of utter disbelief contorted his usually cherub-like features and a bead of sweat dotted his brow.
“You, you… what? MJ, put him down so he can explain himself,” Peter demanded as best he could and MJ obliged, though not happily. Tony sighed with relief as the back of his legs hit the steps once more.
“Mister Stark, did you… did you really do all that?”
Tony looked up.
The regret in his eyes told Peter all he needed to know, but instead of backing up as a result, Peter stood his ground.
“Michelle,” he repeated, and slowly. His friend met his gaze at the sound of her name. The two stood there for a moment, before circling one another as if two predatory animals were assessing one another’s power.
“He knows what he did,” Peter held his arms out. “He knows what he took from you.”
“But does he understand what that did to me?” The look in Michelle’s eyes was feral, as if she had watched everything unravel and was drowning in past losses once again. “Does he understand the feeling of being trapped because your only reason to create, to- to stay alive is gone?”
“Yes,” came the answer, barely a whisper in the flickering candlelight.
The two adolescent’s eyes shifted towards the stairs.
Mr. Stark had buried his face in his hands, fingertips pressed to his temples, tremors running from his elbows to his knuckles as he heaved. Neither teen had bothered to make eye contact with him, as there was too dark an atmosphere beneath his partially hidden gaze. Remorse hung heavy in the air, as Michelle’s mouth went dry.
“Yes,” the older man repeated himself. “I have, and I am, and it’s absolutely destroying me.”
Michelle just scoffed.
“And you, Mister Stark. What could you, billionaire, puppeteer, owner of the ever-present Stark Stead Manor- hell, owner of the town, possibly know about experiencing loss?”
At those words, the familiar scent returned.
Alcohol, tobacco, playing cards and poker chips.
He was back where it had all started.
The root of all evil.
His demons had come back to suffocate him, and they were using that friend of Peter’s as their vessel.
A well-deserved fate, Tony thought to himself, eyes glazed over by a phantom haze.
Well-deserved.
Well-deserved.
Well-deserved.
“Mister Stark?”
The faintest of voices called his name, and then vanished.
Well-deserved.
“Mister Stark!”
Well-deserved.
“TONY!”
Well-deserved.
Or was it?
Tony snapped out of it, eyes slowly blinking back his molten mist of dreaded thoughts.
“Come back to us.” Peter had knelt at his side, a tender hand on his shoulder and the other on his knee.
The voice hadn’t been yelling.
Tony pinched the bridge of his nose.
I’m going crazy.
With an abrupt shake of his head, the final traces of his past had dissipated and Mr. Stark was instead faced with two teenagers at his sides, neither looking at him with the hatred or disgust he so deserved.
“What… happened to you?” Michelle breathed.
Peter just shook his head and gripped Tony’s shoulder with vigor.
“Hey, it’s alright,” the brunette forced a smile. “We’re right here.”
Tony nodded, trying not to seem so out of it, when he felt another palm reassuringly rest on his back.
“Peter’s right,” came a faint remark. Michelle. Tony’s head jerked to the side in disbelief.
Any former righteous anger had faded from her gaze, replaced by the very things that had caused Tony to gravitate towards Peter and his aspirations in the first place.
Tenderness.
Warmth.
Love.
Tony hesitated, his next words a careful utterance.
“I’m so sorry for… christ, for everything I put you through. I had no idea it would escalate to this. All of it. I’ve taken advantage of so many people, used them like tools, thrown ‘em out like tools, too. I don’t think I could make up for those ruined lives if I spent an eternity in hell,” the man finished, voice low and wrought with shame.
Michelle only nodded. “You are a product of your choices,” she stated firmly, hand moving from behind him to atop his shoulder. “The consequences of those choices leave you scarred, I know,” she glanced away.
Peter stepped in tenderly. “We all know. You aren’t alone in your sorrow, and you aren’t alone in your mistakes.”
Tony let the words sink in. Then a question came to the forefront of his mind, and he wasn’t about to ignore it.
“Pete?”
“Hm?”
The rain had ceased.
“Why do you want to see the world?”
The brunette stopped, and mulled the inquiry over. A few moments of contemplation were all he’d needed before the smile on his face had returned.
“Well… I guess I want to see the world in all its facets,” he answered thoughtfully. “There’s a reason it’s so different, there’s a reason all these polar opposites exist, these… majestic fields and ruthless deserts and massive cities. The world is just so different, and why? It wants to be explored, it aches to be admired for its beauty,” Peter’s cheeks flushed with ecstasy as his imagination ran wild. Soon, quite possibly, he could see it. All of it.
He was so close to his dream.
“I see,” Tony mused, swaying his head. “The world ‘aches to be admired for its beauty,’ huh?” He let out a chuckle, almost cynical, but Peter’s heart did not sink.
“Yes,” the boy answered. “And it favors those who do.”
Another sprinkling blanketed the meadows outside, and soon Ned had retreated to his cot, tired but humming a mellow tune on his way nonetheless. Eventually, MJ followed, leaving Mr. Stark with Peter as they had been before the startling encounters. A hint of baby blue stemmed from one corner of the sky, signifying the coming daylight with a delicate dusting of fog. Peter remained in silence with his unlikely companion on the stairs, as birds flitted about and the morning glories were coated with crystal dew.
“It’s beautiful, you see?” Peter gasped in awe as he looked outside their shelter. Tony could only nod, having locked himself away in a dark corner of the Stark Stead for far too many years without the pleasure of seeing such a day unfold.
Eventually, a few words tumbled off his tongue.
“Looks like a marvelous day, kid, wouldn't cha say?”
It was Peter’s turn to huff, though with less hostility behind it than Michelle had.
“Marvelous day? Please, Mister Stark,” he jested, as a faint carriage driven by an all-too familiar figure slowly came into view.
“It’s a marvelous life.”