4
Much of the day passed uneventfully, because Tony spent most of it trying to focus on Peter. Peter's reappearance had been nothing short of miraculous, and Tony would be an idiot to think otherwise. Of course he was going to appreciate and use the time he had with him.
He didn’t know how much time the boy had left.
Bruce’s research had been worse than bad. It was damning. It more or less proved that Peter’s current condition would only be in decline.
How was May Parker supposed to handle that? How was Tony supposed to handle that? They’d just gotten the boy back! Peter had barely been home for a full day. He’d barely gotten to shower and relax for a little while before Bruce had discovered the heartwrenching evidence of advanced physical decay in his cells. It was unbelievable and awful and terrible, and any time Tony thought about it for more than a few seconds, he had to shut his brain off entirely or else he thought he’d combust.
He hadn’t told May. He hadn’t had a chance; she’d fallen asleep against Peter hours ago and stayed that way well into the evening. No one had the heart to wake her. She needed rest just as much. Maybe more than anyone else in the tower at the moment.
Tony was surprised Peter himself hadn’t conked out already. At a glance, the pronounced dark circles under his eyes would make anyone think he hadn’t gotten a second of shuteye in several days. The pallor of his skin didn’t help, either. But he had yet to fall asleep; for a majority of the day, he simply allowed May to doze on his shoulder.
Tony hadn’t left the couch much, either. He’d been so tense for the last year that simply relaxing for a while had proved to be something of a luxury.
But he couldn’t ignore his stomach as it rumbled loudly enough that Peter picked up on it and gave him a goofy grin. Tony had missed that grin. Seeing it in person was much better than in his memories. “Hungry, Mr. Stark?”
Tony chuckled. “I guess so.” He hadn’t realized until now that he hadn’t eaten all day. He’d skipped breakfast and worked in the lab until Peter showed up. Lunch hadn’t exactly been a priority, either, so he hadn’t stopped to order or make anything.
“Damn, Pete. I’m not thinking. Are you hungry?” How could that have slipped his mind? The kid woke up in a river this morning and hadn’t even been given a decent meal.
Peter shrugged. “I mean, I don’t really feel hungry.”
“Seriously? Like, at all?”
“Not really.”
Tony stood from the couch and walked into the kitchen. “Well how about you try and get something down, huh? Might do you some good.”
“Yeah. Okay.”
Peter, as gently as possible, maneuvered himself out from beneath a still-sleeping May. She mumbled a little as he situated a pillow beneath her cheek to replace his shoulder, but she didn’t wake.
Tony was staring into his mostly empty fridge. Peter probably wasn’t in the mood for miniature pickles or outdated lunch meat after not eating for an entire day.
“Anything good?” Peter asked as he took a seat on a barstool.
“Definitely not. We might have to order in. That okay?”
Peter didn’t respond right away, so Tony turned to look at him. The kid was shifting in his seat and avoiding all eye contact. “Um, do you maybe think we could, I mean, I don’t know, go out for something? I’d kind of like to get out of the tower for a little while.”
Tony was taken aback. He wanted to go out? He figured Parker would want to stay as close to the tower as possible. Reap the comforts of home. After all, he hadn’t slept in his own bed for a year.
“I mean, I don’t see why not?” It was more of a question than an affirmation.
“I just miss the city, I guess. I can’t exactly go out as Spider-Man at the moment, seeing as everyone thinks I’ve disappeared.”
“Everyone thinks Peter Parker has disappeared, too.”
Tony hadn’t meant to say it. Peter didn’t need to be reminded of everyone else he’d left behind. But it was too late now, and the boy looked as if he were beginning to spiral.
“I c-completely forgot. Ned, MJ. I didn’t tell either of them I was back.”
“That’s okay!” Tony had come off a little too enthusiastic, and Peter lifted an eyebrow. “Sorry. No. I meant that it’s okay that they don’t know yet. You’re just getting acquainted with being home. It can wait a little while.”
Peter chuckled, but the laugh was flat. Mirthless. “You’re right. I’ve technically been dead for a year now, what’s a few more days?”
Tony, being the masterful conversationalist and emotional support man that he was, shut the fridge and smiled. “How does Thai sound?”
Fifteen minutes later, Tony and Peter were walking out of the tower and down the street to one of Tony’s favorite Thai joints.
The city was as busy as always, rush hour foot and automobile traffic clogging the sidewalks and streets. Peter didn’t seem to mind the crowds, though, so Tony tried to ignore them as well.
Any trips from the tower usually entailed Happy driving or a private pilot hired to fly Tony to his desired destination (if he wasn’t in one of his autopilot jets or helicopters). Simply walking down the sidewalk like an average person felt rather foreign.
Attracting any major attention to himself or Peter could go bad in many different ways. Encounters with fans (or haters) of Tony himself could ruin an entire evening in a second. Peter running into anyone that he knew would be hard to explain away, seeing as he was supposed to be dead. There was less risk of that happening, thanks to the boy’s overall anonymity, and Tony felt like a jerk thinking it, but lack of friends. He had school acquaintances, sure. But in the boy’s current physical state, it would take someone like Ned or MJ to truly recognize him. Besides, they weren’t in Queens where people in Peter’s neighborhood could recognize him. Peter didn’t have connections in Manhattan like Tony did.
The afternoon would have been warm and pleasant if Tony hadn’t been wearing a hoodie. Short sleeves and pants would have been perfect, but his anonymity was best kept when he wasn’t dressed like Tony Stark. Nobody would expect a billionaire to leave the house and prance around the city in a Yankees cap, a Midtown High sweatshirt, and a worn pair of Levi’s.
Peter had adopted the same clothing principles; he wore a baseball cap and jeans, but had traded a sweatshirt out for a flannel with the collar popped.
He’d been about to walk out of the penthouse in a t-shirt, but Tony had stopped him just as they stepped into the elevator. “Hey kid. We may wanna,” he motioned to his own neck, “cover that up.”
Peter looked at his reflection in the elevator doors, running a few fingers gently across the butterfly of bruises that wrapped around the base of his throat.
“Yeah. Right.”
Before they left Tony called Bruce up from the lab and had him hang out in the living room with May. He didn’t want her waking up and freaking out when she realized Peter wasn’t with her. He knew he would have, if his nephew had basically just come back from the dead.
The two of them made it to the restaurant with no issues. The place was surprisingly empty for dinner time, but Tony wasn’t complaining. Less risk of being noticed.
“Pepper found this place a while back,” Tony told Peter, trying to fill the empty space their lack of conversation had left. “She made me come with one her one night because she ‘ just can’t stand another styrofoam container, Tony, I want my food to actually be hot when I eat it.”
Peter managed to laugh. “Your Pepper impression isn’t bad, Mr. Stark. But you forgot to do the thing she does with her hands when she’s upset.”
“What thing? I know that woman better than anyone and I don’t know about any hand thing.”
Peter scooted his chair back slightly to have more room behind the table. “Alright, so she lifts her hands up near her face like this. Then she spreads her fingers abnormally wide, I’m not sure how, and she twists her wrists like she’s doing jazz hands.” Parker did the move himself, wiggling his fingers next to his face and feigning frustration.
“Oh my god, kid, you’re right. She does do that. That reminds me of Monaco! I’d just crashed my race car because some guy had copied my tech and attacked me, right? So I was-“
“Mr. Stark, you crashed a race car?”
Tony waved a hand. “Yeah, but it was mine, so it doesn’t matter. Anyways, Pepper found out and grabbed Happy, and they drove a Rolls Royce onto the track, against traffic, to where I’d crashed. Pepper was in the backseat screaming her head off, and she was doing that exact hand thing the entire time.”
By the end of the story, Peter had his hands wrapped around his stomach and was giggling like a toddler. “Y-you really worry me sometimes.”
“I thought I was dying from palladium poisoning! In my eyes, I had nothing to lose!”
Tony had previously told Peter about the palladium poisoning, about how his blood toxicity levels skyrocketed and he’d almost been killed, for the second time, by something he himself had built. That was old news.
But Peter had actually died, and quite unexpectedly. He hadn’t been able to prepare for his demise like Tony had. He didn’t take any once-in-a-lifetime trips, or blow up his own birthday party, or crash a race car in Monaco. He just...left.
Peter acted as if the conversation had never paused. “Well Pepper did, apparently, if she did the hand thing.”
“Oh yea. She thought we were all goners.”
It was dark by the time Tony and Peter left the restaurant, the city glowing around them as they walked home. It had been so long since Tony has just taken a walk around New York, seen the sights. It was refreshing.
“You like the food?” Tony asked Peter.
Peter nodded. “It was really good, actually.”
“ Actually? Did you doubt it beforehand?”
“I mean, sort of-“
“Sort of?”
“I figured it would be some fancy place with snails on the menu or something!”
“Not all rich people eat nasty shit, Peter.”
“How was I supposed to know? I’ve never been out to eat with you before!”
Tony stopped walking suddenly, earning him an angry grunt and a shoulder shove from whoever had been behind him. He pulled Peter aside with a gentle hand on his shoulder.
“Are you serious? I’ve never taken you out to eat before?”
Peter just shrugged. “I don’t think so. We were going to on my birthday last year, b-but you had to cancel. I c-can’t remember why.” He looked like he was about to cry, and it broke Tony’s heart. His eyes were watering, and he saw Peter swallow thickly.
“Oh, kid, I’m so sorry, I just-“
“Mr. Stark-“
“No, really. I didn’t mean for-“
“ Mr. Stark-“
“Kid, we both know I’m bad with apologies, so just let me get through this-“
“Tony!”
The use of his first name in itself was enough to shut Tony up. He had never, never, heard Tony come out of Peter’s mouth.
“Yea, kid?”
“I’m going to be sick.”
Tony had no time for a proper reaction before Peter turned to the side, bent at the waist, and deposited the entirety of his dinner on the sidewalk. Several passers-by gave disgusted or pitying looks, but none stopped to help. Seeing someone puke in public was probably one of the least odd things they’d seen in this city.
“‘M S’rry,” Peter said between retches, “s’rry M’sr Stark.”
Tony scoffed. “You’re puking your guts up right now and apologizing to me ?”
With his eyes closed, Peter took a deep breath and stood up straight, using the wall of the building behind him to support himself. “Guess so.”
“You’re ridiculous.”
Peter wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Guess I was allergic to something in the food.”
“I thought you said your allergies disappeared after the spider incident.”
“I thought they did. Maybe me sort of dying brought them back somehow.”
He said dying so casually, as if he’d just contracted a common cold or stubbed a toe.
Tony gulped. “Yeah, maybe.”
He kept a hand on Peter’s back as they walked away from the side of the building, trying to keep the kid from looking back at his own mess. He didn’t want to trigger another vomiting episode; Tony had barely made it through the first one. He’d never been great at comforting people. Pepper could definitely atone to that; he’d always been there for her when she was ill, holding her hair and rubbing her back, but no more than that. Any physical mess had to be taken care of by the cleaning staff or, in one case, Pepper herself. He’d felt terrible about it and had offered his help, but she’d simply said she’d rather clean it up herself than have him puking as well.
“You wanna stop and grab a water somewhere, kid? I can’t imagine the taste in your mouth is very pleasant.”
“If you don’t mind; that would be awesome. That food definitely isn’t as good the second time around.”
“That’s gross, Peter.” He handed the boy a five dollar bill from his wallet, then took a seat at a small table outside of their chosen bodega to wait.
He hadn’t gotten to just sit and people-watch in a long time. From his penthouse in the tower, the civilians below either looked like ants or were totally out of sight. Here he was right in the middle of the action, with a prime view of everyone on the street. In the three or four minutes he’d been waiting, he’d already seen two bikers almost get plowed by taxis and one man buy a cup of coffee from a street cart, only to drop it as soon as he walked away. Man, Tony loved New York.
Suddenly, Peter’s voice was drifting through the open bodega doors. “Mr. Stark! Mr. Stark, Help!”
Tony was out of his seat and in the store in an instant, immediately making his way to where he could see Peter’s legs peeking out behind the checkout counter.
Peter was kneeling on the floor next to the cashier, the man’s name tag reading Mark. Mark’s eyes were half open, only the whites of them visible under the lids. His lips were slightly parted and tinged blue.
Tony joined them on the floor. “What happened?”
“I-I don’t know! I handed him the money and our hands touched, and something felt weird, and then he was on the ground! He just collapsed!”
Something felt weird?
“Is he breathing?”
Peter shook his head.
“Did you actually listen for breathing , Peter?”
“Mr. Stark, I could hear your heartbeat from several blocks away if I wanted to! I know this dude isn’t breathing! Oh, and about the heartbeat thing. I can’t hear his.”
“Holy shit. Okay. Call 911, alright?”
Peter just watched with his mouth open as Tony began chest compressions. “ Now , Peter!”
“Right, right.” Parker slipped Tony’s phone out of his pocket and dialed the number, frantically explaining the situation to the dispatcher and giving them their location.
People started flooding in from outside the bodega. They must have heard the commotion and come looking for answers. By the time paramedics arrived, a small civilian group had formed around Tony, Peter, and Mark.
“Clear a path! Hey! Move!” The paramedics used the gurney to push through the crowd and into the cramped store, lowering it next to Mark’s still form.
One of the paramedics placed a hand on Tony’s shoulder. “Alright, sir, we’ve got it from here.”
It took Tony a moment to feel the pressure on his arm, to register the fact that someone was speaking to him.
He hadn’t realized how tired he was until the paramedics moved Mark to the gurney.
Or, they moved Marks’ body to the gurney.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Stark.”
He was tugged aside by a police officer before he could respond. The cops are here? why?
“Sir, my name is Officer Wilson. I’m going to need to take your statement.”
“My kid. Where is he?”
The officer motioned just past Tony, where a separate officer was talking to Peter. The boy, while looking nervous, offered a small smile and a nod. I’m okay. Let’s just get this over with. The way his fists were grasping his shirt sleeves told Tony otherwise, but there wasn’t much he could do about it at the moment.
“Give me your full name, please. No nicknames.”
“Anthony Stark.”
Wilson looked up from his notepad suddenly, as if he’d just realized that Iron Man himself was standing in front of him. “R-right. I need you to tell me what happened from beginning to end. Don’t spare any details.”
“I really don’t know much,” Tony said. “I was sitting outside while I waited for the kid to grab a bottle of water. He started shouting for help, and when I came in, the cashier was on the ground.”
“The kid. What’s his name?”
According to the city of New York, Peter Benjamin Parker was a missing minor. If they found out he was alive and well in the very city from which he’d gone missing, and Tony hadn’t reported him found, he’d have major hell to pay.
But what could he say? Peter will have already told the detective his name, so Tony couldn’t give Wilson a fake one. Could he? Or should he just fess up and tell them Peter Parker was back from the dead?
No. Not an option. Peter Parker wasn’t back from the dead. In fact, if his current lab samples were any indication, he may be heading back in that direction.
Dark thoughts for another time. Tony needed to focus.
“Peter. Stark.”
Wilson almost dropped his pen. “He’s yours?”
“Yes sir, he is. Is that a problem?”
“No! Not at all, Mr. Stark, I just, uh, I didn’t know you had children.”
“Accidents happen. His mother just told me he existed a few months ago. Wild, right? You know, he gets super nervous around cops. He’s got some childhood trauma that sort of,” Tony used his pointer finger to draw small circles next to his temple, “messes him up. It’s all on his mother’s side of the family, of course. But would you mind if I finished out his interview with him?”
Wilson looked a little shell-shocked, but nodded at Tony nonetheless.
“Fantastic, thanks.”
Without wasting a second. Tony broke away from Wilson and walked over to Peter, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. “Hey guys, how we doin’ over here? Officer Wilson over there said I could stand in on this one.”
Tony could feel Peter physically relaxing beneath his arm, the tense muscles in his shoulders loosening.
Peter’s officer cleared his throat, evidently trying to take back control of the situation. “We’re actually almost done over here. I was just about to ask the kiddo his name.”
Oh thank god. Peter had gotten one of the cut-to-the-chase-cops that liked hearing the story before cataloguing anything else.
Tony pulled Peter into his side and smiled. “This ray of sunshine here is Peter Stark, officer.”
Peter looked just as surprised as the officer did, opening and closing his mouth like a fish out of water.
“That true, son?” the officer asked, nudging his chin in Tony’s direction. “He’s your dad?”
To Peter’s credit, he collected himself quickly. His look of surprise was replaced with a smile, and he wrapped an arm behind Tony’s back. “Sure is, sir.”
“Ah, squirt. You’re too cute. Well, officers, we’ll be on our way. Wilson has my digits, call me if you need anything. Let’s go home, kiddo.” Tony promptly steered Peter out of the bodega just as Wilson was shouting “ Don’t leave town!” through the open doors.
Neither of them spoke until they were several blocks away from the bodega.
“Peter Stark,” Peter said incredulously, disbelief evident in his tone. “You have a genius level IQ and you’re Iron Man and all you could come up with was Peter Stark?”
“Well we couldn’t give them your real name! How would it have looked if I was walking around with a kid that’s supposed to be M.I.A.?”
“How’s it going to look when they nail you with obstruction of justice?”
“Neither of us committed a crime, kid. You didn’t kill that man.”
“Mr. Stark, you told them I was your kid! You gave them a fake name for one of their only two witnesses! They’re going to see through that eventually.”’
Someone sitting in a cafe eyed Tony through the window for just a bit too long. He pulled his Yankees cap lower on his face and picked up his pace. Peter skipped slightly to catch up. “We’ll figure it out. Let’s just get home before we really start panicking.”
Peter actually had the audacity to laugh. “So much for not attracting attention to ourselves.”
May, despite knowing Tony and Peter has just left for dinner, seemed relieved when they were back at the tower.
“Oh honey, I’ve missed you!” May said, pulling Peter into a tight hug. He smiled and wrapped his arms around her.
“You were down for the count, May.”
“Well excuse me if I haven’t gotten much sleep in recent months.”
Tony looked into the living room and realized Bruce wasn’t on the couch anymore. “Where’s Banner?”
May waved a hand through the air as if she didn’t know and didn’t care. “Lab, maybe? I think that’s what he said. Told me where you guys went and then got up and walked out. Mentioned having important work to do.”
“He’s a busy man.”
“Must be,” May said, giving Peter one final squeeze before releasing him. “Why don’t you go shower, Peter? I know you said you took one this morning but I keep getting whiffs of river water, I’m not sure why.”
“Alright.” Peter started heading in the direction of the hallway that led to his and Tony’s bedrooms, along with a few empty guest rooms.
“And maybe go to bed right after.”
“I’m not a child, May.”
“You are until you’re eighteen. Go to bed. You could probably use the rest.”
Tony chose not to remind her that her nephew had literally woken up in the Hudson earlier in the day. He probably wanted to do anything but go to sleep. If it were Tony, he’d be afraid he’d wake up somewhere else even more dangerous and just a little farther from home.
But he kept his mouth shut and let Peter proceed to his room. He was waging a different internal battle at the moment; whether he should tell May about his and Peter’s run-in with the law, or keep his mouth shut so she wouldn’t worry.
“You all right, Stark?” May approached Tony and offered a small smile. “You look like your mind is running a million miles a minute.”
How the hell did she do that?
Tony was typically a master at hiding his emotions. After all, he’d been doing it for years; interview after photo shoot after press conference, Tony kept his face in a perpetual state of neutrality. Living most of his life in the limelight, he’d never had the luxury of letting his emotions get the best of him (aside from that rocky period in his teens/early twenties, but Tony typically tried to forget those years). No matter what was on his mind, he retained his signature Stark charm and sass and a blank look in his eyes.
But not with May Parker. The woman had such a no-bullshit demeanor that any and all of his guards seemed to drop when he was around her. He suspected it had something to do with skills obtained from raising a teenage son. She always ended up knowing what she needed to know.
Not right now, though. She didn’t need to know about the situation with the police. It could wait. She was basking in the glory of finally getting her nephew back. He’d let her enjoy it for a little longer.
“I’m fine. Thanks, May.”
She patted his shoulder and headed in the direction of her own guest room. Without looking back at him, she said, “Maybe you should go to bed too.”
May was already down the hall by the time Tony worked up the nerve to speak, so he ended up addressing an empty living room. “Might be a good idea.”
Sleep was a good idea. Tony could feel exhaustion in his joints, eyes, mind, seemingly within his very bones. Peter’s return was a miracle and fantastic and he was absolutely overjoyed that he was back. But all of the shit that came with it was really stressing him out. His physical deterioration? This new issue with the police? All of it happened within the span of a day, and he wasn’t sure he could handle it.
Tony wasn’t at all surprised when he found himself lying on top of his bedcovers and staring at the ceiling late into the night. It wasn’t an uncommon occurrence, but it was one he really didn’t appreciate.
The only upside to his insomnia was that he was able to watch the New York skyline from his window for hours on end. He had loved his Malibu home (before it was blown to smithereens by the Mandarine) but nothing could beat NYC at night. Bright, multicolored lights twinkled against the nighttime sky. The stars were rarely visible from the city, but that was fine by Tony. He’d flown close enough to them in recent years that he didn’t think he’d have an issue never seeing them again.
Skyscraper windows were his own version of stars, twinkling and flickering above the streets. Tony liked mentally cataloging which ones turned on and off at odd hours, imagining that maybe the individuals controlling them had lives just as chaotic and sleep-lacking as he did.
Deciding he’d be getting no sleep in his actual bed, Tony situated himself and his comforter in a cushioned chair by the window. That’s what it took for him to get any rest at all sometimes; an uncomfortable position in an uncomfortable place. It was almost as if he’d spent so much time being wrapped in and protected by a suit of metal, that anything softer offered no sense of security. Not even his own bed.
As windows in faraway buildings glowed and the city below him continued moving, Tony began to doze. He could almost feel the exhaustion washing over him in waves, dragging his eyelids down as he finally-
Someone knocked on his bedroom door. The chair beneath him scraped against the floor as he flinched, accidentally shoving his blanket off of his lap.
Tony got up slowly and tugged the door open. “This better be good,” he said sleepily.
One of the last things Tony expected to see was Peter standing in the hall, hand still in a fist and raised from knocking, a terrified look on his face. His mouth was partially open, like he really wanted to say something but couldn’t get the words out.
“What is it, kid? Shouldn’t you be asleep?”
Peter visibly swallowed and lowered his hand. “Mr. Stark, I think I killed that cashier.”