Chapter Text
Six Months Ago…
Sweat drips down his brow ridge, hot and wet and stifling under the titanium faceplate obscuring his features. It's a fucking peculiar thing to worry about right now, when the world has exploded into orange-tinged desperation, when the purple asshole is back to reclaim the stones, to snap Peter away again, to snap everyone away again, and Tony's flying around in the Iron Man suit, blasting aliens indiscriminately-
Another bead of sweat slides off his brow, tickling across his eyelid and down his cheek.
Probably sweat.
Maybe blood.
Either way, it's goddamn annoying.
Tony's eyes rake across the battlefield, desperate to find his people scattered within the horde of Thanos's army, among the throes of superheroes battling the former. Some he knows, most he doesn't.
He spies Rhodey, the sun reflecting off the metal of the War Machine suit as he lets his fist fly again and again, knocking back three of the ugly ass aliens consecutively. He finds Pepper, too, decked out in the new Rescue Suit, as she flits about the sky like him, her repulsors raining down fire and death from above.
He's missing one.
The same one that he's been missing for five years.
There had been a single moment, a lull in the endless cacophony of battle and blood, after the kid had swung his way back into Tony's life via one of his webs.
He'd thwipped his way down, mask pulling back to display that stunningly living face, those brown eyes that Tony had tried his damned hardest not to forget, and then his kid, his living kid, had begun babbling. It fried Tony's brains to see his kid standing there, alive, his familiar voice filling in the silence of Tony's short circuiting neurons.
There had been time to snag only one singular hug from him, the kid that Tony knew now that he loved, before the tide of battle had pulled them apart again, had crashed them against differing shores.
And now Tony can't fucking find him amid the sea of fighting.
All he sees is blood and war and scorched earth, and he combs the battlefield almost desperately for a flash of familiar vermillion.
A flash of the boy who had turned to ashes in his palms, who'd disappeared with a soft, panicked apology.
That hug, that one solitary hug amidst the chaos was not nearly enough.
He catches a flicker of red, eyes widening, but it's the wrong goddamn bug. It's not his Spider, not his brown haired, brown-eyed Spider-Kid. It's one of the seemingly endless supply of other bug themed vigilantes that have cropped up.
The one from the airport, that lifetime ago, expanding to practically touch the sky in his newfound height, knocking back an entire platoon of Thanos's legion.
Tony expertly dodges one of the bodies that is hit hard enough to take to the air, careening harshly to the left, and then he finally, finally, catches the red he's been desperately scouring the Earth for.
He finds those achingly familiar brown eyes across the field, the world tunneling down to the soft, honeyed determination there.
The battle blots out of focus, the world around him going blurry. Everything but Peter ceases to exist.
Peter and the fucking Grape Ape towering in front of him.
"No," Tony breaths out, the word harsh and tight in his throat. "Fri, full fucking power. Get me over there."
He doesn't even hear her reply, because he's hurtling across the battlefield to where Peter is kneeling on the ground, staring down Thanos with the type of dignified resistance he's only ever seen the kid display, and there's a line of red blood dripping down his temple to his cheek.
Tony can read a million things in those eyes; the flash of fear, the acceptance, the resolve.
And then Peter lifts up his arm and Tony's heart tumbles away, left behind somewhere among the battle and blood.
Peter's wearing a rainbow of destruction across his knuckles, and Tony's close enough to see a tremor dance across the boy's body as the Infinity stones lock into horrifying place.
"No!" He cries, hoarsely, the sound tearing out of his throat. He's close enough to see Peter's body sway under the unfettered power cursing through his nerves, but he's not close enough to stop this. "Peter, fuck, don't-"
Not Peter. Not Peter.
He pushes his propulsors harder, begging the kid through comms that he can't hear, because Tony's staring into expressive eyes instead of the lenses of the kid's mask.
Tony's already gone a lifetime without those wide-eyes and that windswept, soft hair. He's only given one hug of the million he has on standby.
There's a lifetime of love in store for the kid. He can't-
Peter's lips part, mumbling words that Tony can't hear, not among the roar and the blood of the battle, but words that he knows all the same. Words he's heard the kid utter a trillion times because Peter at his core is kind and selfless.
"I'm sorry," and then.
Then.
Peter.
Snaps.
═══════════════════
Tony hums a childhood lullaby to himself, feeling positively
domestic.
He's standing in his kitchen flipping fucking pancakes, wearing an apron that declares
Kiss The Cook
in bright red letters. The sun is shining outside the lakehouse, warm and bright, and he's got little stick figure sketches adorning his fridge courtesy of his favorite little artist.
He's got both of his kids here. Alive. Safe.
He feels like a regular fucking person.
Since his retirement, he supposes he is.
"Hey, Mister Stark."
The gentle voice has him twisting around, a smile already spearing his features.
"Hey there, kid." His eyes soften as he drinks in the sight in front of him.
Peter, his hair still lapsidosical from sleep, still wearing the Spider-Man pajamas that Tony bought for him one of the Christmases he wasn't around to celebrate; pajamas that had caused Tony to sob, big fat tears, because he'd thought he'd never be able to gift them.
Tony doesn't let himself think about the scars. He definitely doesn't think about the space where Peter's right arm used to be.
Peter remains sheepishly in the breezeway between the kitchen and the dining room, a hesitant look on his face. "Pancakes?" He questions, curling his arm across his midsection.
Arm. Singular.
"Most important meal of the day," Tony tells him, twisting back around to flip one out of the pan and onto a plate. "Hungry?" He asks, already knowing the answer.
"Yeah. Always. " Peter chuckles a little, and Tony can hear him shuffle across the tile floor to drop into one of the kitchen's chairs, the legs scraping on the floor.
He executes the action with an ease that he wouldn't have been able to manage even a month ago, and Tony's heart soars.
Things are getting better. Steadily.
"Here you go." He flips another pancake onto the plate, twirling back around with dramatic flair to slide the stacked plate across the table to Pete. Syrup follows in quick succession.
Peter looks up, offering him a small smile as he wraps his fingers around the handle of the mapled bottle. "Thanks."
"No problem, kiddo." Tony can't keep the fondness out of his voice, nor off his face. He watches Peter fumble for a minute, trying to pour the sticky, thick liquid as gracefully as he can with his non-dominant hand, his only hand, and he fights the urge to jump in and help.
Peter's face goes red before he finally succeeds, and the smile drops away.
Desperate affection thrums across Tony's nerves, warm as the outside sun, and he fights the urge to pull Peter into a hug and smooth the embarrassed lines off his face.
Domesticity has made him soft.
Peter has made him softer.
The kid shoves a bite into his mouth, keeping his eyes downcast.
"Any good?" Tony questions, just to fill the sudden silence. He can hear Morgan upstairs, her lithe footsteps across the floor, and knows he'll need to call her down soon if they stand any chance of getting her to school on time.
Peter nods, shrugs a little, but keeps his eyes glued to the woodgrain of the table.
"You wanna go with me today? Take Mo to school?"
Peter grimances around the bite in his mouth, swallowing it before he's chewed it. "Oh. No. That's okay."
It's the same reaction that Tony has received every morning he's asked the question, and his previously soaring heart crashes back down. "You sure, Pete? Some fresh air would do you good."
He nods quickly, his eyes shifting to the plate in front of him. He doesn't move to take another bite. "Yeah. I don't wanna go out, you know, like this. "
He shrugs nonchalantly, like those aren't some of the worst words Tony has ever heard.
"There's nothing wrong with you," Tony tells him quickly, resolutely, blinking away the onset of tears. He drops into the chair next to him with an oomp, courtesy of old bones, and tries to find the kid's lowered eyes.
Peter shrugs again, finally looking up at Tony, then quickly away. "I'm- I'm all messed up, Mister Stark. I don't really want people to see me. Not until I-I heal a little more."
Tony doesn't bother to tell him what they both know; that he's unlikely to heal any further than what he has these past few months.
Tony got better in the five years he trudged along without the kid; five years with Morgan and Pepper crafting him into someone who could give and receive love easily. Five years trying to fix things that could, and couldn't, be mended.
So, it comes easy now, when he throws an arm around Peter's shoulders and pulls him into a makeshift hug. Peter relaxes into him, letting out a shallow breath as he presses his marred face into Tony's shoulder.
"Peter," Tony says gently, his fingers splaying out across the kid's lapsidosical hair, "You're not messed up. Don't say that, okay ? You're a hero. A hero. "
"I'm not," Peter argues softly, voice muffled into the dark fabric of Tony's shirt and the ridiculous Kiss The Cook apron.
"You are. Fuck, you saved the whole universe. Doesn't that count?"
"Dr. Banner did the snap that brought everyone back," Peter maintains.
Tony sighs deeply. "And how long would that have stuck if the late grape got his hands on the stones again?"
Peter is quiet for a moment, hopefully mulling the thought over. Tony's not sure how many affirmative words it's gonna take for Pete to start viewing himself out of the lense of self-depreciation that he usually keeps, but Tony's dedicated to the job. He's always been ridiculously stubborn.
Peter is late night inventions, and Thai food, and miracles and magic and one day Tony will make him see that.
Under his arm, the kid offers another shrug. "I don't know- I mean, someone had to do it I guess."
Tony grimaces, his hold tightening. Someone should have been him. He should've been the one to snap, kneeling in the dust facing down the Mad Titan. It should never, ever have been Peter.
As if hearing his self-deprecating thoughts, Peter speaks again. "I couldn't let it be you. "
Tony opens his mouth to argue that it absolutely should have been him, when he hears the telltale sound of Morgan skipping down the stairs, humming the same morning ditty that had been on his lips only moments prior.
Peter's face seems to brighten, too, and he pulls out of Tony's embrace to send the girl a smile as she crashes into the kitchen. She's smiles and long limbs and floral dresses.
"Good morning!" She chirps, joyful, her eyes widening at the food on Peter's plate. "Pancakes!"
Tony chuckles, kicking up from his seat to flip some pancakes onto a plate for her. He ruffles Peter's lapsidosical hair adoringly as he goes. "Hungry, Maguna?"
"Duh." She flashes him her signature smart-ass smile before climbing into the chair beside Peter. "Good morning, Petey."
"Morning." Peter grins at her in a way that has Tony softening more, turning him into something that could be spread as easily as butter across warm pancakes.
His kids. Together. Safe. Alive.
Domestic as fucking hell.
He drops the plate to the table in front of her, bending over to press a soft kiss to the crown of her forehead. "Go easy on the syrup, you fiend."
Morgan harumpfs, sending him a haughty look that is so inherently Stark it pulls a laugh from him. "I know how much syrup I need."
Peter nods knowingly beside her, a conspiratorial grin on his face. "You know best, Mo."
Tony throws his hands up in the air. "Disrespectful brats. Fri, how long until we gotta leave?"
The A.I. returns immediately, her voice reverberating across the kitchen. "Ten minutes, Boss, until you have to take Little Miss to school."
He sends Morgan a playful look. "Better eat fast, know-it-all. "
She shovels a forkful into her mouth before turning the intensity of her puppy-dog eyes on Peter. "Ride with us?"
He smiles sadly at her. "Not today, Mo."
It's the only request he ever seems to deny her.
He'll play dress up all day long, attend her prestigious tea parties, even watch all of her favorite movies. But he won't leave the lakehouse. The farthest he's ever gone is the dock, and that was only at Tony's behest in the cover of night.
She pouts for just a moment, her bottom lip jutting out in all its righteous indignation. "You never go."
Tony watches the smile yet again slip from Peter's face, replaced by that damnable despondency he's come to hate. "Sorry."
He hates that, too. Apologies leave a bad taste in his mouth now, especially from Peter.
Morgan is nothing if not resilient, and she bounces back quickly from the disappointment. She packs her mouth again, murmuring a, "That's okay, maybe tomorrow," around the food.
"Yeah. Maybe," Peter agrees, but his voice sounds hollow as he leans back in his seat, his own plate all but forgotten.
"You want me to stay?" Tony asks softly, crossing back the kitchen to let a gentle finger trace down the part of Peter's cheek that is marred with ridged scars. The kid leans into the touch. It's progress. "I can call Happy to drive her."
Being away from Peter, even now, even months after the Snap that brought him back, and the Snap that took his arm, gives Tony horrible anxiety. It wouldn't be the first time he called the disgruntled man in to escort his youngest to school. Some days the anxiety of being away from his oldest feels big enough to swallow him whole.
Like he'll lose the kid all over again if he can't see him.
" Daddy!" Morgan complains softly. She pouts again. Tony knows that her anger won't last long, though. She doesn't hold grudges. She's not like him.
She especially doesn't hold grudges where the boy she knows to be her brother is involved.
"Oh no!" Peter insists quickly. "No, no. I'll be fine. You don't have to worry about me. Honest."
He holds up his hand in a placating manner, pulling away to shoot Tony a reassuring grin.
"You sure?" Tony raises an eyebrow in Peter's direction, and the kid hurriedly nods.
"Really, Mister Stark. I'm fine."
"Alright," he finally relents. Tony has been trying, under Pepper's direct orders, to give the boy space.
It's the antithesis to everything Tony wants. He wants to smother Peter in affection, to make up for all the time he's lost, to make the kid love the parts of himself he's come to hate.
"Boss," FRIDAY informs them, "You must leave now to get Little Miss to school on time."
"Hear that, sassafras? Time to go."
He watches as Morgan forks the last of her food, sopping up as much syrup as she can before forcing it into her mouth. She mumbles something that sounds like, " Ready to go!"
"I'll be back as soon as I drop her off," he tells Peter gently, the same as he has every morning since he started the ritual. Since he decided Peter was healthy enough to spend an hour alone.
Even though decided feels like a false statement. It was really more of Pepper deciding and Tony begrudgingly agreeing.
"Take your time." Peter smirks at him. They both know he won't.
"Love you!" Morgan throws her arms around Peter's neck with such a velocity it has Tony jumping nervously to his feet in case it knocks the kid off of the chair. "Love you, 3,000! "
The elite club of 3,000. More prestigious than the Jaeger-LeCoultre Gold Cup. Tony smiles.
Peter brings up his arm to wrap around her waist in a returning embrace. "Love you too, Mo. 3,000."
She flings herself off the chair, grabbing her bedazzled, hot pink backpack by the strap. She hoists it over her shoulder. "Bye!"
Tony chuckles, watching her skip out of the kitchen and towards the front door, humming again. His gaze darts back down, to Peter sitting alone at the table, fumbling idly with the fabric of his pants, and he crouches down low in front of him to find his downcast eyes again.
Eyes he waited five years to see again.
"I love you, Pete," he tells him earnestly, clasping his remaining hand in his own. Peter blinks and offers a shy smile.
"I love you too," he returns immediately. There's no hesitation in the words, no regret.
Tony knows he doesn't deserve it. He'll never deserve what the kid has done.
"Daddy!" Morgan calls from the front of the house, and Peter carefully extracts his hand from Tony's grip.
"You better go," he says gently, but he sends another smile Tony's way that has his heart trying to take flight again.
"I love you," he repeats again, for good measure, patting the kid's knee before rising from his crouch with a groan. Old bones.
He can't help buy glance over his shoulder once more as he leaves, watching as Peter pulls his stacked plate back towards him.
Peter's alive.
Tony tells himself, again and again, that that's all that matters.
═══════════════════
"Why doesn't Petey go to school?" Morgan asks him from the back, her voice carrying into the front. He can see her legs in the rear view mirror, kicking happily against the leather seat. Her fuschia backpack resides in the seat beside her, catching the errant ray of sun as he drives.
Tony winces, his hands tightening on the steering wheel. "You know why, baby."
"Because he only has one arm?" Morgan questions, face scrunching up. "That doesn't make any sense."
He lets out a huff of air. "It's complicated."
"Only having one arm doesn't make him less smart," she argues, shaking her head at the idea. Her hair twirls with the motion. "He's, like, as smart as you. Aren't smart people supposed to go to school to get smarter?"
There's a lump in his throat that renders him momentarily speechless. Trees blur past as he desperately tries to formulate an appropriate response to her query.
He can't tell her about the disastrous week Peter spent at his apartment in Queens after Wakanda released him and sent him home to heal. He can't tell her that Peter just refuses to leave and has ever since May called him that fateful night in tears, begging Tony to let Peter stay at the lakehouse.
There's no good way to explain away Helen coming out weekly to guide Peter through physical therapy, or his Aunt spending her weekends here because Peter wants nothing to do with the world he helped save.
He knows that Mo won't understand that her brother thinks something is irrevocably wrong with him.
The savior of the literal fucking universe doesn't want to even be seen unless it's by his small circle of insiders.
"He's very smart," Tony finally lands on, his heart aching. "He's just focusing on healing right now."
"How long does he have to heal?" She asks.
His voice is quiet. "I don't know."
═══════════════════
It's not the biggest change that Peter encounters upon returning from the Blip and his subsequent coma, it's not even in the top five, but it still blows Peter's mind every morning he trudges down the stairs for breakfast.
Mister Stark can cook now.
Especially breakfast.
Every forkful that Peter shovels into his mouth is delectable, packed with the perfect concoction of cinnamon and vanilla. It seems like Mister Stark spent all five years of Peter's absence learning to prepare a phenomenal breakfast.
And getting married. And having a daughter.
Something hard to reconcile flares in his stomach, and he pushes the plate away, running a hand across his face. He hates the way the action feels now, the ridged, unfamiliar feel of his own skin.
Towards the front of the lake house, a door opens and shuts.
"Hello?" He calls out, his head turning in the vague direction of the front door.
He knows that Pepper is at the tower today, dealing with the midyear stock meeting, and neither Ned or May are due for a visit anytime soon. Definitely not on a Monday.
Anxiety flares in his stomach. People don't show up uninvited to the lake house. Tony knows- he knows that Peter doesn't like it, and he keeps most people away. The lakehouse is their private sanctuary.
"Hello?" He calls again, pushing back from the table and rising to wary legs. "FRIDAY, who's here?"
Silence is his only answer, and his anxiety skyrockets into potential panic. FRIDAY doesn't go offline, ever.
He makes his way cautiously towards the living room, avoiding the parts of the floor that he knows squeak. He keeps his ears trained that direction, hearing the faintest rustle of someone's clothes. One ear works better than the other, the right bearing the brunt of the Snap, but it's enough to gather there's only one heartbeat out there.
He rounds the corner, pausing when he finds the familiar form standing just inches into the living room, the front door still open behind him. Light pours in from the outside world, casting a long shadow.
"Mister Stark?" He frowns.
It's too early for the man to have made it all the way out to Belleville Elementary and back, which leaves one option.
Mister Stark must have skipped driving Morgan to school after all, because of him. He's missing out on time with his daughter because of Peter .
Tony's eyes clock him the moment he speaks, crawling across him in a way that feels foreign and evasive. Like he's seeing Peter's scars for the first time and judging him for what he finds. " Peter ?"
Peter shirks back, curling his surviving appendage across his stomach. The words on his lips die, his warning about FRIDAY being offline lost in the repulsed look on Tony's face.
His eyes pause on the place that Peter's arm used to be, blown wide as though they haven't seen it before.
It sets him on edge. Peter knows that the way he looks now is unsightly, but Tony doesn't care. Tony never, ever looks at him like he is right now.
He feels his already shriveled world shrinking further. "Mister Stark?" He asks in a small voice, his gaze dropping down to the expensive hardwood of the living room.
Sandalwood, because even living remote doesn't mean that Mister Stark wants to live without a hint of opulence.
"You need to come with me," Tony tells him. He's still standing by the door, his arms now criss-crossed across his chest. He's wearing a three piece suit that is nothing like the ACDC tee he had on leaving. "Now."
"What?" Peter takes an involuntary step back, his Spider-sense knocking into him hard. It dances across his shoulders and neck, traveling down to his phantom limb. Something is wrong. "Are you- are you in trouble?"
Tony's eyes narrow. "It's Morgan. She needs help."
A gasp tears its way from Peter's throat. "What? Where? What happened?"
The lack of panic on Tony's face is disconcerting; Peter can vividly remember the fear that twisted Tony's features after Morgan fell off the kitchen counter a month ago, knocking her forehead on the edge of said counter on the way down.
She'd bruised, the mark purple and blue, and it had nearly sent Mister Stark spiraling into a panic attack.
There's nothing like that on the man's face now, just a haunting indifference that borders on disgust.
Tony makes his way across the living room, his gaite even, and the force of Peter's Spidey-sense has him taking another step back.
He can feel the warning, but he can't find the danger.
"Peter." Tony chides, voice stern. "Don't you want to help Morgan?"
It freezes Peter, even as his spidey-sense commands him to move. "Where is she?"
Tony stops in front of him, face twisted into a frown, and Peter can hardly see against the blind panic pirouetting across his body.
Because of Tony ?
"You'll be reunited soon," Tony says in a voice dripping with sarcasm, and then he reaches out a hand to grab Peter's forearm.
He falters away without meaning too, his body reacting blindly to the warning currently making goosebumps rise across his flesh, but it does him no good as Tony's fingers curl around his wrist.
A strangled cry escapes his throat as an electric current passes through him.
He's felt this before, back on Titan. The way his molecules had broken down, the way his skin had sloughed off of him into nothing but dust.
" Wha -" He starts, brokenly, finding the dark eyes that he knows so well.
He tries to jerk away, to reclaim the only appendage he has, but finds himself suddenly weak.
The moment before his body gives in, and evaporates into nothing, he sees what he should've all along.
The man smells wrong; he doesn't smell like pancakes and grease and Dior aftershave. His heartbeat is just a couple paces too fast.
This might be Tony Stark.
But it's not his Tony Stark.
═══════════════════
ACDC is blasting through the car's radio when Pepper's call cuts in.
He's speeding back down the twisty route to home, trees speeding past him at an alarming rate. He's going fast enough to earn a sharp tongue-lashing from Queen Pep herself if she finds out, but he decided a long time ago that it was worth the risk. This is the closest he gets to flying anymore.
He hasn't felt real speed since he put the Iron Man suit away. For good, this time.
"To what do I owe the pleasure?" He asks, flipping the call to speaker and cranking the music down.
"Hey, I'm just checking in." He can hear papers rustling behind her voice, the quiet murmur of a group. From the sound of it, she's calling before this month's meeting with the shareholders. "How's Morgan?"
"Good. Just dropped her off at school."
"And Peter?" She takes on that soft timbre that she reserves for the kid exclusively.
Before the nightmare that had been the Blip, before the five tumultuous years Tony spent both mourning his child and simultaneously celebrating the birth of another, Tony had hoarded Peter selfishly. He'd kept the kid all to himself, sequestered away in the lab to tinker and create. Pepper had known nothing more about Peter than his status as Tony's personal intern, the fact that he loved take-out, and his proclivity to ramble.
Things were different now.
Apparently, saving the life of her ostentatious husband constituted an immediate friendship with Mrs. Pepper Potts-Stark.
No matter the bitter taste left in Tony's mouth by Peter's sacrifice.
"Good. I'm heading back now. Gonna see what the kid feels up to. Physical therapy isn't until Wednesday, so we got a freebie."
"Movie marathon?"
"Maybe. Maybe we'll tinker in the garage."
There's a pause on the other end of the line. "Any- Any word from Wakanda?"
He sighs. "No, hon. Nothing yet."
He feels the words settle heavily over the phone-line.
He had tried, desperately so, after the Wakandian surgeons had told him; had set him down to announce that Peter's arm couldn't be saved. It had been a blackened, deadened thing, and they would need to remove it before the sepsis could set in.
Peter hadn't even been out of the coma when they had wheeled him back to yet another surgery, when Tony had crafted the first draft to a sequence of prosthetics that would soon fail.
"Well, hopefully soon," Pepper allows.
Tony had created nine different prototypes, outfitting each with everything he could think of. Super-strength designed to mimic Peter's own, a sticky adhesive that would allow the kid to stick to walls like his natural hand could.
He'd kept going, each time, until Peter had tearfully begged him to just stop, please.
Tony couldn't fix his kid. He couldn't make something that would mesh with Peter's altered biology. Every piece of tech he created would rebel, sending painful pulses across Peter's nerves or careening the raw flesh there into another infection.
Wakanda had offered to do what Tony had failed at; create Peter an arm that would actually mesh with his physiology.
He hits a curve hard, too lost in his thoughts to remember to slow down, and hisses as he slides precariously across the road.
"Tony?" Pepper demands.
He rights the wheel, clenching it tightly in his hands. "Shit. I'm fine. Don't worry about it."
"Please. Don't be the idiot I know you are."
He barks out a laugh, checking the speedometer and wincing. She definitely doesn't need to know that he's hitting curves going seventy. "That idiocy is why you married me."
"No," she quips back easily, "It was the money."
He can hear the voices rise in crescendo behind hers, and she curses softly into the phone. "Okay. Okay . I gotta go, Tony."
Just because Tony is retired doesn't mean Pepper is.
If anyone had told Tony a decade ago he'd end up the equivalent of a stay at home mom while his wife ran his company, he'd have laughed. That was before the Blip, though. Before the little girl who helped to heal his broken heart.
Before Peter had taken the infinity stones and affixed them to his own hand.
"Okay, hon. Love you."
She hangs up the phone before he even finishes his farewell, and the action pulls another laugh from him. Pepper is spark and flame and everything Tony could have ever wanted in this life.
The deciduous trees grow thicker the farther upstate he gets, and he knows that if he rolls down the window he'll catch a tang of the lake.
It's home.
═══════════════════
Morgan slips soundlessly behind her desk, ignoring the tongue that Travis sticks out in her direction. She scoffs, keeping her back purposely to him, and resolves to pay him no attention at all.
At least until he learns some manners.
She maintains her decision and carefully begins to arrange her school items across her desk; the green folder where all her homework resides, along with her pencil box decorated with stickers of all her favorite heroes. Mostly Iron Man and Spider-Man. A pencil. An eraser in the shape of a pink unicorn, half used.
Travis makes an annoying noise behind her, something meant to garner her attention, and she straightens her shoulders in retaliation, fixing her gaze forwards to Mrs. Miller and the blackboard, where this week's spelling words are being transcribed.
Wet, set, net, met, bet-
From within the cluttered space of Mrs. Miller's desk comes the shrill sound of a phone ringing. The noise echoes across the classroom, grabbing the attention of all the students nearly instantaneously. Even Travis stops making his fake farting noises to listen in.
Mrs. Miller turns from the blackboard, leaving the letters ge half written there. A frown graces her face.
She wipes her hands on the puce polyester of her skirt, eyeing the class before she puts the receiver to her ear. She listens intently for a moment, the frown deepening, before her piercing gaze rises to find Morgan's.
Morgan jolts a little in her seat, nervously pinching the soft material of her dress between her fingertips, crushing the petals of a fabric flower between them.
"Morgan," Mrs. Millington says, "You need to head down to the office, please. Your dad is here to pick you up."
She cocks her head, confused. "He just dropped me off."
Mrs. Millington shrugs a little, placing the phone back into its deskside home. "I'm not sure. That was the office. He's here to get you. Or, back here, I suppose."
"Okay." Morgan frowns a little as pushes back from her desk, gathering her folder and supplies back up in her arms.
She makes her way over to the classroom cubbies, retrieving her backpack and shoving everything back in. She pointedly ignores Travis's curious stare.
She hefts the strap over her shoulder, ignoring the chorus of oooh's that follow her out of the room and down the hall. Travis is the loudest one of all.
Morgan makes her way down the school hallway, lockers framing her on each side, and muses the ramifications of her Daddy being back after just dropping her off.
Morgan doesn't think she's done anything bad.
Well, anything too bad.
She pushed Travis yesterday at recess, but that was his fault. He was the one who was running around pulling all the girl's ponytails and making them cry.
He didn't have any manners at all.
Mommy and Daddy had always told her to stick up for those who needed it. Additionally, both Petey and her Daddy were superheroes, so Morgan knew it was her responsibility to keep the playground safe from bullies like Travis.
She definitely couldn't be in trouble for pushing him then. Not if it was the right thing to do.
Right?
Her anxiety climbs as she makes her way, her dress swooshing across her knees and her shoes squeaking on the white linoleum. Her backpack seems to rest heavier and heavier across her shoulders as she traverses down the hallway.
The principal's office comes into focus before she's ready for it to, before she has a chance to untangle why her Daddy is here and to prepare her arsenal of excuses.
Morgan can see him through the office's glass windows, leaning stiffly against Mrs. Baker's desk. She's the receptionist, and she keeps stickers and suckers in her drawers to give to students having a bad day. Morgan likes Mrs. Baker.
Daddy is fiddling with the sunglasses he has tucked into his suit pocket, arms crossed across his chest as he watches Mrs. Baker with disdain.
Morgan makes her way into the room, the bell above the door announcing her arrival with a soft ding.
"Hey. Morgan." Her dad calls, sounding and looking impatient. One of his shoes taps restlessly against the carpet, and he twists around to watch her scurry in.
Morgan cringes. He didn't call her Maguna, or Mo, or even Little Miss. He was mad. He never called her Morgan unless he was.
"Daddy?" She asks, hesitantly, pausing by the door. "What's wrong? Am I in trouble?"
She's going to tell him all about Travis and his ponytail pulling hijinxs. Daddy will hear about how she stopped him, saved the girls on the playground, and he'll be proud of her. He won't be mad after that.
Hopefully .
Mrs. Baker sends her a kind smile from behind her desk, her eyes wrinkling up at the action. "You're not in trouble, sweetheart. Your dad is just here-"
"We have to go," Daddy interrupts, shooting Mrs. Baker a look. The woman shrinks back underneath it.
Morgan's frown deepens.
He crosses the small room quickly, placing a hand on her shoulder. His fingers dig into her skin, and she blinks back tears.
Daddy was never mean to her like this. Never .
He leads her out of the room, his hand never leaving her shoulder. Mrs. Baker calls out a farewell, but Morgan is gone too soon to hear it.
"Daddy?" She asks, cowed, her feet struggling to keep up as he leads her out the front doors. The sun splays across both of them, casting a wide shadow. "What's wrong?"
He doesn't even look at her, frowning towards the parking lot.
"Daddy?"
Her temper flares up, hot, and she wrenches out of his tight grasp, stumbling back a few feet. "You're being mean to me!" She accuses, fighting back her tears.
He whirls on her, his face awash in an anger so intense that Morgan considers making a break for it back to Mrs. Miller and Mrs. Baker.
Something is wrong with Daddy.
His chest heaving, he tells her, "It's Peter. He needs your help. Don't you want to help?"
"Petey?" Her eyes grow wide. "What's wrong with Petey?"
If her brother was hurt maybe that could explain why her Daddy was so mad. He was scared-mad.
"Come on. I'll show you." He holds a hand out towards her, palm up, and she swallows before reaching out to grab the offered appendage.
He pulls her deeper into the parking lot, her shoulder complaining at the tension, but Morgan doesn't say a word about it. She doesn't want to make her Daddy more upset.
"Is Petey hurt?" She questions, a little breathless.
"Shut up!" He snaps back, and Morgan finally does cry, a wet sound that tears up her throat. She wants Mommy. Or Petey. Not Daddy.
He stops suddenly, and she slams into the back of him. His fingers don't loosen their tight hold on her hand, even when Morgan pulls against it.
"Daddy!" She cries, confused, right before things get disastrously worse.
Her hand explodes into pain, like it burns, the invisible flames quickly jumping up her arm and across her body.
Her Daddy is staring down at her, sneering, clutching her smarting hand tight so she can't pull away.
Something is wrong with Daddy.
The backpack slips from her shoulder, spilling pencils and papers across the parking lot.
She screams, but the sound is lost.
═══════════════════
The lakehouse is quiet.
Mostly, it's by design. Tony and Pepper had agreed on the purchase only a few months after the Blip, after one too many catatonic, aching nights spent in his lab sequestered away from everyone.
He'd needed a place to soothe the catacomb that had been left in his heart, the place that had been carved out and replaced by dust.
The lakehouse hadn't quite been able to do that , to soothe the unsoothable, but it had been mercifully quiet.
There's no traffic out here, no horns, no beeping, no backfiring trucks that sound too much like war and death. No repulsors, no suits, no whooshing sounds that make him think about the end of the world.
The lakehouse is never this quiet, though.
There's usually the muted sound of Stars Wars playing across the living room TV, the hushed whisper of a pencil scratching across paper. Even Peter's subdued voice as he checks in with May or Ned on his phone.
Now, there's nothing.
"Pete?" He calls out, the oppressive silence already pressing down on him. "Hey, bud."
He makes his way through the house, his worry mounting at each empty room.
"Peter. Kid. Where are you?"
He practically shoves open the door to the kid's room, his eyes raking across posters and Lego sets and dirty clothes.
But no Peter.
Tony's vision tunnels in around him, and he tries to take in a shallow breath that does little to ease the tightness in his chest.
"FRIDAY," he gasps out, clutching his sternum. "Where's the kid?"
She takes an agonizingly long moment to respond, and he can do nothing but lean against the wall in Peter's room, trying to take in a ragged breath that just won't come.
"He is not in the lakehouse," she responds, hesitantly.
Tony doubles over. It's the absolute worst fucking time for a panic attack. "Where, Fri?"
Another pause. Another choked breath.
"I am sorry, Boss. I do not know."
"He left? " Tony demands, breathless.
Peter doesn't leave. He never leaves the lakehouse.
Not of his own will, at least.
Tony slumps down, his back dragging along the wall until he collapses on the bedroom floor. The accusing eyes of Luke Skywalker seem to bare down on him from where he's tacked up, a poster gifted by Ned.
"He….disappeared," FRIDAY hedges, confusion clear in her modulated voice. "I believe you are suffering from a panic attack, Boss. Would you like me to go through breathing exercises-"
"Track him," Tony demands, still clutching his hitching chest desperately. He can feel his heart stammering away underneath his skin, terror urging it onwards.
Maybe Peter took a walk along one of the many trails that the house grants access to.
It would be a first, but it's better then whatever the alternative fucking is.
There's silence for a moment, broken by Tony's halting breaths, before she finally comes back. "All trackers connected to Peter Parker are offline."
A curse detonates on Tony's lips, tight and breathy and pained. He pulls in a wheezing breath, still cowering on the kid's floor.
He's got Peter decked out in fucking trackers; the watch, the suit if he ever puts it back on, the soles of his Nike's. How are none of them working?
"Call his phone," he demands uselessly, knowing that it's a lost goddamn cause.
FRIDAY obligues, and the obedient tune of I am Iron Man starts playing from Peter's bedside table.
The ring tone he deemed worthy of saddling Tony with in his phone.
"Oh, fuck," Tony ineloquently gasps out. "Okay. Okay. Play- play the footage of him. Of him…leaving."
"My files are corrupted. I have no video footage to report from 7:47- 7:58 A.M. The last known footage I have of Peter shows him in the kitchen-"
That makes it worse , that Peter has seemingly disappeared , and Tony's chest has suddenly tightened to the point of inaccessibility, his fingers clawing uselessly against his skin.
He's thinking about dust, and about I don't feel so good, and the vacant look on Peter's charred face after Tony had collapsed next to him on the battlefield, desperately trying to wrench the stones from his knuckles-
Black dots dance across his vision, overtaking him, and he can't fight them off.
He's lost his fucking kid.
Again.
"-Calling James Rhodes-"
It's the last thing Tony hears for awhile.