To Build A Home

Tony watched Pepper cover her hand over her mouth and wrap an arm around her stomach then walk away from Peter breaking down in front of the door.

He knows that she was crying but so was Peter and he comforted her for seven years, it was Peter’s turn.

So Tony sat down next to Peter’s head. He rubbed his back once again, not knowing what else to do since all he wanted to do was to pull Peter onto his lap and hold him tightly until everything was okay.

Peter flinched at the sudden contact but didn’t move from him. “Go away!”

“I’m not leaving, Pete.” Tony told him, thinking back to how much he missed the nickname. It just slipped out and it sounded so right.

Peter shook his head that was buried under his arms. “No! You-you took me away f-from my dad.”

That hurt. “That’s not true, Peter. That man took you from me. You’re my child. Not his.”

Peter just cried harder so Tony sat there with his hands in his lap. He didn’t know how long he was going to sit there for.

Whenever his kids would have a temper tantrum, he would walk away and ignore them until they were done but what Peter was having was not a temper tantrum. It was a meltdown from everything that he has been told over the last twenty-four hours.

Peter needed him whether he knew it or not.

Thirty minutes passed by with Peter still going at it. Pepper came to sit on the bottom of the stairs with her face red from crying then she left, unable to watch the scene unfold around her.

Harley had to walk in from the side door so as to not disturb Peter. He walked by then went straight upstairs and into his bedroom because the scene was way too hard to handle.

It took an hour in total for Peter to start to calm down. He started to whimper sadly and moved his head to the side and stayed like that for a few minutes. Tony watched his every move.

Peter then slowly stretched his arm out from under himself and slowly reached over to grab onto a string on Tony’s shirt.

Tony unconsciously held his breath.

He didn’t want to say anything to scare Peter off and acted as if he was a wild animal that would make a run for it with any sudden movement.

So Tony watched as Peter reached out to play with the string and then he turned onto his back and looked up at Tony with red, puffy eyes.

Tony didn’t want to scare Peter away but he couldn’t stop himself from reaching out to cup Peter’s face. Peter continued to look up at him but his bottom lip started to wobble so Tony spoke softly, “I love you, Peter. No matter what. I need you to know that.”

Peter moved his head away and pushed himself up. He rubbed at his face and looked down. “I-I wanna go home. Please.”

Tony wanted so badly to tell Peter the truth about who his kidnapper is. That he is a very fucked up guy who ruined everything and ripped Peter from their life, but he didn’t. Not yet and maybe not ever.

“I know you don’t want to hear this right now, but this is your home.” Tony told him, expecting Peter to burst out crying again but he just stared ahead at nothing in particular.

Tony looked at Peter’s hands and saw that he was digging his nails into his palms so Tony reached over to stop him from doing that. “You’re hurting yourself so stop that.”

Peter pulled his hands away from Tony and turned to him. “Don’t touch me. And stop saying that this is my family because it’s not! You aren’t letting me see my dad, he’s my family.”

Tony stood up when Peter did, his back aching in the process from sitting on the cold, hard floor with Peter for over an hour. He had no idea what to say to Peter because everything that he wanted to say, Peter would just throw back at him.

Peter looked up at him and waited for him to say something, when he didn’t, he stormed up the stairs but he had nowhere to go so he just sat down in the hallway against a wall.

There was a small table with a bunch of pictures on it. He recognized himself again in practically all of the pictures so he kicked his leg out, accidentally hitting the table and causing a picture to fall onto the floor.

His heart started to pound because now he was going to get in trouble so he picked up the frame and saw that the glass was broken and everywhere.

Before he had the chance to do anything else, there was a voice behind him. “It’s alright. You have no idea how many picture frames that I’ve broken over the years.”

Peter looked up and saw Harley walking over to him and bending down. Peter watched him.

Harley grabbed the glass, put it into the frame and stood up. “Wanna come into my room?”

Peter nodded his head and stood up to follow Harley down the long hallway. His bedroom was at the very end so he followed him in and stood there awkwardly as he looked around at everything.

There was a bed in the middle of the room with metals all around. On shelves, the giant desk with a gaming computer on top and both nightstand tables.

Harley placed the broken picture frame on the dresser and leaned against it. “It’s kinda messy but I did clean it up a bit.”

Peter didn’t think it was messy. Besides for the pile of clothes in the corner. “Do you play um, sports?”

Harley walked over and grabbed his biggest trophy then walked over to Peter. “Yeah. I play soccer in the summer and hockey in the winter. I won this at regionals two years ago. Wanna hold it?”

“Yeah.” Peter carefully took the trophy from Harley and smiled a bit. It was so cool. “It’s heavy.” He chuckled.

Harley smiled at him. “Yeah, it is. Do you play any sports?” He asked as he took the trophy back from Peter to put it back where it was.

“Uh, no. I’m not good at that stuff.” Peter admitted. “I’m um, I like science and chemistry. Mostly.”

Harley looked at him with a look that Peter couldn’t read.

“You got that from our dad. He’s extremely smart.”

Peter’s smile fell. Our dad. Our dad. He couldn’t comprehend that. This was his brother that he was talking to. His older brother who probably had so many memories of him.

Harley must have sensed his uncomfortableness so he changed the subject. “So what else do you like? What’s your favourite colour? Favourite movie?”

Peter shrugged awkwardly and tried to think about what to tell the older boy. “Um… I like Uh, I like Star Wars and playing with my legos. And Um, my neighbours have a pool so I like to go swimming in it sometimes but I kinda suck.”

Harley laughed. “Well, we have a pool so maybe I could teach you how sometime. Plus it’s heated which is so much fun at nighttime.”

Peter really liked that idea. His dad wasn’t a very good swimmer so he never learned how. “Yeah. Maybe sometime.”

“You didn’t answer my other two questions.”

Peter frowned.

“Your favourite colour and favourite movie.” Harley clarified.

“Oh yeah. Um, red is my favourite colour and Star Wars: A New Hope is my all time favourite movie.” Peter answered, remembering when he first saw it in the theatres with his best friend. “What about you?”

A wide smile appeared across Harley’s lips. He sat down on the floor and Peter did too. “That’s a good question. I watch a new movie basically every weekend and then that one becomes my favourite so I’d have to say… Annabelle. And as for my favourite colour, blue.”

Peter giggled and tucked his legs against his chest. “Scary movies are too scary to watch for me.”

Harley laughed, not at him but with him. “Yeah, sometimes they can be pretty freaky. Especially with uh, dad because he always does something to scare us even more.”

Peter laughed weakly.

“So… what else? Do you go to school?” Harley asked him, not really sure if he should have asked that.

Peter started playing with a loose string on his socks. “Uh huh. I’m in grade four.”

“Oh. So how’s that? Do you have any girlfriends?” He teased but Peter immediately shook his head and gagged, causing Harley to laugh.

“Ewwww. No. That’s nasty.” Peter answered then went wide eyed and looked at Harley. “Do you?”

Harley nodded his head and started laughing again. “Yeah. I do.”

Peter made gagging sounds again. “Ew. That’s so gross. Do you guys kiss?” Peter asked and whispered the last part which caused Harley to start laughing harder.

“Sometimes, yeah.” He replied and stared at Peter. He couldn’t believe his baby brother was back. And that he was still so young.

Peter shook his head while saying ‘ewewewew’. He stopped when Harley spoke again.

“Do you have any pets at Uh, any pets?” He stumbled on his words.

“No.” Peter said as if it was the end of the world. “I’m glad that you have a doggie. He’s cute. Is he allowed in your bedroom?”

“Yeah. He’s allowed but he’ll only come up in the nighttime.” The older boy answered and continued to stare at Peter. There were so many more questions that he wanted to ask but he couldn’t.

Peter turned around and saw the picture of Harley's nightstand table and immediately recognized his face again.

Harley watched him. “That’s you and me. You must have been about three and I was about nine.”

Peter grabbed the picture off the nightstand table and turned back around to face Harley. “Oh. Do you um, remember lots?”

“Yeah. It helps that mom and dad talk about you every single day. There’s tons of pictures of you over the house and almost every night we all watch home videos of you.” Harley told him which really made Peter think about how he affected this family.

“Oh. I don’t remember anything.” Peter answered a bit sadly. “Um, maybe one day I might be able to.”

Harley nodded his head even though Peter wasn’t looking at him. “If you come here, I can show you something cool.”

Peter looked over at Harley, confused then made his way over to him with the picture frame in his hand. Harley took it from him and opened up the back while Peter watched on curiously. He was sitting on his knees and had his hand placed on Harley’s thigh. Harley didn’t move but the small hand gesture made him smile.

He didn’t comment on it as he pulled out an old piece of paper that had drawings on it with red crayon. “Even when you were younger, your favourite colour was always red.”

Peter looked at the drawing. It was messy and he assumed that he did it. “Did I draw this?”

Harley looked over and saw his dad standing in the doorway, watching them. He looked away from him so Peter didn’t look that way. “Yeah, you did. Quite the masterpiece, isn’t it?”

Peter giggled and nodded his head. “Yeah.”

“Hey, I got an idea.” Harley said with so much excitement. Peter looked at him curiously.

“What is it?”

“How about we go swimming right now? We can turn the pool heater on and go for a swim.” Harley suggested but Peter wasn’t so sure. He had no idea how to swim and he didn’t know if he was really in the mood for swimming.

“I don’t know. I don’t even, um, have a bathing suit.” Peter shrugged his shoulders and curled in on himself.

“That’s okay. I can find one of mine and I can just tie it up so it fits you.” Harley was already getting up and opening one of his dresser drawers to find a swimsuit.

Peter didn’t say anything because he was actually a bit excited to go swimming. They had a whole pool in their backyard and got to go swimming whenever they wanted.

Harley grabbed a pair that had sharks on it then handed them to Peter. “These are like two years old but I’ll still tie them up for you. You can go get changed in my bathroom if you want.”

“Okay. Thank you.” Peter walked over to the bathroom and went wide eyed at how big it was. It was almost as nice as Tony’s and Pepper’s bathroom but not quite.

He took off all of his clothes and put on the borrowed swim shorts, feeling extremely uncomfortable at how low they went and how uncomfortable it was going to be in the water.

When he walked out of the bathroom, holding them up so they didn’t fall down, he stood there uncomfortably while he waited for Harley to come and help him. “Um… maybe it’s just a bit too big.”

Harley looked over at him and chuckled. “Maybe a bit bigger than that. Let me help you.”

As Harley grabbed the waistband to help him, he thought back to last night when Tony had helped him tie up his pyjama pants. They both did it with so much love and care that it had a faint smile appearing on his face but then he realized what he was doing and quickly stopped.

“That should do. Dad’ll order you some clothes.” Harley was saying and didn’t even realize what he said until Peter was speaking.

“He’s not my dad. And he doesn’t have to do that because I’ll be leaving soon anyways.”

Harley looked at him. “I know this is all so hard for you and I can’t even imagine but he is your dad. He’s our dad and he always will be.”

Peter shook his head. “I already have a dad.”

“Oh yeah? Where is he then?” Harley asked, not knowing if he should have said that but it was hard for him too.

Peter looked away. He didn’t know the answer to that question. He wished he did but what was most hurting him was the fact that his dad hadn’t come for him yet.

That part hurt the most.

Harley knew that Peter wasn’t going to say anything but he got him thinking so he sighed. “How about we go swimming. It’s a great day to learn how.”

“Okay.”

After Harley was changed, they both made their way downstairs and towards the back door so they could go outside in the backyard. On their way past the kitchen, Tony and Pepper were looking at them with a shocked yet happy look on their faces.

“I’m gonna go teach Peter how to swim because he doesn’t know how.” Harley said, mainly to his father who looked frozen on the spot as he stared at Peter.

Pepper looked a bit paranoid. “Alright. Have fun boys. I’m making lunch so maybe we can eat outside then. And Harley, watch him.”

Harley gave her a thumbs up then the two of them were leaving.

He wouldn’t let anything happen to Peter because that’s what big brothers are for.

He thinks that he will always feel this overwhelming protectiveness to protect his only little brother from everything because of what they all went through.

Tony watched the two head outside and turned to Pepper when he heard the door shut. “He was wearing Harley's old swimsuit. We have to get him some stuff.”

Pepper was looking out the kitchen window at them. “Yeah.” She put her hand over her face to stop the tears from coming once again, but this time, in so long, they were happy tears. “Maybe we should sit down with him tonight. We Uh, we have to get basically everything for his bedroom.”

“Yeah.” Tony said but he wasn’t even listening. “Do you think he’ll be mad if I go out and join them?”

Pepper turned back around to look outside. “I don’t know. I honestly don’t know.”

“I want to just go and sit on the pool chair to just watch them. I won’t even talk.” Tony was saying as he was already making his way outside to watch his boys, something he never thought he would be lucky enough to think again.

Pepper didn’t try to stop him so Tony went outside without being seen by Peter but Harley only. He sat on one of the patio chairs and watched the two interact.

Harley had turned the pool heater on already and was standing in the shallow end while Peter was standing at the edge. “Just jump in. It’s not that deep in this spot, I promise you.”

Peter shook his head and wrapped his arms around his stomach. “No. Maybe I’ll just walk in.”

“It’ll be super cold that way.” Harley told him so he knew what he was expecting by getting in that way. Peter then hesitated.

“Do you have a pool floaty? I always swim with one.” Peter asked, he had never once gotten into the pool without something to hold onto that wasn’t a pool floaty or his dad in the shallow end.

Harley walked out of the pool. “Yeah. We have a bunch of stuff.” He opened up the sauna room that they only used for storing all of the pool toys.

Peter followed him and looked inside. His eyes went wide at seeing everything. There was a giant shark floaty that matched his bathing suit. “Can we bring that one in?”

“Yeah. This one is so much fun because you can sit inside and feel like you’re floating above everything.” Harley said as he took it out and handed it to Peter. “Can you throw it into the pool?”

Peter could barely hold onto the giant floaty. He walked to the edge of the pool and went to throw it in while Harley was watching him the whole time. “Don’t go so close to the edge.”

Peter slowly walked over to Harley and looked up at him. “I didn’t.”

“Alright. Let’s put some more stuff in there.” The older boy said but Peter spotted something and wanted it.

“The life jacket. Then I can jump in the deep end.” Peter pointed to the blue and yellow life jacket for Harley to grab for him. “Thanks.”

“You don’t need that if I’m teaching you how to swim.” Harley told him but he didn’t want to say no to Peter.

“I do. I can’t swim without it.” Peter told Harley then got it on and waited for Harley to walk out first.

Peter ran over to the deep end and stood at the edge of the pool but hesitated. “You can do it. Jump Peter!”

Peter plugged his nose and jumped into the water and immediately bounced right back up to the surface with a huge smile on his face. He looked at Harley who was now in the water as well and who had the biggest smile on his face.

“And I thought you said you didn’t know how to swim?” Harley asked him as he swam over to Peter to give him a high five.

Peter laughed and kicked his legs under the water. “I don’t but now you can teach me.”

“Yeah but you have to take the life jacket off first.” Harley told him but Peter shook his head, panic appearing on his face.

“No. I can’t.”

“Sure you can. You won’t drown, I’ll be here the whole time.” Harley reassured him and looked over Peter’s shoulder where his dad was sitting and watching them on one of the outdoor chairs.

Peter shook his head again. “No. I can’t. If I do, I’ll sink to the bottom and my bathing suit or hair will get stuck in the jets and I’ll die. So I can’t.”

Harley was taken back with the detailed description. “That’s not true. Has that happened to you before?”

“No. But my dad said it will happen if I take my life jacket off.” Peter told him as if he actually believed the story that he was told.

On the pool deck, Tony was furious.

Firstly, because Peter called his kidnapper ‘dad’ and second, this man was lying to his child once again. Rogers was scaring the poor child into never learning how to swim and never taking off his life jacket. He was sick.

Harley made eye contact with Tony and then looked back at Peter. “Well you know he was lying to you, right? Just like he lied to you about so many other things in your life-”

“Stop it.” Peter demanded and furrowed his eyebrows at the older boy. “Don’t say that.”

“What? The truth. C’mon, Peter,” Harley desperately said, wanting Peter to understand. “he isn’t your dad, you do know that, don’t you?”

Peter shook his head. “He is.”

“Who is your biological father? You told me that you’re good at science. Do you know what biological means?” Harley asked him honestly because maybe Peter truly didn’t understand.

Peter looked at him like he had two heads and it reminded him so much of the way Tony looks at times. “Obviously. I’m not five.”

“So then tell me. Biologically, who's your father?” Harley asked, wanting to know the answer.

Peter looked around uncomfortably. He knew the answer but he didn’t like the answer. “Who your dad is. I know that now.”

“And that makes us brothers. And Morgan is your sister and my mom is your mom.” Harley added for him but Peter didn’t respond. He didn’t like to hear about that because it hurt.

It hurt to know the truth. That he was lied to his whole life by the one person he was supposed to put all of his trust in. By the person who was supposed to love him the most.

Harley looked over at his dad who looked a mixture of sad and angry. “Let’s talk about something else. Do you want to see something cool?”

The frown disappeared from Peter’s face. He nodded his head and waited for Harley to show him.

Harley swam towards the deep end a bit and then went under and a few seconds later, his feet appeared out of the water from the underwater handstand.

Peter laughed at how weird it looked to see two feet sticking out of the water so when Harley came back up, he laughed at him. “That was weird. And you have really hairy legs.”

“Wha-” Harley was shocked at that extremely random comment. “I guess I do then. Well let’s see your legs. I bet you are as hairy as me.”

Peter stuck his legs up in the air the best he could by staying afloat with his life jacket to show Harley his legs. “Nope. I don’t have any hair anywhere on my body. But my head. And my eyebrows. That would be weird.”

Harley noticed the lack of hair on Peter’s legs. “Yeah, then you’d look like a Sphynx.”

Peter started laughing so hard that he was tipping forward in his life jacket so Harley pulled him back up by the back straps. “Finally. Someone who finds me funny.”

Peter slowly stopped his belly laugh in time for Pepper to pop her head out of the door. “Lunch is going to be ready in five minutes. Harls, do you mind quickly running over to the neighbours to grab Morgan. She knows she’s coming home early.”

“Sure. Why not because I’m already soaking wet.” Harley said sarcastically and lifted himself out of the water. “I’ll be back in like two minutes.”

Peter nodded his head and then spotted Tony who was sitting there on a chair. “Hi.”

“Hey, bud. Are you having fun?” Tony asked and stood up to walk over to the pool stairs so he could put his feet in.

Peter swam over to him and kneeled on the step so he was still in the water but close to an adult. “Uh huh. Um, do you know how to swim?”

Tony smiled at him. “I can. Do you know how?” Tony asked him but he already knew the answer, he was just trying to bond with his son.

Peter shook his head. “No. I never learned.” Peter looked down at his hands and felt like he was having an out of body experience all of the sudden. He was talking to his real dad. His biological dad.

“Well Harley’s a good teacher but I can teach you too if you want. I mean, I’m the one who taught him.” Tony chuckled and Peter smiled weakly so Tony counted that as a win.

Peter shrugged his shoulders and looked up at the back door in time to see Pepper walk out with some plates and cups. He looked away from her as well because he felt out of place.

If he was back at home with his dad, he would be hanging around him the whole time he cooked, talking his ear off about one thing or the other and now he didn’t think he could do that.

Tony was looking at him the whole time but Peter didn’t understand why the man kept staring at him. He wasn’t that interesting.

It looked like Tony was about to say something but then Harley was walking back into the backyard with Morgan holding onto his hand.

She immediately ran over to Pepper and wrapped her arms around the woman’s waist. Peter smiled at the obvious love between the two. He then looked away because he never had that, even when he always so desperately wanted it.

“Lunch is ready.” Pepper called out to everyone and disappeared back in the house.

Tony was still looking at Peter as he stood up. “Take that off, bud, then let’s go eat.”

Peter hesitated. He smelt the food and guessed that it was burgers with fries. One of his favourite meals so he was excited but that also meant he had to sit down with these people who are strangers to him but he’s family to them.

Peter stood up and got out of the water anyways. He felt the water fall off of him since his bathing suit was huge and quite uncomfortable. He undid the life jacket buckles and placed it on the ground before shyly walking over to the table where Morgan was sitting then Pepper walked out, placed drinks on the table and sat next to Morgan.

Peter stood there because he didn’t know where he fit. He knew that he didn’t belong with this family, it wasn’t where he was meant to be.

Although his life was simple with not much family, he was happy with his dad and that was all that mattered… at the time. Now, he wasn’t so sure.

Harley sat down across from Pepper, leaving Peter an open seat. Peter still didn’t move so Tony turned to him. “Come sit, Pete.”

Peter was about to shake his head and say that he didn’t want to but then Asier walked up beside him and licked his hand. Peter smiled down at the dog and then followed him over to the seat. When he sat down, Asier said down under his feet which made Peter feel a lot better.

After watching Peter for some time, Tony sat himself down at the head of the table and looked at his family.

Everyone who was supposed to be there, was there. For the first time ever. Everyone was where they were supposed to be.