Heartbeat

The battlefield was too quiet.

“Peter.” Tony gently shook him. “Peter.”

The boy didn’t answer. His head, scarred and burned from wielding the gauntlet, tilted to the side slightly as his mentor shook him again. “Parker. Peter Parker wake up.”

He didn’t respond. His chest didn’t rise. No breath escaped his busted lips.

Tony, however, was breathing very well. In fact, his breath was coming so quickly he didn’t realize he was starting to have a panic attack until Rhodey’s hand settled on his shoulder and his friend urged, “Breathe, Tones. You need to breathe.”

Breathe? Breathe? How the fuck could he – did Rhodey not understand what – breathe?

Peter Parker was never supposed to be this still. Peter Parker was all bounce and energy and life. He was laughter and hope and the future. He was the only reason Tony had even contemplated time travel in the first place. He was the only reason that any of the “dusted” were back at all!

“Tony, you need to breathe. Come on, man, he wouldn’t have died for you only for you to turn around and go into cardiac arrest.”

Not the right thing to say. “He’s not dead.”

“Tony…” Steve’s voice was soft, and everything was wrong. Peter’s rapidly paling skin, his blue-tinted lips, the way his heart made no sound under Tony’s fingertips. How could he be so calm? How could anyone breathe?

The very thing that Tony had begged God to send back to him, the only person that Tony cared came back at all, was still in his arms. His son…

“Dad.”

Peter had called him Dad. “Fuck.”

“Tony-,”

“No.” he shook his head. “No, no. Peter, wake up! Now! That is an order, young man. I didn’t make you that kickass suit just for you to only wear it once you little shit-,” he sobbed, crumbled even farther into his son’s body. He gripped the body so tightly he would have left bruises. He smelled the same smell that he had five years prior, on that spaceship. His skin was soft and cold, oh so cold, none of the wrinkles that he should have developed after years and years of laughter. “Peter! PETER!”

There were hands on his shoulders, trying to pull him away from the corpse, but Tony let out a blood-curdling scream and dragged the body unbearably closer. He was getting blood on his suit – Peter’s blood. Peter’s sixteen-year-old blood that was shed for him.

“I’ve got this, Mr. Stark.”

“No.” Tony sobbed, clawing his fingers through Peter’s hair, soft and familiar. How had he never done this before? Why had he never held his son like this? Why had he passed up this wonderful feeling of having Peter in his arms, safe and whole and home? “No, Peter, come back.”

“Tony. Tony, it’s going to be okay.”

“No!” Tony shook his head against the boy’s head, rocking back and forth, trying to convince himself that the trembling was from Peter’s body and not his own. “No, Peter. Pete, kiddo. Come back to me. Please, Peter…”

“I’ve got this, Tony.”

“Tony, he’s gone,” Rhodey whispered like he was trying to calm a wounded animal. And wasn’t that what Tony was? A mama bear, holding the broken and bloody body of his cub? His baby? he was supposed to come home with him. He – he was supposed to come back and meet Morgan, to sing her songs with his strangely angelic voice and tell her stories of Spiderman and Ironman’s adventures and tuck her in at night! He was supposed to hug May again and build Lego Deathstars with Ned! He was supposed to go out with that scary MJ girl like he always talked about and get married and have kids. “Tony. Tony, there’s nothing you can do.”

He was supposed to be Tony’s son. He was supposed to come back to him so that he could finally let Tony love him.

The hero shook his head, the soft skin of his son’s cheek rubbing against his own. “I can still save him. Get- get Strange and make him use the fucking time stone. Get him to save him, Rhodey. Get him to save my son!”

He heard the rare sound of James Rhodes’s sob. “We can’t, Tones. You know that. He sacrificed his life for-,”

“IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE ME!” Tony screamed, the suit’s metal breaking the skin of his knuckles as he tore at Peter’s back. Maybe, just maybe, if he held him tight enough he could take some of Tony’s life and just come back.

He sobbed, his throat aching at the pain of all his cries. He didn’t care. “It was supposed to be me. He died for me.”

“And he wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.”

Tony hated Rhodey in that second. He hated the truth behind the statement too. Peter Benjamin Parker, who was all heart eyes and a kind smile and even kinder soul. Who was clumsy feet but steady hands, stuttering words but steady voice. Who was helping the little guy and saving cats from trees. Who was his son and his baby and his future and now he was a dead weight in Tony’s arms, cold and still and dead.

Peter Benjamin Parker, who would willingly do it all over again in a heartbeat, if it meant that Tony lived just one more day.

The heroes around them kept multiplying. All of the returned, all of the ones that had remained. Ones he’d met and ones he’d never seen before. All of them had risked their skin to save the world.

Tony couldn’t care less.

Not when his world had died anyway.

“We won, Peter.” Tony hiccupped as he pulled back to card his hands through the boy’s hair. The wayward curls were so soft underneath his fingertips. “We won. You did it, Pete. You did it.”

Nothing.

“Peter?”

Silence.

“Baby?” Tony tried again. He didn’t know how suitable the endearment was until he’d used it. It was so Peter. It was what he called Morgan when she was younger, but Peter was Tony’s first baby, even if he hadn’t realized it then. Peter was the kid who had lost everything except his Aunt and was still good. He was still trying to save people. Instead of letting his losses make him brittle and cold, he became the biggest hearted little shit that Tony had ever been blessed to meet.

“Fuck, Peter.” Tony pulled back again and looked at his face through teary vision. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, baby.”

No one tried to move the hero, but he heard them start to walk away. To return to their normal lives, to greet loved ones and thank newcomers for saving their lives.

“Don’t leave me, Peteypie.” All of the nicknames that Tony’s heart had wanted to use yet his mind had never allowed. The sweet endearments that truly expressed how much Tony adored this kid. “I can’t do this again, Peter. I can’t lose you again.”

“Tony.” Pepper’s soothing voice appeared at his back and he shuddered.

This feeling was horrible. God, it was five years ago all over again except worse. It was so much worse, and Tony didn’t even know why. Everything was burning and so cold all at once and he couldn’t do anything but sob. He shook with the amount of pain he was feeling. He was boiling with anger and rage and torment and horror and agony. This torrid of emotions was making him physically sick.

His hands trembled as he held the boy, this precious kid, and stroked his chilled cheeks. “I love you, Peter. You hear me? I love you so much, baby.”

Pepper’s hand on his shoulder grounded him.

“Do you think he knew?” he can’t die without knowing how much I love him, Pep. Please tell me he knew.

“Of course, Tony. He knew that the first time too. He knows, Tony. I promise you he does.”

It wasn’t better. That didn’t fix anything, but-but maybe that tiny little bit of peace that surged through Tony then was enough to get off the ground. And that was enough for now.

Tony watched Peter’s face for a few moments, or maybe it was hours. He didn’t care. He had such a young face, and he still had baby fat around his cheeks. It always appeared in full bloom whenever he smiled. He took a staggering breath and swallowed the sob that threatened to escape his throat.

“Hey, Pete, if you see Natasha, tell her hello for us, okay?”

He didn’t let anyone else carry Peter’s body back to the compound. He held him the entire trek, steeling himself against the pitying gazes and mournful words. He didn’t say anything to anyone as he laid the boy on the bed in the medbay. He didn’t cry when they stripped him of the Iron Spider suit. He barely registered Steve and Pepper and Rhodey all saying their goodnights and leaving him alone.

A song from the silly musical that Peter had made him listen to once appeared in his mind. Without his bidding, his lips were moving to the lyrics, only changing one key detail.

“Oh Peter, when you smile, I am undone, my son. Look at my son,” his voice was raspy and hoarse, but his heart needed this. He needed to sing this because he wasn’t sure if he could say it. “Pride is not the word I’m looking for. There is so much more inside me now. Oh, Peter, you outshine the morning sun, my son.”

The sobs he had been keeping at bay returned as quiet weeping. He curled up next to Peter on the hospital bed, hand gently stroking the boy’s cheek as he serenaded him one last time. “When you smile, I fall apart, and I thought I was so smart. My father wasn't around. I swear that I'll be around for you. I'll do whatever it takes. I’ll- I’ll …”

He couldn’t finish. Instead, he laid there and held the boy who was his son in everything but name and mourned the years that he would never get to call him such.

It must have been years later when Tony forced himself to get up. He pulled his hands away from Peter’s cold skin and stood, the boy’s suit in his arms.

He looked peaceful.

“I just wanted to be like you.”

“And I wanted you to be better.”

“You were always better, Peter.”

Tony pulled the sheet over his baby’s face and left the room.

The stars were out. Heroes were crashed on the couches and the floor, exhausted after fighting for their lives. Tony briefly thought about how many pizzas he was going to need to order the next morning if he could pull himself out of his mourning enough to remember such a thing. Steve and Bucky were seated at the kitchen counter as Tony walked by. Neither said a word, but their gazes showed they understood.

He made his way up to the lab and threw the suit onto one of the tables.

There was a beeping noise that made him jump and then-

“Karen, is it on? Okay, cool.”

Peter. That was Peter’s voice.

Tony had never turned around so quickly in his life. There, on a holographic screen, was Peter Parker. Any chance of Tony going to bed and not sobbing his eyes out until morning was immediately shot in the head at the image of his kid, alive.

“Hi, Mr. Stark!”

No, no, don’t do that. Don’t do this to me.

“I’m, um, making this thing.” Peter rubbed the back of his neck and chuckled in embarrassment. Tony nearly whimpered at the adorable gesture, one that now he would never see again. “Just in case. Karen’s going to make sure it’s only activated if I tell her to. It’s called the Peter Pan Protocol. It was one of my favorite books and there was always that quote that went ‘to die would be an awfully big adventure,’ and I just thought, hey, that’s neat. Heh…”

He adjusted on – was that a rooftop? He was filming this on a rooftop? – and looked back at the camera. Man, his eyes really did look like Tony’s. “This will be activated upon my realization that I will die. Or am dying, I guess. It’s like my will, I suppose. Well, not really my will, because I have an actual will that’s under my bed.”

This kid wrote a will because he was a hero. A sixteen-year-old child was writing a will.

Tony didn’t know when he started crying, but it wasn’t going to stop anytime soon.

“This is more of an… emotional will, if you must.” He chuckled on the screen, eyes crinkling, and Tony keened at the action. “I just wanted to be able to say a proper goodbye to you, Mr. Stark.”

“Tony.” He rasped, as if his pleading would change a pre-recorded video. “Call me Tony.”

Dad, he wanted to say. Call me Dad.

“First thing: don’t blame yourself.” Peter smiled cheekily. “You and I both know how horrible your guilt complex is, Mr. Stark, so don’t blame yourself. If I died, it’s either because I’m an idiot, which is not your fault, or I was being a hero, and- and that’s how I want to go.”

Seriousness leaked into his expression. “If I threw myself on a bomb or went down like my Uncle Ben… or I sacrificed myself for the world, I don’t want you to blame yourself. I chose that, Mr. Stark, and you blaming yourself would insult my memory.”

It was said in jest; Tony knew that. It was still true.

“Second thing: take care of May for me.” He looked down at his fidgeting hands. “She’s already lost everybody else. I don’t know what she’ll do if I’m…”

Tony stepped towards the hologram, voice barely more than a croak as he said, “I promise, kid. May’ll be just fine.”

“I’m all she’s got, you know?” Peter swallowed. “And she deserves to be happy.”

“I got it, Pete.” Tony didn’t know why he was responding. Maybe part of him believed that if he just made enough promises that Peter would come back. Bargaining was the third stage, right?

“Third: don’t get rid of the suit.” His eyes were back up, staring straight into Tony’s soul. “I know that sounds really weird, but that suit was like a little part of you that I got to carry around with me all the time. Even after the ferry and Thoomes, whenever I put it on I knew that you were proud of me and that I could always count on you. I knew you had my back and how much you cared.” Peter smiled, that precious smile that he gave Tony whenever he was about to say something so annoyingly endearing. “And I think that you could use a little part of me too. So keep it for me, won’t ya? Who knows? Maybe your kids will want to wear it one day.”

Morgan’s adorable face flashed across his mind and Tony closed his eyes for a second. She would never get to meet the boy that her dad talked about all the time. She would never get to see her big brother.

“Fourth: I hear there is a second Mary Poppins movie in the works.”

Tony laughed. It was a shocking sound, but it bubbled up out of him like his sobs had – all at once and overwhelming. The beginning of his fourth request was so random and perfectly Peter Parker, practically perfect in every way, and this was why. this was what the Peter Pan Protocol was for. It wasn’t for Peter. It was for Tony. He had made it because he knew how Tony would react. He knew the deep-set hatred that his mentor harbored, and he knew that if he could provide closure, then he would do it any way he knew how.

“Oh, Pete…”

“Don’t laugh at me.” His kid chuckled at himself despite his order. “I’m being serious. If Mary Poppins Returns comes out after I’m gone, watch for me, won’t you? It was my favorite live action Disney movie, which is honestly shocking seeing as my past with babysitters isn’t spotless,” he laughed with a slight bitterness. “I loved the idea of traveling to new worlds within your own. Probably some escapism method for my early traumas or something like that. Anyway, watch it for me. I think it’ll be good.”

Tony felt his smile settle into something deeper than mere fondness as he watched his boy. Maybe, maybe he could be okay.

“Fifth thing: every Mother’s Day I put daisies on my mom’s grave.” Peter smiled sweetly, if not a bit sad. “Could you keep doing that for me? They’re her favorite flowers and a bouquet isn’t more than like, fifteen dollars and compared to billions, I think you could spare it.”

Mary Parker would never again go without daisies on Mother’s Day. Tony would see to it.

“Sixth: don’t stop living, Mr. Stark. Don’t stop loving people and being a hero and making really good PB and J’s and petting all the dogs we meet at the park and counting all the white cars you see on the highway. You can’t stop living, sir. You are the greatest person in the entire world, and I don’t just say that because I’m your protégé. The world would be deprived if you stopped being Tony Stark and everything that entails.” he said it so seriously too. Obviously, he didn’t understand that it would be the hardest thing in the world to wake up to a world without Peter Parker in it.

He’d done it before though. Could he do it again?

“Seventhly: love yourself.” Peter shrugged, brown eyes soft. “We both know you don’t do it enough, and if I’m not there then I can’t love you enough for the both of us.”

Tony let out a breath that was trying to be a chuckle. It didn’t hurt so much as the seconds ticked on, as Peter kept on smiling.

Maybe he could.

“Eighth thing: I know this is getting kind of long. I hope you don’t mind.” Never. “Eighth thing is that I love you.”

The hero choked, clutching his chest as he hacked up the rest of his lungs, his incredibly sore throat none too happy with him.

“I know I don’t say it.” Peter looked down again, and Tony hoped that the tears in his own eyes were making the appearance in the boy’s eyes instead of real ones. “I’ve gotten used to losing people I care about. Saying that to you always seemed taboo, as if you would be next and I - I couldn’t do that, Mr. Stark. I can’t lose another Da- I can’t lose you too. But, um, death kind of makes all of the little stupid worries go away, doesn't it?”

Tony laid his head back against the cold table.

“So might as well say it. Because I do.” Peter went on. “I love you so much, Tony. Don’t ever forget that.”

“I promise.” Tony croaked.

“Ninth: final thing, sir, and then I’ll be out of your hair.”

Tony didn’t want that. He wanted Peter to stay forever.

But that wasn’t life. They had both learned the hard way.

“Saying goodbye isn’t the hardest part of losing someone, I know. It’s having to live without them. I know it’s hard. It’s going to be hard. If I’ve done my job right, then you’ll be grieving me for years!”

Oh, how true it was.

“Don’t remember me by my death, Mr. Stark.” Peter smiled, and when he raised his eyes, they were absent of tears. “Remember me for the mess-ups and the tripping down the stairs. For the Hamilton songs that I got stuck in your head and the hundreds of Skittles that you threw at my head. Remember me for the hidden injuries and the late lab days that turned into cuddling on the couch nights. Remember the snowball fight on top of Stark Tower that one morning in January that made headlines; Spiderman and Iron Man duke it out during the biggest snow of the year! Remember?”

Tony snorted, falling to his knees and then settling against the opposite lab table, his weeping silent and painful but good. Because there was his son, happy and alive and outshining the goddamn sun and he was beautiful. That is how Tony would choose to remember him.

“Remember me for the bright-eyed, annoying little shit that could never stop being a pain in your ass.” He grinned wide and more splendid than the stars outside the windows. “Because that’s how I want you to. Remember me for my life, Mr. Stark.”

“Okay.” Tony breathed, his vision starting to clear up. “Okay, Peter.”

“Thank you for everything, Mr. Stark.” Peter smiled gently, all warm and fond and home. All Peter Parker.

“If I see your mother, I’ll tell her hello, sir. I’m sure she’s very proud of you.”

Because when had Peter Benjamin Parker ever thought about himself? Here he was, writing his virtual death letter, and he was thinking of Tony. Of everyone but himself. God, the world had never deserved him, had it?

Perhaps the angels did. Maybe Maria had sent him down sixteen years ago, just so he could look after her wayward son.

“Well, you know the drill.” Peter drummed his hands on his knees. “Second star to the right and straight on till morning. The whole shebang. The next big adventure.”

Tony took a breath. It didn’t shake so much that time.

“Tony, it’s going to be okay.” He whispered.

He would cry again. Tony would weep and sob and wreck his lab again and again at the memory of his kid, his son. His baby. He would scream for hours, lock himself away for days, and he would always have days where he blamed himself for it all.

But he would never forget the daisies on Mother’s Day. He would show Morgan the Spiderman suit, the first one he’d made, and one day, many years down the road, her little brother Parker would slip it on like it was made for him. He would watch Mary Poppins Returns once a month until he could quote it like a master, and he would visit Peter’s tombstone in the backyard of the Stark cabin and sing his favorite song to him. He would remember Peter Parker by his life, for his smiles, for his love.

And he would heal.

“I love you, Tony.” Peter reached up to the camera, probably going to turn off his mask. “Like, three thousand or something. Don't miss me too much.”

The hero pushed himself to his feet just as the video froze. Peter smiled at him from the hologram.

Tony smiled back.

“F.R.I.D.A.Y.?”

“Yes, sir?”

“Play the Mary Poppins Returns soundtrack, would you?”

“Of course, Boss.”

Tony ran his fingers across the Iron Spider suit softly and looked out the window.

The sun was rising.

He had better go and order those pizzas.

So when you need his touch
And loving gaze
Gone but not forgotten
Is the perfect phrase
Smiling from a star
That he makes glow
Trust he’s always there
Watching as you grow
Find him in the place
Where the lost things go