family
“The kid’s here.”
Of all the phrases Tony would have liked to be woken up with, Happy was really scraping the bottom of the barrel with that little gem. Sunlight scolded him the second he opened his eyes, so it was definitely morning; or at least early afternoon. And the world was already against him. Just typical. He was in bed, fully clothed. When he raised a hand up in front of his face, the motion made him nauseous. But Tony could see straight for the first time in who knew how long, so that had to count for something.
Sober. Or at least, more so than he would typically be.
“What did he see?” ‘What did I do?’ was the real question of course, but Tony felt far too cowardly right now to put it quite as bluntly as that. His voice was so gruff that he barely recognised the sound. It no longer surprised him to be so utterly unfamiliar with himself though, so Tony didn’t react.
“I have no idea.” Happy had stopped tip-toeing around him at this point too. Sympathy be damned, all of his words were ruthlessly sharp and Tony deserved it. “I don’t even know how long he’s been up there.”
And wasn’t that an interesting way to phrase it?
---
“Paging Mr Spider-Man.”
Tony. That was Tony’s voice.
“That’s private property, sir. Get your webs off my windows you… hooligan.”
“Mr Stark?” Peter said, trying not to sound quite as nervous as he felt. There was a little thud against his arm then, and another in quick succession; Peter realised this must have been the sensation that woke him up in the first place.
And despite the situation, it’s source was utterly hilarious.
Peter turned his head to find Tony Stark, fully dressed yet still wrapped up in a fancy looking bathrobe and sporting his infamous tinted shades, standing just below him with a handful of pebbles. One by one, he picked them from his palm and pelted Peter with them. It was such a ridiculous sight, and seemed to bring Tony such joy, that Peter barely registered the fact that being woken up like this meant that he had fallen asleep here. Peering through Tony’s window like some sort of creepy stalker.
“As fun as this is, I’m running out of rocks.” Tony said matter-of-factly. “So are you planning on coming down at any point?”
How humiliating. As he made his descent to join Tony on the ground, Peter was bursting with explanations and apologies. He couldn’t be more grateful to be wearing his suit right now. The mask was the hiding place that Peter desperately needed.
“Mr Stark, I-“
“Yep,” Tony was quick to interrupt, nodding his head as though he had already comprehended anything that Peter could have possibly had to say and clapping him on the shoulder in that friendly, familiar manner. “It’s a little weird for sure, but I’m gonna let it slide just this once. Next time’s a definite restraining order though, kid.”
Tony’s wise cracking wit definitely flooded Peter with relief. Normally, it would be enough. But he hadn’t forgotten about the promise he made to the night.
No matter how hard he tried it, Peter wouldn’t allow Tony to pretend everything was okay any longer.
“I’m worried about you.” He forced himself to blurt out, and watched what happened with scrutiny.
It certainly made Tony’s façade falter a fraction. Nothing more than a momentary lapse in his brave face, but Peter noticed. That gave him the push he needed to continue.
“Don’t,” Peter insisted when Tony tried to talk, anticipating his next play without even really having to think about it. “Don’t make some lame joke, or – or tell me everything’s okay… okay? Don’t.”
There was a gap of aching silence then. Time that Peter knew he should have filled with something; answers, maybe, but he would have to find them first. He had taken Tony’s conversational coping methods and thrown them out, leaving the man with nothing to do but stare at him. Telling Peter telepathically ‘but I don’t know what else to do’. So at least they had that much in common.
Every time that Peter built himself up to face this head on, the intensity in Tony’s eyes was always the hurdle he stumbled at. There was emotion swimming there, so overwhelming that Peter could barely distinguish it. Or he could, but didn’t quite want to understand. Wasn’t ready to know.
Because it was fear, obviously.
Tony had been a great many things in front of Peter; from drunk and disorderly to disappointed parent and all in between. But never this. Never afraid.
Iron Man was Peter’s hero, and had been since he was just a child, but now it was his turn to play that role. He couldn’t imagine a larger mountain to scale.
“I want to help.” Was all that Peter could think to say. The silence was too much.
But Tony only scoffed. “Pete, this is really kinda a ‘me’ problem. Now I’m getting you a car home before May chews my ear off about it – “
“You have to let me try.”
Tony was quiet then, but not deliberating. His mind was running miles to find the appropriate method of shutting down this little pipe dream, but if he knew anything about Peter Parker, the kid was stubborn as all hell.
“I think I can.” Peter pleaded, not quite giving way to a voice break but not concealing it entirely either. “So you have to let me.”
And if Peter felt in any way responsible for Tony’s recovery, he would not walk away from this under any circumstance.
---
“Peter.”
The sternness in May’s tone, utterly riddled with concern, was unlike anything Peter had ever heard on her before. She wasn’t here to play games, not with the bombshell he had come home to drop.
“I know,” he frowned. Flitting around her to pack up a bag was the only way for Peter to avoid having May spot the lie in his eyes, knowing full well that if he was unoccupied she would see right through him. It broke his heart to be dishonest with his aunt, but this was something he had to do by himself. And she would simply never allow it.
The same way that Tony wouldn’t, if he really knew.
“I spoke to Mr Stark and he’s gonna handle it – “
“Oh, you mean the same ‘Mr Stark’ who skipped out on your high school graduation? That guy?”
Peter winced at the venom in her tone there. “For work.”
He hadn’t mentioned graduation to Tony, and he’d made Pepper and Happy promise not to either. Most of the time Tony was too out of it to even know what day of the week it was anyway, so for now there was no real risk of him finding out on his own. No need to add guilt to his ever-growing shame.
“Right,” May scoffed, watching Peter rush around and surely seeing nothing more than a naïve kid breaking his back for the sake of his billionaire childhood hero. Sacrificing his college placement just to spend another year interning at Stark industries, becoming a better Spider-Man at the cost of Peter Parker’s future.
Admittedly, it wasn’t a great cover story for nursing an alcoholic Tony Stark out of his addiction’s clutches, but it was the best that Peter could come up with on the spot.
“It’ll be a good thing, May.” Peter tried to insist, slinging his bag over his shoulder and finally meeting her eyes. He could only hope he didn’t look quite as desperate as he felt. For this to work out, May had to be on board. “I’ll only be at the Facility three nights a week and they’re giving me unlimited access to the entire workshop. It’d be insane to turn that down.”
May frowned. Unconvinced still, but no longer verbally disagreeing. So that was at least a start.
“And it’s just for the year. With that kind of experience… I can get into probably any college I want.” Peter only stopped talking when he found himself wrapped up in May’s arms, her hand caressing his hair in a motion of such recognisable comfort he couldn’t help but to lean into the embrace. She planted a kiss on his forehead and sighed.
“I know,” May said. “I know it’ll be great for you. I just… gotta be sure that we’re still thinking about my nephew here, and not just about Spider-Man.”
Of course. Because for all that Peter got swept away and consumed in playing the hero, May was always his anchor. Nobody cared for Peter Parker like she did, and he owed it to her to remember that.
“I promise,” Peter told her, and he would never be dishonest about that.
---
Somewhere in his conscious mind, Tony was aware that he had spent every second of sobriety that he allowed himself in the last few weeks with Peter. It felt like recovery. The way that Peter would smile when he went out of the workshop for a drink and returned with two fresh water bottles. The way he didn’t have to dig through a foggy mind to find the answers to Peter’s questions. The way he didn’t trip over his words, and his head didn’t pound in protest at Peter’s levels of excitement. All of it felt incredible.
But it wasn’t. It was a pretence.
For Peter, Tony almost felt like he could control it. The kid was only around for three days every week though, and once he was gone, Tony was crashing harder than ever before. Just as always, Happy and Pepper were scraping him off of the ground, holding him together when they could and picking up the pieces when they couldn’t. Still, Tony really thought he might be getting better. Three sober days in a week was leaps and bounds from where he used to be. So things were rough, but he really was building something new. Getting somewhere.
Before he learned something that toppled him completely.
Tony and Peter had spent the better part of all three days this week working on upgrades to his web shooter combinations; not to mention running Peter through a crash course on their current capabilities. In retrospect, it was almost amusing that the kid and his friends had totally bypassed all of Tony’s protocols. He had always been too damn smart for his own good. Already, Peter could match Tony in the workshop no problem and he was only going to build even greater intelligence from here. Speaking of which…
“You know, you haven’t even talked to me about college yet.” Tony said off-handedly as they packed away their tools, and at first he didn’t notice the way that Peter froze like a deer in the headlights. “Graduation must be coming up, right? I get it if that’s something you wanna do with your aunt but just remember I got some pull at MIT, so… Pete?... What’s goin’ on in that super brain, huh?”
“Mr Stark…” Peter started, and his tone was so full of comforting caution it made Tony want to throw up. “I… already graduated. I’m just – taking a little time off, you know, to – “
Peter kept talking but for Tony, the tsunami had already hit the shores. He held it together just long enough to get Peter in a car home and then, he crumbled.
---
Clueless on what to make of Tony’s robotic reaction, Peter spent most of the night clutching his phone and listening to Happy’s voicemail. May’s concerned gaze was watchful. He couldn’t hide from her, not when the worry ran this deep. Once again, Peter had left Tony on the brink of collapse simply because he didn’t know what to say. Things had been going so well and he knew it was fragile, yet he destroyed it anyway. Careless. Stupid.
“Go to bed, Pete…” May’s voice, her familiar touch in his hair, pulled Peter from his half asleep state. Here he was, comfortable enough to be falling asleep on the couch while Tony was doubtlessly suffering. This couldn’t be like last time. If Peter couldn’t get hold of Tony soon… “Peter.” And once again, May pulled him back to reality. “What’s going on with you lately?”
But before Peter was forced to come up with an appropriate answer to that impossible question, there was a knock at their front door. At well past midnight. Peter had a terrible feeling, and of course he was right.
May opened the door to Tony Stark. Drunk out of his mind and sobbing.
He stumbled forwards, losing his footing immediately and leaving an utterly speechless May to just about catch him. Operating solely on auto-pilot, Peter rushed to help her hold him. Tony was mumbling something through his tears, but Peter’s senses were totally numbed by the shock of it all. It felt as though he was under water. Drowning. Together though, he and May delivered Tony to the couch, laid him down there and tried to make sense of his slurred rambling. Peter was sweating, the ringing in his ears deafening and the tingles on the back of his neck growing into a far more aggressive sting. From what he could gather, Pepper was gone for real this time. Somehow, that wasn’t the worst of it. Happy had packed up and moved out too. Something about insisting that Tony was punishing him for trying to help and he would be better off working through it by himself, but the drunken babbling was barely coherent at this point and Peter had gathered all that he really needed to know anyway.
Tony had nothing. No one. And he had come here, to Peter.
He should never have had to. Peter should never have left him like that.
“Peter.” May said, bringing him suddenly back to the surface with the insistence of someone who had been trying to get his attention for a while now.
“I should have been there… graduation… should have fucking been there – “ Tony was mumbling and it made everything worse.
“Pete.” May again, keeping him grounded. “Get me a glass of water and some blankets please.”
And finally, a way to be useful. May was a saint, so calm and collected in the face of something Peter couldn’t even begin to comprehend. Peter mirrored her, or he tried his best to at least, until they finally coaxed Tony to sleep. Even then, the silenced lingered and stretched between them.
“How long has this been going on, Pete?” May asked him at last, her tone soft and her voice hushed.
Peter figured there was really no point in hiding it anymore. He had thought that he could fix it alone. He had been so dangerously wrong. “Since the award ceremony at least, maybe longer. I-I’m not really sure.”
“And it’s why you’re skipping out on college for the year… to take care of him.”
Even though he knew he didn’t need to answer that, Peter nodded.
“Peter,” she sighed, holding none of the fury or even the disappointment that he had been expecting in regards to that. “You’re incredible.” Was she… proud? It looked like pride in her eyes. “You know he wouldn’t want this. He doesn’t even know, huh?”
“He only found out today that he missed my graduation…”
“God,” May frowned, looking down at Tony, but not looking down on him. There was nothing but sympathy in her expression as she regarded him. Gently, May lifted the blankets to cover Tony’s arms and Peter wondered why he had ever worried about what his aunt’s reaction would be when she found out about this in the first place. He should have known she would never look upon anyone’s suffering with disdain. May would always have wanted to help, no matter who or when or where or why. But Peter had allowed it to get worse. He had given it a place to fester and grow and this was the price he paid.
“We’ll work through this together, okay?” May tried for a smile. “You don’t have to do this alone. You never have to do it alone.”
Before he could stop them, the tears were already falling; because what a relief. “I know.”
“I wish you’d remember it,” May said softly, moving to Peter with open arms which he was more than happy to fall into. Countless times Peter had sobbed into his aunt’s arms, and countless times she had shielded him from the worst of his pain. He only longed to do that for Tony too. “You don’t have to feel guilty, Pete.” She assured him, knowing as she always would exactly how he was punishing himself. “Being a hero… it doesn’t always mean getting it right first try. Or torturing yourself until you do. This is… so beyond complicated. Nobody expects you to know what to do.”
Peter sniffled, just about regaining his composure with the help of May’s words. “But I want to know.” He said, finding his fight now. “I can help him May, I know I can.”
“And so you should,” she smiled. Ben’s old mantra rang so clearly for Peter that it was though he was right here telling them, ‘with great power…’. “But you don’t have to break your own back trying to do it alone, okay? Nobody wants you to suffer with this, least of all Tony.” May frowned at the slumped body on the couch. “You should offer him that dignity.”
Peter had certainly never thought of it that way. Was it fair for him to take on Tony’s suffering without even letting him know that he was sharing it? There was no way in hell that Mr Stark would allow Peter to be a victim of this if he was in the right state of mind to prevent it. Was there dignity in allowing him to bear this on his own? Help him from the outside rather than trying to share the weight from within? Peter was stubborn, but Tony was proud. Wouldn’t it be better to allow him to retain that, and keep the qualities that made him Tony Stark as much as possible?
“Okay,” Peter nodded, feeling an awful lot lighter than he had mere moments ago. “You should get some sleep, May…”
She raised an eyebrow at him then, a little grin playing at the corners of her mouth. “I’m sorry, which one of us is the legal guardian here?” When Peter laughed, May gave him a playful pinch on the cheek and smiled. “Go to your room.”
---
Tony woke up to the delightful smell of bacon and eggs, on a bed that was very much so not his own, and as it turned out, was not a bed at all. It took him a while to regain his senses and pick up the puzzle pieces of what had occurred the previous night. Pepper had gone. Happy too. He had spent an undue amount of time wallowing in self pity and swimming in whiskey, wondering who he had left in the world and who he still meant something to, but that’s where things went dark. So what conclusion had drunk Tony reached? And how had it landed him asleep on this couch? Who cared about him despite it all; who mattered?
“Oh good,” a woman’s voice sounded behind him, which seemed odd because Tony’s one-night-stand days were long gone no matter how drunk, sad or lonely he might have been. “I was starting to worry you might have choked and died in your sleep.” But no… this was a voice he recognised. And when the penny dropped, Tony thought he might throw up. “Breakfast?” May Parker said cheerily, offering him a plate of piping hot food and smiling as though the world wasn’t coming to an end around them.
Tony’s stomach was doing somersaults but he took the plate wordlessly anyway, making space for her to sit down on the couch beside him. “Thanks. Thank you,” he remembered to say after a while of recognising that this wasn’t a terrible nightmare.
“Oh yeah?” May chuckled. “For which part?”
Even though it was clearly meant in jest, Tony answered seriously. “For absolutely everything, Miss Parker.”
But she frowned. “’Miss Parker’? Cold, Mr Stark.”
“I can call you May?”
“You drooled on my couch. I’m sure as hell calling you Tony.”
Despite the circumstances, they both managed to share a laugh over that.
“Pete, is he… here?” It was wishful thinking for Tony to even entertain the idea that he wouldn’t be, but May didn’t answer that question directly anyway.
“Whether he is or isn’t, you’re more than welcome here for as long as you need to be.” Apparently it was time to pull on the heart strings. She didn’t have to try very hard. Already, just from the prospect of not being out of place here, Tony choked up a little bit. Maybe it was the alcohol in his system that was making him hyper-emotional, but maybe Tony just desperately needed not to be alone right now. “I don’t know what’s going on with you Tony, but if you need somebody, we’re here. Both of us.”
“That… means a lot. Way more than that shitty response I just gave. Sorry. Not one hundred percent switched on up here just yet,” he tapped his temple and tried to keep the emotion out of his voice
May grinned. It was the type of smile that made the room feel warmer. Tony had woken up here feeling like an intruder and within a matter of moments May had made him feel at ease; at home.
“Well maybe let me do the thinking for now.” She suggested, reaching over to give his shoulder a comforting squeeze. Tony hadn’t expected the contact, but God did he appreciate it as a warning that May was about to tell him something he didn’t want to hear. “You only feel alone because you keep on telling yourself you have no one. I’m telling you now… there’s a kid in that bedroom who’s not gonna give up on you, no matter what.”
Tony nodded. He knew.
“You need to get better, Tony. And until you can start doing it for you… just try to do it for Peter.”