Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Peter was tired. It had been a long-what was it? Year? Years? He wasn’t quite sure anymore. 

It had been a long while, he was sure of that. It had been a long while, and his apartment was still empty. Empty besides the built-ins, the bed, and the lego character-the only real sign he lived there was the clothes messily hung in his closet, and the unmade bed. That was fine, it wasn’t like he spent much time inside of the apartment anyway-he was spiderman full time now, and that didn’t mean hanging around his house all day.  

It still didn’t feel nice coming back to, not when he was dead tired, and struggling up to his window just to find that the inside of his apartment was just as cold as outside. He should have worn a coat-now he was going to get sick- again , and this time May wouldn’t…wouldn’t be there to take care of him-or feed him soup. Didn’t matter. He’d have to lay there and suffer-especially if he forgot to pay the power bill-and he got sick. 

Surprisingly, the power was still on, and he could turn on the small heater he had jammed in front of his bed. His home was small, it wasn’t going to stay cold too long. 

He wasn’t hurt today. He had a nice, quiet neighborly day, even if it was exhausting. He found someone’s missing kid in a mall, he saved a cat from a tree-and he stopped a bus from crushing someone who fell into the street. It was such a calm day he could hardly remember it. It was so much nicer to not remember a day than to remember every gruesome second of a day full of fighting for his-and the city's lives. He had new people to deal with-big baddies, with minions and everything. Kind of felt more like an Avengers thing-even though he was the only one dealing with it. 

Mister Stark would be disappointed in the way he turned out. He wanted him to be better-and he wasn’t even in school. Hiding under his middle name in a neighborhood he didn’t belong in, in an apartment he hated, playing superhero all day, and having people request photos of him online to make rent? That’s the opposite of what Mister Stark would want for him.

He was heroing full time-that was already better than what Mister Stark had ever been able to do. He’s heroing full time, going to press conferences, charities, everything Mister Stark could have hoped for Spider-Man, he would be proud to see how far Spider-Man had gone. He was the most-trusted man in New York! It was hard to beat that. 

He’s not much of a man-he just barely turned eighteen. He didn’t want any of that stuff for Peter. Spider-man was a second priority. He would be so upset if he could see his habits. Two other buildings had fallen on him, and he hadn’t gone to the hospital, or even Miss Cho. He kept getting hurt , and not doing anything about it. Just let the spider-healing fix it, except it was taking longer-and longer, because he wasn’t eating right-ramen, and canned chef-boyardee weren’t going to help his healing either-Mister Stark would be upset to see Peter like this-he wouldn’t even care about Spider-man if he could see Peter doing so horribly. 

Peter Parker doesn’t exist anymore, only Spider-man, and ‘Benjamin’. Mister Ghost Stark would have to take what he could get. 

Just because he didn’t want to face what happened. What kept happening, didn’t mean he needed to pretend Peter Parker wasn’t him. All he was doing was hiding behind a name. That wasn’t going to work forever. His issues would come out-and his current situation would make it worse. 

He was doing what he could. Did he look like he could afford to go to the hospital-no-besides, none of this mattered. Mister Stark was dead-Miss Natasha was dead-none of the Avengers-or anyone else remembered him-and even May was dead. It didn’t really matter how they would feel right now. 

Except it hurts to know that they would want better-and that Peter can’t do better.

He was just going to go to sleep for a while. It was a long day, and it was time to fall into the depths of his mattress, and try and rest the night away. His neighbors-a building over anyway-had offered him about three or so dollars an hour if he watched their son Miles while his uncle was busy. It was their date night. 

He’d gotten close to that little family-and their nine year old. It made him anxious-getting close to people who could get hurt if he wasn’t careful. People who were vulnerable-and unable to protect themselves. People who would be easy targets. 

Peter didn’t mean to let them get close to ‘Benjamin’ (never Ben. Never) but it kind of just happened , and now he was apparently deemed good enough to watch Miles. Someone who was far too little to defend himself from anything that wanted to hurt him-regardless of who the threat was actually after. 

He wasn’t going to try and protect them. He wouldn’t need to, because Benjamin Parker was dead, and Peter Parker never existed. Whenever he tried to protect someone that he knew, it ended up in the worst way. He wasn’t going to use the Parker curse on them. 

It was hard to get comfortable. His bones hurt-and his arms weren’t happy about him swinging all day. He tried to settle in with a pillow between his legs, and another extra under his shoulders. Just as he tried to sink in, there was a knock on the door. 

That made him internally panic a bit-and for good reason. Maybe he had gotten home later than expected, and Miles was waiting for him alone-or it was some stranger-or even the landlord-did he pay the rent? He’s pretty sure he did-maybe? 

He’s been really tired. Days had been blurring together-what day was it? Was it the first? Was he late? He couldn’t be late again-he wasn’t ready to be homeless-especially not in winter. 

It could be a villain. Either way he shouldn’t greet the door in his spider-suit. No. He wasn’t wearing it-it was in the floor. He struggled out of bed, and to the door, hardly dressed. His ‘Peter tingle’ went off-either from the anxiety, the rainy city-or the being at the door. He couldn’t tell which so far. 

It wasn’t anything he expected. If anything, he would have expected to die first. Mostly because the man at the door had been dead long enough for his memorials to have washed off of their painted walls under the assault of the weather. 

Beck. That was the only thing he could think of when the man's face split into a grin. Beck had somehow lived-Peter should have expected him to live, he was an illusionist. He would be the one to live. The man who Peter believed to be surely a creation called him kid, and Peter was sure his stomach was going to come out of his mouth. Peter was going to be sick. The image of him mocking him for the second time made him a little less guilty that Beck was his first kill. Not-kill apparently. Maybe he’d have to do it again-and-and then he would lose what he had again-the face in front of him swirled into something mocking worry, mouthing something he couldn’t hear. Peter was too busy remembering the train. Broken bones, and waking up in with the nicest prisoners he’d seen (not that he’d seen very many nice ones). He doubted prison in New York would be nearly as friendly. No one would save him in a jet this time-much less sew him up. Maybe Beck would just kill him before the pain in his chest did. 

When the smokeless-illusion tried to reach for him, he slammed the door. Eliciting a confused grunt from the otherside of the door. He hopped into his suit without thinking-ignoring the noise on the other side of the door as he dove through a window he had apparently left open. No wonder it was so cold. 

Beck would find him if he was nearby. Stupid Peter-jumping out of his window, not caring if someone saw him. This is how two-and two gets put together like with M.J. and that whole…nevermind, not important. He needed to go. Needed to go somewhere, alone, and tired-and figure out what happened. What to do, not what happened. There wasn’t much probability of it being anything else. 

Peter landed on a roof-somewhere outside of Queens. Somewhere achingly familiar that he didn’t mean to go to. It was fine. Everything was fine. No it wasn’t. Beck was back, and now bad things were going to happen. Bad things that he would have to get the upper hand on, and stop before anyone got hurt-or killer-because he would go that far. He needed to calm down, and remember how to stop Beck. 

How could he stop Beck? He was already back-apparently with better gear since he couldn’t even feel the buzz of the drones-it was going to be harder. He was trying to trick him. That-that meant he was better off right? He already had the upper hand because he knew he was trying to trick him. The faint scars scratching up his neck-and the metallic arm were all being used to trick him, because knowing and seeing him be whole would be too obvious. So Beck tried to hide the truth behind details that almost felt real. 

It could be someone else-just someone as devious.

The idea that it was a stranger was somehow darker. Beck being back, and after him again was unwelcomed-but it was obviously the easier foe to unravel. Comforting in a way that it shouldn’t be that he’d fought him before and won-even if it was just barely. 

Besides no one else would know where he would be. In fact-if Beck was alive he shouldn’t know either. Peter should be the only one to know where Peter was. Stephen said so. 

It wasn’t time to think about magic. It was time to think up a place to hide, and a way to undo whatever was going on before someone got hurt. 

There was nowhere really for him to go, now was there? He couldn’t go to Mrs Morales, and Officer Davis’ home-they-well officer Davis might be able to help him detective wise, but he wasn’t going to put him into danger just because he wasn’t so sure he could handle the cold-or the exhaustion. 

Yes he could. He’d been through worse. He could tough it out while he figured things out. It wouldn’t take long before he was back in his bed, warm as ever. No one would expose him this time-and he wouldn’t be hated. He just had a lot of work and research to get done. It won’t take that long if he keeps going like this.  He could be his own guy in the chair-just like he had been doing for a long time. 

First he needed to find someplace to rest though, somewhere secluded to rest, and plan out his first move. 

A dumpster couldn’t be that bad, could it? No. It would work until he found someplace better. 

He needed to rest if he was going to fix this. Rest, and think this over-and figure out how he was going to keep everyone safe. 

He would keep everyone safe. He just needed a minute to think. 

Chapter Text

Peter returned to his apartment the next morning-only to hurriedly fill a bag, and change his clothes before disappearing. By ‘disappearing’ he really meant climbing back out of the window-now with his coat adorning his suit. 

He only came back because it was freezing, and Karen was worried. Karen might have been a very….aggressive A.I. when it came to fighting-instant kill was her favorite method after all-but she had taken the time to coax him into coming home, even though he was sure that he was coming home to a lions den, she still tried to convince him as he was resting his burning muscles, that he would be alright if he went home, even just to grab clothes. 

He was sure that Beck-or whichever machination was waiting to trick him would be there. There wasn’t any sign of anything-and Karen claimed she saw nothing but the heater putting off electronic signals. 

He didn’t stay long, just in case. 

While he was swinging along, being threatened with her wasting energy on the suits heater of all things, Peter’s phone went off. He had landed, expecting-or possibly hoping that it would be a spam call-or a scammer trying to sell him things. It was all it could be, couldn’t it? It was only-five thirty-oh shit. He’d have to find somewhere to change soon-he was supposed to be over to babysit-er-’hangout’ with Miles at six.  

Is it really a good idea to go over to his house, and watch him when he might be under attack at any moment?

No. It wasn’t, but he was Benjamin Parker to them, and Benjamin Parker wasn’t going to leave them alone when they might be vulnerable. Maybe Beck-or whoever had done it wouldn’t go near them. Maybe they were just after Peter.

He still wasn’t comfortable with leaving them alone and defenseless-it wasn’t like he could get another hero to help him. He was alone. He needed to spread himself out as evenly as possible-and this was part of it. He was stupid enough to get himsel envolved, and now he needed to pay for it. Someone might hurt them if he didn’t start protecting them now. He was just going to watch Miles tonight, stay far away from where he’s been spotted so far-at least until he figures out what he needs to do, and gets it done-and then- then when everything goes as planned he can come back to his new normal life. 

It never goes the way Peter intends it to. 

His thoughts were cut off by the sudden trilling of his phone in his coat pocket. He landed-lightly as possible on the roof of the nearest building, grunting with the pain that tried to shoot up his legs. 

The name that lit up his screen made his stomach churn. He watched-for a few minutes at least, before the name disappeared into a missed-call notification. How many times had he received a call from that number? How many times had he called that number when he was alone, and crying his eyes out and had noone else to go to ? trying to feel better? Peter didn’t want to think about it. He didin’t want that number to be calling him at all. It never answered, and it never was supposed to again. It shouldn’t ring. And it shouldn’t leave him messages. 

It left him many, many messages. None of which he could bring himself to listen to, or to delete. 

It was just Beck again. That’s all it was, Beck trying to manipulate him, just because he could and he wanted him dead, and for some reason he was the main target-even though if Beck was alive he shouldn’t remember ever meeting him-or anything. Stephen’s spell was supposed to have made sure of that. 

How-there wasn’t anyone exempt from the spell. Otherwise it would have never worked, and-and someone would have found him by now. Someone other than Beck-or the mastermind behind this whole trick was. 

Maybe he left something behind with his name on it-not that anything was unaccounted for-and they figured it out from there. 

He was pretty sure he had everything-there was nothing he’d replaced in his apartment. 

Maybe they’d been watching his apartment for a long time, and they just saw him-Spiderman crawling in through an alley window like an idiot. 

He liked the idea that someone had been watching him day in, and day out, without so much as him feeling or hearing them about as much as he liked the idea of being hit by a train again, and opening all the wounds that were left over from Beck’s….betrayal. He wasn’t ashamed to admit he had mistakenly trusted the man-and he-and everyone else got hurt. 

He couldn’t let that happen again. His phone went dark and he pocketed it. He didn’t have time to think about this. He could think about it when he had the time, and right now he did not. The only thing he had time for was swinging across the town, and finding somewhere safe to change on the way. 

So he did. He changed in the dark of an alleyway, stowed his bag, and sprinted on his dead legs across town. He got there on time-surprisingly enough, and tried to forget his troubles. Okay-so he shouldn’t have been trying to forget his issues, but in the moment it felt like the best idea to just push back his worries, and focus on this selfish little moment he was having with a family that wasn’t his. 

So, maybe he shouldn’t have pushed back his worries at all. He should have been putting all of his effort into fixing what was happening right then. He should have been figuring out how to stop Beck-and how he figured out what happened, how he remembered him, and if he needed to be ultra aware of how he would expose, and ruin him this time. How long his meek upper hand would last, and how long he would be able to tell trickery from reality? Would he even be able to tell if anything was real in an hour-or a day? He saw that illusion-it looked so real-Beck’s death sounded, and looked, and felt so real. How did he plan on winning again if he’d only dealt with small petty crimes? How he would ruin his life again? Would Peter even survive if noone was there to stitch him back together? He should have been worried about all of that. He was worried about all of that. 

But he couldn’t help trying to push it to the back of his mind when he saw their door. He’s not quite sure how he even ended up knowing that household-or when he went from a stranger in the building over, to a person who could be trusted to watch their child. Either way the homey feeling that seemed to grow when he walked to their apartment was welcome. It made him…made him kind of miss May-not that he didn’t usually miss her. He never stopped missing her. He never stopped feeling guilty for what he brought onto her either-but Miles-and his family were loving-and kind, and close-and he missed that. 

Maybe it was selfish of him to be around them at all-he shouldn’t put a family in jeopardy at all, regardless of his own feelings. 

It was too late to think about that. He was busy trying to play ‘super people’ with Miles, without getting his fingers smashed between the action figures. For someone who was supposed to be the good guy, Miles was sure instigating a lot of violence between ‘normal man guy’ and ‘Henry’. He’s still not sure where Miles got those dolls-but they hit just as well as any of the other colorful plastic figures he adorns his rooms with. 

Miles took a second long break from trying to break Peter’s-er Benjamin’s fingers with ‘ Henry ’. “You’ll never guess what happened to me on the bus today.” Peter-Benjamin raised an eyebrow. 

“What happened?” Miles gave him a tired look. 

“I said guess Benjamin. You have to guess.” Peter sighed. 

“You ate a piece of gum you found on the floor.” Mikes grimaced, before shaking his head. 

“No. I’m not even crazy-so I wouldn’t do that.” 

“Then what did you do?” Miles’s face started twisting into a smile. 

“I saw Spider-man. ” Peter raised an eyebrow. He was pretty sure he didn’t pass any buses today-especially not an elementary bus-he was pretty sure he was still asleep in a dumpster. At least he didn’t have to fake surprise. 

“On-on the bus ?!” 

“Yeah-he didn’t see me though, because I have to sit on the outside of the seat-but I saw him .” Peter tried to remain cooly-excited for Miles. But he was trying to remember the events of the day-it felt like one blur that had numbed it’s way inside of his head. Had he passed a bus? Or a school-or really anything? He wouldn’t know, he’d been kind of focused on the whole possible-life-ending happening soon. 

Maybe it was an illusion.

Didn’t matter, it made Miles happy.

“And-and it was cool, because he can pick up whole cars-and swing everywhere-and that looks so fast -but my Dad says that he’s a bad guy-because he does hero stuff, without a badge-but I’m pretty sure he’s still a good guy, because he beats up weirdos.” Vigilantism pretty much guarantees that people will hate him, regardless of what he does. He still had to save them anyway. 

“Uhuh.” 

“But I don’t know any weirdos, so I don’t know if there's any good ones.” Not really, none of the people he fought were good weirdos. They were criminals. Murderers, people who hurt themselves on accident, and didn’t know how to fix it. 

Okay, maybe some of them were good weirdos. 

“That makes sense-uhm, why don’t we pick up the uh-the guys, and go draw or something?” He made a face at the idea. 

“I drew a lot before you got here-but I guess , I could make more art today.” 

“M’kay, then let's make more art.” And they did. They moved to his kitchen table, and Miles drew a picture of Spider-man that he claimed looked better than any of Peter-er, Benjamin’s own art would ever be.

It’s such a shame you’re living a lie-and these people are starting to trust you so much. It’s going to be horrible when your web of lies falls apart, and they hate you because you tricked them.

It wasn’t a trick. He was  Peter  Benjamin Parker now. That’s how it was. Spider-man wasn’t going to let this fall apart, he was going to fix this as soon as Miles’s parents came back, and he was done here, he would drag his sorry self off to a dumpster-or an all-night store to try and figure out what to do next-because right now? He’s got no clue. 

He was trying to reheat the dinner Miss Morales pre-made for Miles, and trying to keep up a mild conversation with Miles. At least they were , until there was a knock at the door. A knock that absolutely made his bones ache with the thoughts of him , coming here-knowing who was here? Made him nauseous. 

Miles hopped up from his chair, with an excited-and hopeful shout of ‘Uncle Aaron came?!’, and before Peter could stop him, he had darted out of the kitchen, and towards the front door.  By the time Peter caught up, Miles was balanced on a bump in the rug staring through the peephole with a frown. 

“That’s not Uncle Aaron. I-Benjamin?” Peter went to shoo Miles away from the door. His Spider sense gave him a good taste of who was behind it. When he peered through it, he was sickingly accurate. 

Oh no.

What- how - who -

Didn’t matter. 

He knew he was there, he could hear him trying to manipulate him into opening the door again-into getting caught with no hands at all-instead of his upper-hand he had held onto earlier. ‘Kid’ and ‘Pete’ and persistent knocking-how did he know he was there -it-what was he supposed to do without showing off who he was? Huh? All he could do was drag a confused Miles back to his room, and sit and try and stay quiet-even though he could hear  someone trying to convince him on the other side of the door. 

“Benjamin-is that your Dad?” 

“No-just hold on a minute, and he’ll go away.” Peter’s phone started to ring from across the house. Somewhere in his coat pocket it was ringing away, probably hoping to draw him close to the door to trap him-and Miles-and maybe even Miles’s family and he wasn’t going to wait for it to happen. He was going to sit back there, tense as possible, until he left-or Peter was forced to do something else. 

Eventually the knocking-and the calling stopped. Peter was still cautious to leave the room-even after he had left-even when he could hear the oven timer going off. 

He made it out eventually. 

Problem was that now he needed a plan to explain to them-without letting them know about his secret life-that they needed to protect themselves. 

Maybe if he left them alone Beck would too and stick to him only-maybe break the villain trope of hurting everyone he knew and just go after him.

No. He wasn’t dumb enough to risk it. 

He’d just have to come up with a plan while he fed Miles. It shouldn’t be too hard. 

God this was going to be horrible. 

Chapter Text

Peter woke up-once he had left Miles to his parents-to another phone call, and then silence. His phone screen was filled with forgotten-hour old voicemails, and text messages he wasn’t going to acknowledge. He felt like an idiot. Curled up under his coat in a freezing alleyway, trying to suffocate whatever lonely part of him wanted to answer the call-regardless of the fact that it would be Beck-or someone else trying to trick him. 

Maybe EDITH was still under his control. Maybe that’s how he knew who Peter was-and why he was following him. Karen was the only voice he had heard…in a while actually that knew who he was-maybe all of the A.I. he’s met are the same. 

“Karen? Who knows where I am?” 

“FRIDAY is the only current system with access to your location Peter. Would you like me to-”

“No-No, that’s okay. I was just wondering.” Maybe Beck invaded Stark Industries. Maybe there was an alien impersonating Mister… him , and they wanted everyone who really knew him dead. 

Did Peter really know him? It doesn’t really feel like it. 

Everyone knows someone a different way. It’s just how it is. Peter wasn’t going to ruin his memory by overthinking. He had an emergency on his hands. He saw the car parked outside of his apartment building. It was the same car he had been picked up in on the day he met the man. Just another mistake on Beck’s hands, Mister…Mister Stark didn’t drive. He told him in a lab one day that him thinking took priority. 

Lab days were the best. It’s too bad that he’ll never have one again. 

Maybe one day he’ll have enough to have his own lab. 

No. No he won’t. 

Yeah.

It’s not likely. He’ll probably live, and die in this suit-and then Karen will try to notify someone, and no one will be there to receive it. When he’s unmasked this time, there won’t be a face-legally anyway to put to the name, and the only people who’ll recognize him will be Miles, and his family-and that's only if he manages to keep them safe that long. 

Why does everything always turn out like this?

Parker curse hits harder when you don’t have much to lose. That’s just how it is. Maybe one day he’ll manage not to endanger everyone who’s ever cared about him. 

Everything would be better if Peter had snapped. He could have done it-and he was probably strong enough to survive it too. If not-well, that would have been an honorable death for someone who’d already condemned themself to heroism. If someone had been able to look into the future-and see who Peter would turn into-they probably would have suggested he snap instead of Mister Stark. Peter was replaceable. A seasoned hero, with a certain outlook? Not so much. 

Mister Stark wouldn’t have trusted Beck, and gotten people killed. He wouldn’t have opened a crack in the multiverse, or had to lose his identity entirely, and he wouldn’t have almost died trying to bring it back. Mister Stark wouldn’t have let his aunt May die, or uselessly tried to fix villains-just because he wanted them to live-he would have been better for all of this. Much much better than Peter was. 

Mister Stark said he wanted Peter to be better than him-and look at him now! He was sitting in an alleyway, because he was scared . Mister Stark wouldn’t be terrified of someone he fought-and defeated already. He wouldn’t be freezing in his suit, wrapped in a threadbare coat just because he saw a fake-dead-guy sitting in front of his building. He would have found Beck hiding nearby, and kicked his fucking teeth in. 

He wasn’t Mister Stark. He was worse. It wasn’t his fault Mister Stark never saw that. 

What if they hurt Miles, and his parents because he’s not in his apartment?

He was figuring this out. Beck probably found out about his identity from EDITH, and now he was somehow attached to FRIDAY too-or even worse Karen -that might explain how he got a location on him often enough-or maybe he was looking at private city records -

Maybe he was being paranoid. This all felt awfully paranoid. 

He wasn’t being paranoid, he was being tactical. He was just tired, and anxious, and in desperate need of any information he could get. 

He should be protecting them, instead of hiding in a icey-alley. 

Yeah, he should. 

Instead he was staring at unread messages, trying to convince himself that he was drifting toward opening it because it was manipulation. That’s all it was. 

Mister Stark would be angry at him. Not whatever that was supposed to be. It was hardly convincing anyway. 

What does ‘C’mon’ even mean?  

Maybe he should go off the grid for a bit-just so he can curl up somewhere and figure this out with a full stomach-and maybe a heater to sit in front of. 

Or maybe he should just tough it up, and at least try to be someone people would want to be saved by.  

“Karen? Is there anyway for me to…to keep people from getting to me-suit wise?”

“Would you like me to disable contact with FRIDAY?” 

“I-Yeah-uhm, Yes please?”

“I’m unable to do that Peter.” 

Then why did she offer it?!

“Why?”

“You’ve already removed the nanny protocol from your suit system Peter. Do you want me to alert FRIDAY of your position-”

“No-No, thank you though. I’m-I’m good.” Nanny protocol was relieving before. Having anyone who can get past Happy-my password is password-Hogan and basic security can see his constant movements now that no one at Stark Industries was rooting for him was not. It was good that he got rid of it. It just made it a bit…scarier that Beck was still finding him somehow. 

Maybe he put a bug on him?

Karen would know by now. Well, unless he already had control of Karen-if he had that Peter might as well just willingly step in front of a train again. 

How does he keep finding him then?! How does Beck keep showing up wherever he goes-

Why was he being such a coward-he fought Thanos , and he wasn’t this scared. His stomach certainly wasn’t in knots when he was pulling that glove off his hand. 

He knows why. He didn’t fight Thanos alone. He fought him with everyone . He wasn’t alone. He had people to help him. This isn’t like when he got trapped under that building, or when he fought the Vulture against Mister Stark’s wishes, and he still tried to make him be better. He has to fight Beck alone. This time’s going to be harder-Peter doesn’t even have a guy in the chair now. All he has is a couple of neighbors he continues to endanger, just so he can be selfish about having someone.

That’s exactly how it’s different. He’s alone, and he has noone that can help him without getting hurt-he tried to tell Officer Davis that maybe they should be careful because ‘robberies’ and ‘violent scammers’ had been on the loose, but he had just responded with ‘I wouldn’t worry about what you saw online Benjamin’. Peter shouldn’t have tried to warn a police officer about crime. He wouldn’t believe him-he had a police scanner. Peter-and Officer Davis-both knew that crime like that hadn’t increased-so now he was leaving them utterly defenseless-all because he was nervous about being in the dark!

He’s not ready to die fighting.

He’s going to die in this suit one day. Might as well die fighting, right?

It’s not like he had to die in the suit. He’s already a coward. He could run away. Never be Spider-Man again. 

He was Spider-Man. He protected neighborhoods. That was his job. It was how he lived. The minute he put the suit on for the very first time? He was Spider-Man, and nothing would ever change that. If he quit, all the people who needed him would have noone -

All the people who needed him to save their bike.

There were other things too-he saved all kinds of people. When he first put on that suit, he gained a cities worth of responsibility, and now he couldn’t give it up just because he was ‘scared’. He was going to grow up-he was eighteen after all-and haul the responsibility he chose to take on. 

He couldn’t abandon it now.

“Karen. I think I’m going back to my apartment.” 

“Good for you Peter.” 

If he could get up. Okay-yeah, now he was going back to his apartment. 

Chapter Text

It’d been almost a week. No sign of that car. No sign of trickery, violence-or anything pretending to be real. No Beck.  

The knots in his stomach were still around and kicking. Beck was coming back. That’s why he hadn’t been there. He saw what he wanted to see, and now he was going to do something big, and Peter didn’t have a clue what he’d do. 

He decided to go into protection. He set up blunt-force weapons beside his door-mostly things he found near a dumpster-that he could use in an emergency, and he may have been sticking around outside of the Morales place-despite thinking it wasn’t for the best for him to be around them with what was to come. While he was trying-and failing-to prepare and figure out what the worst was going to be-or when the attack was coming-Spider-Man did the bare minimum of protecting the city. Spider-Man was trying to save up his energy-and his webbing, for whatever storm waited for him. 

Just because Spider-Man was gearing up to fight a master illusionist didn’t mean Benjamin was. Benjamin had to still try and convince Officer Davis, and Miss Morales to protect themselves without trying to make it sound like he knew too much-and unsurprisingly they weren’t too receptive to it. He was almost worried that they were suspicious. 

If they were suspicious, they wouldn’t have asked him if he could watch Miles again. He should have said no-obviously he was busy, but Benjamin Parker wasn’t Spider-Man, and therefore he wasn’t busy trying to protect himself-and the city-so he didn’t need to get ready for anything.  So Benjamin could watch Miles, and pretend that he wasn’t silently obsessing over the issue at hand. So far he had no real ways to fix the issue at hand. Karen had no idea what to do either.  So far she suggested listening to the voicemails-and Peter tried to do so. 

He didn’t listen to the voicemails. They were just there to guilt him, and he wasn’t ready for that. 

Peter had turned his floorspace into papers of scribbled out plans that he knew wouldn’t work.  Well, he knew it wouldn’t work only because he didn’t know anything-there was no upper-hand anymore-he had no hand. No cards to play-just a big old target on his back. He didn’t know what he was using , or how he was using it-was it drones? Was it something else? He wouldn’t know . That was the problem. He was in the dark-and being in the dark against someone who’s in the daylight is a horrible way to be. He was going to lose. If he didn’t figure it out, he was going to lose-and he was stupid, and he was the one who agreed to watch Miles. And he wouldn’t have enough time to get ready because he didn’t think this through right!

He was going to die.

At least he’d get to actually talk to someone before he died. Even if it was a nine year old that he couldn’t confess being Spider-Man to-even though he shouldn’t have gotten involved with regular people after he knows what happens to them-at least he would get to talk to one of them-maybe pretend to be normal before he dies. Well…if he can protect them he will. 

It might not be that hard-his Peter-Tingle is working-and it’s not like Beck has any…any real powers-he’s not particularly skilled either-all he has to do is keep his head, and destroy technology. He’s done it all before. 

It’s not going to be like before-Beck might not have super-strength, but that makes him a bit more dangerous. He’s going to hurt someone he cares about if he can-or he’ll have enough tech to keep him confused, and terrified, and unable to differentiate reality from illlusions. That’s what Mister Stark being there is. It’s him trying to make him hurt-and make Peter want to trust him, just like he did with Fury. He’s got a way to do it again, and this time Peter might not be lucky enough to get hit by a train. 

Peter tried to sort the messy papers in front of him. His head was starting to hurt-and he could really use some rest. Too bad that he didn’t have the time for that. He had time for putting the scribbled writings-and the stupid contigency filled plans, and maybe eating a can of…what did he have? Canned lasagna? Maybe if he has the time he can heat that up and finish it. 

He had the time-barely enough-to force it down without getting the chance to chew, and to try and keep his mouth from staining orange. 

Miles said he had specifically asked his father to ask him if they could ‘hangout’ when they went back out again. Peter could still tell he would rather hangout with his uncle-the fact that he repeatedly brought up missing him didn’t exactly help his lie either. 

Peter tried to cheer him up by helping him with his lego-set he got for Christmas. Peter really would like to be doing something else-but it makes Miles feel better. Even if he keeps trying to ask him how long ‘free lance’ work lasts. Peter’s too busy trying not to think of Ned to really focus on explaining that it depends on the job. 

They weren’t distracted with lego’s for long. They tried to play superheroes-for a little while at least-and then they tried a board game or two (Peter kept getting sent back to jail) and they kept finding things that would hold their-well Miles’s attention for a few minutes before he would become bored with it. By the time Peter was making his dinner, he’d become sure that they’d tried to do everything left in the house-even video games couldn’t hold onto his attention for very long. 

He could see that becoming a problem. 

“Benjamin, we should go outside.” They’d tried that already-Miles had claimed it was too cold to do anything, and walked right back in. 

“It’s almost dark. What’re we gonna do in the dark?” Miles deliberated over it.

“Nothing probably. There’s no snow or anything.” Sadly enough, it was just ice out there. Well, unless you counted the grey slush left by the roads. 

Peter could think of something to do. 

“Miles, are you scared of the dark?”

“Not if I’m in bed.” Well-good enough. 

Peter somehow convinced Miles to play hide-and-seek in the dark with him. Problem was that once he got to playing it, Miles did not seem to want to stop. So he just let it go on, round after round after Miles had eaten, trying not to cheat 

Okay-Peter cheated a little-it wasn’t his fault Miles was good at hiding. The second round in he somehow got behind his dresser between his bed and dresser, and Peter had been worried that somehow he’d disappeared off the face of the planet. 

He hadn’t, but he had to move his dresser out to free him. It wasn’t a fun time. 

It was even less of a fun time when he went home. He knew -he knew that he shouldn’t have gone home. He knew it, but his head hurt, and he was tired-and he just wanted to sleep. Instead, he came home-walked in and set his stuff down, just to turn around and see him again. 

“I didn’t think you’d be a minimalist.” Peter had stood there-had stood there, and not known what to do in the slightest, because he-he was in his house , and Peter didn’t know whether to bolt-or to start swinging, or if that would help him out at all-how long had he been there?  Did he watch him walk over-wa he there when he walked over?! What-

He rose to his feet with a good deal of effort-deciding that the wisest way to ‘continue’ to trick him would be to come towards Peter, where it felt like his feet had become rooted into the floorboards. He tried to spit out something questioning-hoping to slow down his ascent across the room. It didn’t. It didn’t at all. 

Beck was good at illusions. Sometimes Peter could forget that he knew Mister Stark. Not when he saw the tricks facial expressions. They were convincing. Heartwrenchingly so. So convincing that he had to dig his nails into his hands to remember that he was there to hurt him, and was promptly coming to do so. That if he didn’t stop letting that knot in his stomach cloud his mind, he was going to die in his apartment. 

That didn’t help. His hands still shook, and he was sure that this was the end-despite him being able to stop it. He could stop it. He just couldn’t un-cloud his thoughts enough to think of it. 

It’s just an illusion. An Illusion like all the others that’s not real-and can’t touch him. If anything, it’s Beck hiding behind smoke and mirrors. How did he disperse the smoke and mirrors last time?

By punching it square in the chest. 

The illusion did not disperse, Beck did not reveal himself. Instead Mister Anthony Stark landed with a thud on his apartment floor. Peter did what anyone faced with this situation would do. When fight did not turn out how ihe thought it should, he turned around, and he bolted out of the door. 

Oh shit.

Chapter Text

This was not going well. He wasn’t quite sure what this was, but it wasn’t going in his favor. He shouldn’t have broken in-Pepper warned him, and he didn’t listen,and now he was lying on the floor, without the ability to breathe. 

That was not ideal. None of this was really. Find out that you’ve supposedly been dead to the world when you’ve only been kind of brain dead for a year-in which all of his friends assumed he was just dead and buried already-and then take almost two years to fully recover? Not exactly Tony’s dream of a fun time. Then-a particular Tuesday when he was cleaning up the old Stark lab (and maybe working on his new arm despite Pepper’s wishes), FRIDAY had asked him when Peter was coming. 

He had forgotten Peter! He didn’t have a clue who FRIDAY was talking about until she reminded him with a video of Spider-Man taking his mask off-and-and then having all of those feelings-and thoughts about him come back to him? Not exactly a good time. 

He thought it was just him with the amnesia-but Pepper was the same way. 

So he tried to reach out to some people outside of his house-hold of amnesia. No one else remembered him either. Not even Happy -and he had been practically drooling over his aunt. So Tony tried to do his research. He looked for Peter’s registration somewhere-the kid should have been in college by then-but….he wasn’t. He wasn’t in MIT, or anywhere -not even a trade school. Tony checked his highschool. 

Not even a record of Peter ever going there. The only sign that the kid existed was Spider-Man, and that was upsetting enough. What was even more upsetting, was what happened when he tried to look for his kid-er, the kid at his apartment. Complete strangers answered the door-strangers who had apparently never heard of a May-or Peter Parker. 

Tony found the death record later that night. He spent the rest of that night desperately hoping not to see Peter’s anywhere on that list. It didn’t help him calm down all that much. He found his parents-and presumably his uncles. That was it. 

This whole him not existing thing was becoming stressful-Tony couldn’t reasonably think up a good reason as to why Peter would no longer exist-or why nothing would be available about him. 

He found nothing. Nothing at all-even when he went to go ask Peter's friend’s-they didn’t know him either-there was nothing hinting at the kids location. Well, except for something very out of place. A lease signed by someone who from the looks of it should have been dead. He had a death record and everything. But somehow , the dead man signed for an apartment. 

One Benjamin P. Parker, living in Brooklyn. 

Of course that was the first place Tony checked. It had to be Peter, didn’t it? There were a lot of Parker’s, but not a lot of Benjamin P. Parker’s, who happened to have no birth records, or other records of existence past that names death. 

He had put Morgan to bed, told Pepper where he was going, and pulled up to the building. He had kindly walked up all of those dingy stairs, and knocked on the apartment door, despite being perfectly able to call him. 

And it was Peter. He saw him-he looked right into his eyes-he even talked to him-Peter didn’t answer , but he talked to him. 

If he was being honest, he had a whole mentally-prepared speech about avoiding school. That not going into a career he loved, and letting his skill and talent slowly deteriorate wasn’t going to fly with Tony.-and that Peter better have a good excuse for disappearing-and not being in school. It was a bit more parental than Tony would like to admit. 

But that’s not what happened. Peter stared him in the face, and slammed the door. 

That was not what he had expected to happen-and his knocking afterward went unanswered as well, because Peter had apparently jumped out the window. Tony was-admittedly confused-maybe a little upset by that. He finally found the kid after two years of not knowing him-and he was trying to make this all better-and what did he do? He bolted Spider-Man style, and the only thing Tony could do was go back to his car, and ask FRIDAY to let him in on the Nanny protocol. Instead she had told him it was removed. 

Damn Peter, and his love of messing with his protocols. First Peter made him signaling other Avengers for assistance turn into the ‘life alert’ protocol-but now him getting rid of his location? Not really something he was happy about. He couldn’t even track his phone-because the kid didn’t bring it with him. 

Tony tried asking for Peter’s location through his suit-and through calling him repeatedly. His calls, and messages went unanswered. Eventually-Pepper got tired of him pacing, and calling, and told him to go back-maybe watch for him for awhile. So Tony did. He sat outside in his car, trying to think of why Peter would be avoiding him-at least until he finally got some information on where he was. 

Tracking his phone might not be the best idea-law wise, but teenagers supposedly always had their phones-it was important that Tony knew where Peter was in emergencies. Or in situations like this. He wanted to apologize for not telling him he wasn’t dead. Apparently no one who knew told anyone that didn’t. He was sure a lot of people weren’t happy with him. 

He had walked up and down those hallways, texting his phone, and listening until he found the door with the phone behind it. 

Peter didn’t answer. He didn’t answer his phone-or his door or-or anything he did to try and contact him-and Tony was pretty sure that was just pettiness. To be honest, it was understandable, Tony would probably be petty if noone thought to keep him updated on a close friend’s (or father figure’s) life-or-death status. 

He tried to give him some time. Maybe seeing Tony again after so long was weird for him. Maybe if Tony stopped bothering him constantly he would answer, and things wouldn’t be so awkward between the two of them. 

Tony was wrong. 

For some reason, Tony thought that waiting for Spider-Man, in his unlocked apartment, like he’d done several times over at his old home, would go down well. It was…empty, basically. There was an unmade bed-hardly any clothes strewn across the closet, and kitchen items. His backpack was the only real sign of current life, and that was because his spider-suit was stuffed inside, poorly hidden. He still somehow thought that it would go over well. 

It did not. It really did not. 

Peter came in after dark, and he just stood there-even after Tony made that joke about his apartment being bare, and even as he tried to get closer to him-he just stood there with a look on his face he couldn’t quite place. It wasn’t like when the fire in the lab started, and he was overjoyed. It wasn’t like much he’d seen from Peter. 

Then Peter uppercut him in the ribs, and ran off without a single word. Maybe he had said something, he wouldn’t know because he was too busy being in pain on the floor. 

He just wanted to talk-and now Peter was gone, and he wasn’t sure if he could get up. 

Correction, he could get up. He just couldn’t breathe. 

Tony laid there, and tried to think about where his pla went completely wrong-what else was he supposed to do? He just wanted to talk-and Pete was being weird about it. What was he supposed to do? Get him in a glue trap? 

Maybe. If he did that he wouldn’t be able to hit him-and he’d be forced not to jump out of the window. 

Okay-maybe not a glue trap. Maybe like a net. Or something. 

Tony sat up-with excessive effort for someone barely peaking fifty-five. Wasn’t his fault he was punched in the ribs. How do the people Peter fight’s get back up ? He didn’t hit him that hard-and Tony was struggling to stand-and breathe. 

The pain eventually faded-but still . How do those poor bastards get back up-was that a pulled punch? Was he pulling punches with them too? He knew Peter was strong-but fuck -that hurt . He didn’t think he’d hit him-if he did he wouldn’t have gotten so close to him! Why did he hit him anyway?! He didn’t do anything punch-worthy… today . 

There had to be something wrong, didn’t there? Peter was dodging him at every turn, and he hit him-there had to be something else besides him not being present for the past…three? Three years? Yeah-it had to be more than Peter being upset with him. 

If only he had someone to fill him in-that wasn’t going to uppercut him in the ribs. Tony stood in the middle of Peter’s empty room-apartment, and tried to think of someone who might know. His A.I. system might know more than most-but he doubted that it’d listen to him. His suit was his-and it had no reason to tell Tony anything-what was he going to do? Threaten it? It’d probably suffocate him for his trouble. 

He could ask whoever lived where he kept going to. The apartment in the next building over? There was probably someone there who could tell him about Peter-er, Benjamin Parker. 

So that’s what he did. He walked nextdoor, and knocked on the door that he (EDITH) remembered from that first day of looking. The woman who answered the door did not look happy to be doing so. 

It was probably because it was past ten. 

The conversation did not go well. The minute he had said that he was looking for him, she had told him that he didn’t live there-that he was a friend, and that he lived somewhere else.  She didn’t say where-even though Tony knew already-she just affirmed that it wasn’t there, and that he should be there by now. When he tried to ask her if she knew where he may be, she just started to question him from behind the chained door. Who he was-why he was looking for him-all things he did not have a story for. The only thing he could come up with was him being his father-or uncle or something -and that obviously was not enough. 

By the time she shut the door in his face, he was aware he sounded sketchier than a sketchbook. 

It looked like he was going to have to search for him by phone-and foot. With an Ironsuit on. He wasn’t taking a hit like that again without something on. He wasn’t sure what was wrong with Peter, but he wasn’t going to get hurt trying to catch him. 

He couldn’t figure out how to help Peter with broken ribs. 

They were going to have to have a long talk about college-and when it’s appropriate to hit people when he calmed down-and let Tony speak to him without running off. 

He was on the way to his car-hoping to get back to his tower and suit up when his phone went off in his pocket. 

After getting punched in the ribs so hard he saw stars-and continuously ignored for what felt like a month, he wasn’t expecting the first message he received from Peter to be ‘My bad’. 

It would have to work for now. He could get in his car-and hope for another message (which he didn’t receive) and drive to where Peter’s phone claimed to be. Maybe he’d get lucky, and Peter wouldn’t run-or punch this time. Maybe , when he found him again, they could have a decent-not at all terrifying conversation with him-where he convinced him to maybe try and talk it out. 

Or Tony would make a mistake, and Peter would break his bones this time. It was a chance he’d have to take until he got Peter back on his side. 

Maybe he’d be happier with him if he bought him something to eat first. It was twelve degree’s outside. Hot chocolate was everyone’s favorite-

No. No stops until he talked to Peter. 

When he had Peter out of…wherever, and safe in his car , he could get them both something hot to drink. First, he needed to get Peter in the car-and not die trying-how he was going to do that was still a mystery-but so far it looked like Peter was possibly calmer right now than…that whatever he had been before he hit him. 

Maybe he’d just get to talk it out with him. Maybe he can use hot chocolate as a bribe because he doesn’t have any idea what to say to him besides ‘maybe don’t hit me again’. 

Either way, he’d have to figure it out soon. He’d be standing in front of him soon enough, and there’s not much room for error. 

Chapter Text

“Answer the phone kid.” 

“Where are you-I’ll come get you, I just want to talk.” 

“Did you seriously jump out the window?”

“Kid, where are you?” 

“You know it’s cold outside. You better be using your heater.”

“Can you call me when you get these Peter?” 

“C’mon Spider-ling. I know your phone is getting these.” 

“Why did you take Nanny protocol off?!” 

“Peter, it’s been hours, I know you’ve seen one of these.” 

“You better be safe somewhere.”

“I’m sorry Pete, just text me or something please?” 

Peter crouched in the cold biting air, listening to the almost-hundred voice-mails that his phone had gained in the last few days. He hadn’t even gotten to the text messages yet, and he was sure his finger’s were going to go numb.

He punched Mister Stark. He possibly broke Tony Stark’s ribs. 

God he was dead. 

None of this was making sense. Mister Stark was supposed to be dead. Dead dead, he saw him die. Watched him slowly try and leave them-and he even got stopped from doing anything to help. Beck being alive made sense somehow-he was an illusionist-and EDITH was able to be fooled. Peter was able to be fooled much easier-Beck could have gotten EDITH in on it-and torturing Peter was one of Beck’s pass-times, along with ruining his life in all the worst ways. 

Tony being alive made no sense. Just because he wasn’t invited to a probably very expensive funeral didn’t mean anything. He’d never met his family-not even his wife, and that was probably because Peter didn’t belong with them-and that would explain why he wasn’t invited. Well…that, and him being a completely kinless kid from Queens who couldn’t pay his bills half the time. 

Did Mister Strange know Mister Stark was alive? If he didn't, is that why Mister Stark remembers him? He’s almost sure Mister Stark isn’t an A.I. 

This would be so fucked up if it turned out Mister Stark was really never dead, and he just hated him. 

First Peter knows absolutely nothing about what happened after that fight-and now he comes back to find Peter failing to live up to any of his expectations? Hating him for failing to be the next IronMan isn’t that far-fetched. People need IronMan. They got along great for years without Spider-Man. 

Maybe Mister Stark was actually dead still, and Peter was losing his mind. It felt like it. He couldn’t tell what he should think-and it was an unpleasant thing. Not knowing always was. 

Knowing it wasn’t Beck-because Beck’s illusion’s could be disrupted when he hit them-was almost relieving. Knowing it was someone who was also supposed to be dead didn’t help. It made it worse if anything. Especially when he thought over what he’d done. He ignored one of the richest people he’d ever met-he probably upset him by continuously bailing-he hit him-and he probably ruined his relationship with him. 

This is a huge mess. 

What’s he supposed to say if he finds him again? ‘Sorry I thought you were a super-villain that came to kill me’? That probably wouldn’t go over well. 

‘My bad’ would have to work. At least for now. 

What if Mister Stark wants Karen back? What if he’s angry he failed to take over as the new IronMan? What if he just wants to tell him he’s disappointed in him for how he handled  Beck-and Norman, and everyone else?! What if he’s angry that he messed with the multiverse-and he denied all of those people their original endings?!

Doctor Strange was angry with him for it-and they were…more alike then they’d admit-what if he just fucked everything up, and now Mister Stark was going to tell him so? 

That was a possibility-especially if Doctor Strange knew somehow as well. Maybe he’d be angrier about his not-so-world wide prowess lately-or any of his other shortcomings he’s happened to have in the last three years. He could be angry at him for any of them. He should really have done better at filling in expectations. He would have if he knew Mister Stark was going to come back. 

If he knew any of the things that happened, if he saw his apartment-he’d probably be disappointed.  

This wasn’t going to be pleasant, was it?

Maybe he’ll get lucky, and he’ll freeze to death before he got there. 

That would be better than explaining this to Mister Stark. 

//------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------//

Finding Peter was harder than it should have been. He knew the apartment building-sadly enough-and he didn’t have much trouble getting there. It was the whole walking up fourteen floors of stairs to get to the roof thing that made it much harder. He was too old to be chasing his kid around the city. At least without a suit-and it might be a long while before he gets back into one of those. 

Maybe it was just because it was cold. It was cold, and that’s why he was in a bit of a hurry. By the time he had arrived at the building, it had started to snow. By the time he got out on the rooftop, it had started to stick. 

That’s not what he was paying attention to though. 

Peter was crouched in the shadows on the opposite side of the roof, lighting one side of his face up with his cell phone. Tony tried to ignore the ache in his ribs as he let the door shut behind him. 

“Peter?” His kid didn’t acknowledge him-once again, but Tony wasn’t going to walk over there. He’d already learned what happens when he got too close to unresponsive Peter. Either he bailed, or he started swinging, and he didn’t have his suit with him-much less his web-thingies. Tony wasn’t going to take a chance. He just wanted to get everyone in the car, where it wasn’t freezing. “Kid, c’mon, I’m not gonna mess with you. We can just-”

“I’m sorry.” Tony stopped, hand’s still moving like he was talking, frowning at being interrupted. 

“Excuse me?” Peter moved-for once, not to hit him, or jump off the roof -but to look at him. 

“I’m sorry .” Peter stood up- god he was tall as Tony now wasn’t he-he stood up, and edged closer to the wall than Tony would have liked. “I didn’t-I didn’t know you were-and now-you’re-I’m-I’m just sorry-” 

“Kid-”

“I am-I promise- I didn’t know-I wouldn’t have hit you if I did-”

“Kid-it’s okay-alright? We can talk about it later.” Tony-in all honesty didn’t want to talk about it later. He wanted to hear his reasoning for all of this-but now that he was standing there, listening to his kid ramble for an answer he clearly didn’t want to give, he would much rather be in a warm car, where he was sure-at least for a little while that Peter wouldn’t be shaking out here in the cold. It wasn’t just that though. This was the first real time that they’d spoken since…since Tony’s snap, and it e something more lighthearted. 

He didn’t want to touch on why Peter sounded afraid just yet. 

“C’mon-it’s cold-it’s snowing now-I’ll give you a ride home.” Being out in the cold is just as unpleasant as he remembered, and he doubted Peter was comfortable in it either. Unlike what Tony hoped for, he stood there, full of hesitation. 

“I-I can get home-”

“Pete, just take the free ride home. I won’t keep you for long.” That’s not what he wanted to say. He wanted to offer him a trip out to Stark cabin-where the rest of his family were, instead of that drafty piece of work that claimed was an apartment. Tony just got him back-without all the kicking and screaming, and he’d rather not have to leave him anywhere. He wasn’t going to ignore it-or deny it now. Peter was like his kid at this point-and the idea of leaving him somewhere with hardly anything made his stomach turn. 

He’d still drop him off if that’s what he wanted. He’d manage that for him-as long as he could come back. Maybe put some food in the kid’s fridge-or figure out why this was happening after- that . 

It was safe to say he was worried about it. It was too bad that Tony would have to worry about it later, later as in when Peter stopped being visibly nervous around him, and he was sure he wasn’t going to have to search the city for him again.

Peter-after some silent deliberation, went to walk past him, and down the stairs. 

Right. Time to take him back to that empty-nearly foodless apartment. 

Great. Totally not going to feel guilty when he inevitably drops him off with nothing but the clothes on his person, and hopefully a hot-chocolate. 

Tony went to get into the car, stopping when he noticed where Peter had-about three feet away from the passenger’s side of the vehicle. 

“What?”

“You-You promise , that you’re not Beck?”

Who ?

Chapter Text

“I-I’m sorry who ?” Peter stared at him again, with that same-suspicious hint in his eyes. 

“Beck-he’s a bad guy who tried to kill me-he ruined my life.” Did-how did Tony even resemble that-more importantly-who the fuck was trying to kill his kid-and why ? Peter was mild-meddling at most-he never did anything to deserve killing-It didn’t matter. Later. Even if Tony felt like scouring the whole world for answers, right now was not the time. 

“I can confidently say my name is not Beck.” Peter still looked hesitant about it. “C’mon. Let’s get you home before it starts to ice.” He wasn’t that good of a driver. He wouldn’t want to get caught out this far from home. Tony hauled himself into the driver's seat, waiting for Peter to climb in. It was a longer wait than he thought it would be.   

Mistrust is always fun.

Except it never was. It wasn’t fun to see in Wanda-much less anyone else. Peter-especially with the new memories that had come flooding back of his somewhat-over-confident, agent of chaos that somehow gained a name as calm as ‘Peter’. This is not the exact image of Peter Parker that had rushed back into his head not-too long ago. 

Peter fumbled with his seatbelt, nearly tearing it out of the holder. He gave him a very uncomfortably consistent side-eye. 

“You don’t have to give me a ride home.” But he was going to, now wasn’t he? 

“Trust me, I’d rather go out of my way to drop you off than have you walking home alone.” Just because he was Spider-Man didn’t mean Tony was going to let a child walk around New York alone. 

Okay and maybe he was getting him something on the way home. So what? 

He had bigger things to worry about, like the implications that some creep who Peter was pretty sure wanted him dead was around somewhere-and could possibly impersonate Tony. Or why he was so scared of him-well…he did say he tried to kill him- fuck -was he sill roaming around somewhere? Or was Peter just being paranoid?

That made him want to leave him in that ‘apartment’ even less.

He was almost sure he knew the name too. That was unsettling enough-and the whole ‘he tried to kill me’ and he ‘ruined my life’ thing made it sound a lot worse. Maybe Peter was being hyperbolic. Teenagers were probably hyperbolic all the time-even if that didn’t really wave away Peter’s whole obvious fear of being around him, it still made Tony feel a bit better. 

“Y’know, I was looking at some old news the other day kid-seems you’ve been busy.” It’s true. He’d seen the news for the past three years-fighting the elementals -or whatever that was-weird shaky video evidence of Spider-Man fighting an octopus-man, and several others-bank robberies, bike-theft, all kinds of things he’d been up to. He didn’t have time to look through it all before he’d gone to hunt him down-but there had been little glimpses of gore-and suffering on Peter’s part swimming amongst the insane amount of Spider-Man footage of him doing something trivial. 

He hadn’t stopped to look at the more daring acts for too long. Knowing it was a kid stopping that train-or elevator-or building from falling and crushing other people with his own body removed the filter of heroism for him. Had Peter always been trying to stop bigger disasters like that? The only one he can distinctly remember was that one boat -but he was angry-not worried after it. Wouldn’t he have been worried? He cared about Peter’s life back then too-he distinctly remembers saying something about him being in school-if he had been doing big things like that-not in isolated incidents he would have called him about it. 

He used to leave him so many voicemails-the only ones he had received in the last three years were sad. There weren’t any excited ‘I told churro lady directions again, and this time she bought me a sandwich!’ voicemails anymore. There were twelve of them in the first year Tony had been unable to see him. All of them somehow ended up with Peter crying-apart from the last two, where Peter-who apparently had assumed he was dead-seemed a bit happier. He told him he had a girlfriend, that he was trying very hard to be what everyone expected, and that he might have fixed his spider-sense for good. 

The last four over the next two years were not so good. Tony-who had been awake, but somehow unaware at the time had received four more voicemails over those two years, the first three had been about his aunt’s death-and about Peter apparently intending to kill someone for the murder. About his loss of everyone -and really just how much he missed people knowing him-and a voicemail dedicated to the ‘dead’ people that he hoped wouldn’t have forgotten him-since they were dead when it happened. 

His last message-the one from last year was an apology for calling, and a promise that he wouldn’t do it again-and he didn’t. It had almost been another year since that call, and so far he’d kept his promise. 

Tony kind of wished he hadn’t. If he had gotten a phone call in March-when he was deemed well off enough to speak to his friend’s and family-to let them know he’s alive, he would have liked to receive that call. 

Tony knew that Peter-and the people he continuously stopped had been busy. Both as Spider-Man, and as Peter. 

He just kind of wished he’d known who he was at the time so he could help him out. 

“Not really.” Lies. This time he knew what Peter had been up to, and it had indeed been enough to keep him busy. “I-I had enough time to sleep, and eat and stuff sometimes y’know, so I wasn’t as busy as I could’ve been.” Tony glanced at him. Right…cause being able to do the things he absolutely had to do was indicative of free-time….except it wasn’t ? Okay-Tony can’t exactly lecture Peter on good eating-and sleeping schedules, but he did do it now-he didn’t let himself get too wrapped up to eat-and ‘rest his eyes’ for a few minutes. Okay most if not all of that was Pepper-but it still happened. Peter wasn’t even saying that sometimes he had to fight a battle and push those things aside-he was saying that he consistently was unable to eat -and sleep because he was getting involved with criminals instead. 

Somehow that didn’t sit right with Tony. How could it sit right with him that Peter considered having enough time to eat-and sleep normally meant he wasn’t having full days-and nights as Spider-Man. 

Maybe he was blowing it out of proportion. Maybe Peter misspoke. 

“ Sometimes ? What about the other times?” Peter didn’t say anything-and Tony’s short, hurried glance told him absolutely nothing he wanted to know. Peter was staring down at his hands, that was it. No recognition of Tony’s question-just exhaustion, and a staring contest with his own hands. “Pete?”

“Sometimes, being the friendly neighborhood hero, means things have to be forgone. I can’t just let bad things happen.” Except not food-and sleep to stop a bike theft-or other stupid little city-misdemenors-not everything was a bus falling off a road-or a building collapsing on innocent people-somethings were not hero-worthy. Tony thought that Peter had been messing in the smallest-least important little disputes because he was bored . Not because he thought he had to do it-they were little things-there were the large crimes-and disasters that he’d seen him (on the news) deal with-and those couldn’t be avoided-but avoiding doing the bare minimum to take care of himself because someone might need fucking directions -or someone’s bike might get lifted-or cat trapped in a tree did not make sense. 

Maybe later could wait a minute. 

“Now-no, hold on, how are you supposed to keep bad things from happening if you’re all lethargic?” Going hungry with a high metabolism couldn’t have been very nice. “I mean, it’s got to be hard to do.” Peter shrugged, starting to pick at his fingers. “I mean, when are you supposed to take a break ?” 

Tony’s prompt remained unanswered, and Peter remained unresponsive. It took Tony passing a turn towards his apartment-and towards the hot-beverage he was craving to fix that. 

“I thought you said you were taking me home.” Tony glanced at him, finding his eyes for the first time since they’d started speaking. God, he looked exhausted . Like Tony-in-the-lab-for-a-week exhausted. Like he’d been holding up the world so long he’d just gotten used to it tired. Tony didn’t want to think about how good-hearted-Peter got so tired. 

“I-We are. I just wanted to stop and get something to eat first-I’m not really in the mood to drive home on an empty stomach.” Peter didn’t look happy about it. “I was thinking I could get us both something to warm us up a little.” 

“I’m alright.” 

“Yeah-I know, but I’m gonna get you something anyway.” Peter went back to quiet. “I heard this place is supposed to be good-it’s new too-something Party I think-have you tried it?” Peter shrugged. 

“I don’t really have the time.” Except he could . He’s Spider-Man yeah, but that’s not a round the clock job. He should have plenty of time for almost anything he wants to do-he didn’t have to push himself to be Spider-Man for so long he had no personal time except to occasionally sleep and eat. That wasn’t good for him-he was what? Seventeen? Eighteen? He should have a life-not a tiny apartment, next door neighbors, and saving people who didn’t really need his saving. 

Why would he even want to do that? Having absolutely no life outside of being Spider-Man was unhealthy at best-damaging at worst. He couldn’t really be happy coming back to nothing-and no one when he finally decided that he needed a break-why- when did he stop trying to have a regular life? 

Peter always insisted before that he was Peter Parker first. He told Tony he had to do homework when he asked him to be on his side during their little…fight-which Tony shouldn’t have gotten him involved in-he chose to go home almost every night at his curfew-he worked to make sure that Spider-Man and Peter’s lives were separate-and that there was always more Peter than Spider-Man. 

When did he decide being Peter Parker wasn’t important anymore-sure whatever, he was Benjamin Parker-but when did a personal life become less important than saving cats from trees-and toy theft? 

Was it after Tony…pretty much abandoned him? He didn’t mean to-he thought-well somehow he thought Pepper would think to let all of his contacts know instead of just his immediate family-even though she said she was trying to save them false hope-it would have been better if she had just shared it. 

Was it because of May ? His Aunt wouldn’t have let him get sucked in like that-regardless of the increased charity-and types of actual meetings, Peter still had a life outside of it. 

“When did you stop being Peter to be Spider-Man?”

===========================================================

Peter blinked. He didn't trust this . Not a single bit of it. He wanted to. Oh he wanted to. He wanted Mister Stark to be alive-and to convince him that there was people he could have-and hold onto without losing. That he could keep regular people on his side-and that he didn’t need to keep his relationships to a minimum to keep them safe. He wanted him to be back. 

But Mister Stark being there-and alive-and real was too good to be true. It didn’t make sense, even though he didn’t know who Beck was, and he didn’t disperse like an illusion should, it didn’t make sense. There wasn’t a way back from the dead. Not one that worked-and Peter had looked into it in his late-sleepless nights before guilt had crept back in, and forced him back out onto the streets. There wasn’t anway for that to rightfully be Tony-and the thought of getting into a probably strange vehicle wasn’t assuring. He didn’t want to do it. 

He did it anyway. He shouldn’t have, but he did. He just had to remind himself that EDITH said he was dead. He had to remind himself that if Beck was this close to him, he’d already be dead. Maybe he was an alien or something, come to eat people. 

Peter kept a finger on the window-button just in case. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d jumped out of a moving vehicle. 

He hadn’t planned on talking to him. He had been trying to somehow rationalize this-even though he was clinging to his hope that there was a way for this to actually be Tony-no matter how far off that was-and keep an eye on him. 

He ended up talking to him. It didn’t really make sense for him to do so-it’s not like he couldn’t keep an eye on him-and where he was going without speaking-much less thinking-but there he was, just opening his mouth to someone he was still convinced somehow was lying. 

He really wanted this to be real.  

It was too normal to be real. If Mister Stark was really there he’d be mad at him. Angrier than he was already-he would have been angry when he tried to explain that being Spider-Man was much more important than being Peter-or Benjamin, or whoever he was supposed to be when he was out of the mask. People needed Spider-Man-he helped people-it was important for him to be there-living out the legacy he was afforded. He’s lucky he has any expectations to live up to-even if they’re big shoes to fill. People expect things of him, and he needs to live up to it. 

He knows what happens when he doesn’t live up to them. 

He wasn’t going to let bad things happen to innocent people. 

He also wasn’t going to answer the questions of someone who just lied to him. He thought he’d at least have the pleasure of locking himself in his apartment, and being anxious in there-where things were familiar. He was apparently wrong. 

Now he was being questioned by someone he had decided was either a figment-a very well made illusion, or an alien impersonating an innocent dead man. 

Worst of all, Peter didn’t have another vague answer to feed him to get him to leave him alone. He just wanted to go home, where he could be anxious, and ignore that any of this is going on. Where-hopefully he could pretend he was never in this car-or this stressed out. 

He was still trying to reason this out. 

Even though he could just ask like a normal person.

Peter wasn’t normal. He was a hero, and that meant he was a constant target of all kinds of violence. Bad things happen when Spider-Man lets his guard down. He didn’t know what exactly he was dealing with yet, and no matter how much he hoped it was Tony, and wished for that-him suddenly living again didn’t make any sense in the slightest. 

“Pete, I know that’s-I’m not trying-I don’t want you to take that the wrong way. I just mean-you’re a kid-and you’re acting like the whole world’s depending on you when you can't even take care of yourself. I know you weren’t always so… sacrificially motivated-I-I just wanted to know if-if it was something to do with your Aunt- ”

No. No. No. No. 

This wasn’t something he could just bring up-he wasn’t even supposed to be alive- if he even was truly-he didn’t get to bring up his aunt. Peter was over it. He could think about her without crying now. He wasn’t doing this for her. 

Even though he wasn’t good enough to save her . 

“People need me to save them. I’m who they want to protect them, and I don’t want to let them down-”

“Pete-I don’t think people need you to save them as badly as you think they do. If they didn’t need him to save them, he wouldn’t be saving them night and day without so much as a break. 

That’s not how it would go. 

“I don’t want to talk about it.” 

“Kid-”

“I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

Chapter Text

“I don’t want to talk about this anymore.” 

“Okay.” Except it wasn’t. Peter knew that-he was smart enough to understand it anyway. He shouldn’t have brought up his aunt-but that was the only real reason that Tony could see Peter becoming so reclusive. “We don’t have to talk about it now.” They should be talking about it now. Tony couldn’t wait until later. Peter can’t just casually drop a declaration of his own suffering, and expect Tony to be able to wait! 

“People need Spider-Man.” Then maybe they were going to keep talking about it?

“They do need someone.” He didn’t see why it couldn’t be one of the other heroes picking up the slack. At this point there wasn’t even any slack that Peter was picking up-he had the whole reel, and he wouldn’t let it go. It’s like he was doing the police officers jobs for them-and ignoring the fact that he was still very much a person, and that human beings had needs. Peter didn’t go to say anything else-even though he was clearly looking at Tony out of the side of his eye. “I don’t see why that has to be you all the time though.” 

If looks could kill, Tony would have been dead-twice over now. 

“I’m not going to stand around and let people get hurt-”

“That’s not what I-”

“If I can do something, and I choose to do nothing, it makes me just as bad as them.” With all the finality in his voice, a lesser man would have been fooled into thinking that that was it. That Peter was convinced-whether for better, or worse that not doing anything when you can makes him a bad person-and on some levels he was. Either he was already convinced, or he was trying to pretend he was-but Tony was not a lesser man. There was something else. He could practically see it. “Beck lied to me about everything-and if I wasn’t so stupid I would have realized it when he said I deserved to have a normal life.” Everyone deserves a chance at a normal-fulfilling life-as normal as it can be, regardless of their abilities . “I don’t deserve anything. No one owes me anything-I’m just lucky. I’m the one who owes them. I have powers-I have to keep everyone safe.” This- this made Tony frown. 

All of this just sounded like Peter making excuses to throw himself into harms way-and to slowly kill himself over it-but the last part made a part of Tony’s head hurt. 

Peter wasn’t lucky -the kid couldn’t catch a break. His reputation-everything he’d worked for was because he deserved it. He deserved better in Tony’s opinion-but he doubted the kid would believe him now. That wasn’t the point, the point was that his kid was talking about being Spider-Man, who he had been for many years-like he didn’t have a choice. Like some masked figure held a gun to his head every morning that made him put on the suit, and venture out to stop every type of misdemeanor he could. 

Tony didn’t like that. 

“Kid-you, you know you have a choice to keep working as Spider-Man. You can stop-or take a break-or anything-”

“People want Spider-Man to save them. They want my help. I don’t have a choice in that.” Just because someone would appreciate not having their bike stolen-or car jacked-but not everything was a do-or-die superhero situation. Hell-those kinds of crimes barely sweep Police stations because they’re so insignificant-and Peter was trying to stop them without eating-or sleeping for who knows how long. Tony would feel horrible if he had to fight on a light breakfast. He couldn’t imagine how hard it would be to fight on an empty stomach- with an enhanced metabolism. “I haven’t had a choice in years.” 

If words could break artificial hearts in half, Peter might have just done it to Tony. What was Tony supposed to say to that? That Peter shouldn’t feel compelled to help people just because he had powers? That he should take a break, and become a person again? A person with relationships that were more than ‘neighborhood child’? That he was going to die in the red-and-blue that he’d worn for years now? That other people should come second-that he can’t take care of other people when he’s not physically fit? 

He doubted any of that would work on him. 

“I know I said we didn’t have to talk about this anymore Pete, and I’m sorry to bring it up again-but why are you alone ?” He’s eighteen-seventeen something like that, he should have friends -someone he’s with. He shouldn’t be Spider-Man first, and Pete-Ben-second. He knows that he thinks Spider-Man is more important-but he still can’t picture together how he’s just fine with being alone. Tony couldn’t be alone like that-Peter most certainly shouldn’t be like that. He might have lost May-but those friend’s of his hadn’t even known who he was -Tony didn’t even care about them-he wanted to know why his kid was so alone. It was almost like there wasn’t even a person behind the mask of Spider-Man, like it was just a shell that managed to lease somewhere to sometimes sleep. “You should have some- something some kind of life.”

An actual life, not just an apartment-an occasional babysitter position, and a mask to hide behind.

Tony doubted that it was normal, even for other heroes.

Peter didn’t answer him. He was back to staring at his hands, and Tony wasn’t sure what to say. He knew his kid probably thought he was being crazy-or just trying to argue with him, but that wasn’t it. Pete-he was a great kid- is a great kid-he didn’t deserve that kind of life. He shouldn’t be constantly vigilant-and ready to die for anyone in this stupid city-or go without just so he can make sure he’s there just in case . He shouldn’t be doing any of that. In fact he should be in college -or at least have a stable job so he can support himself to live somewhere….better. 

He deserved a life-and he was convinced otherwise. 

Tony wanted to know what happened -it couldn’t have just been his aunt, could it? He knew they were close-like mother, and son-but with different titles. That still didn’t explain why there was no one else. No friends. No coworkers, no acquaintances-just next door neighbors-who from what he could tell truly knew nothing about him. 

He didn’t want him to have to be alone.just because he was a superhero didn’t mean he had to suffer-why didn’t he look for someone -an Avenger-Pepper-Happy- someone -why did no one remember him?! It wasn’t-it wasn't fair . Not to Tony to have to remember all of those feelings with so many gaps in time. It wasn't fair that he had no one to talk to about the problem. It wasn't fair to Peter. He lived in a tiny, freezing , dingy apartment without so much as something to do besides be Spider-Man, and be alone-the only person he spent time around real time around wasn't even someone close to his age. It was just some fucking kid-and occa sionally his parents. 

That wasn't fair. None of this was fair. 

Tony hoped that getting his kid a hot drink and maybe something decent to eat if he was lucky. Tony pulled over to do just that. He just didn’t think leaving him alone in the car was the best idea. It would give the distrusting child another chance to backflip out of his life, and he was the opposite of ready for it. He just asked him something he knew might upset him, and now he was likely going to dip out if he got the chance. 

Tony did not want that happening. 

“Here we are.” Neither of them moved-and Peter continued to ignore him. “Do you want to come in with me?” No. Of course he didn’t. He didn’t trust him. "Do you want anything special?" Peter didn’t answer him-yet again. Maybe if Tony was lucky he’d be able to remember what he liked. 

He clearly deserved it. 

Well…did that count as rewarding bad things? No. Maybe? Wasn’t really a surefire way. 

It didn’t matter-Peter was… older and he’d probably understand that he was just getting it for him because he cared-and not because he was risking his life and health constantly. And if he didn’t…they could have that talk when he was sure that Peter trusted him. 

Tony pulled himself out of the car, sternly telling Peter to stay put before closing the door. 

This whole situation is weird. Not good-weird, just plain strange-no pun intended. Not only did no one remember Peter-at least before FRIDAY went about telling them exactly who Peter was. Even then-there were no records of Peter, no addresses, no schooling. Nothing. It’s like someone just took whiteout to Peter’s life. The only semblance of Peter that was left was Spider-Man. 

Oh. 

The only real part of Peter anyone remembered was Spider-Man. No wonder he was determined to do it so often. If Tony was pretty much forgotten except for Ironman-and he was left alone in a dingy room the landlord claimed was a proper place to live, he’d probably cling to Ironman too. Just because he could practically see himself doing it didn’t mean it was healthy. Tony was almost sure that it was the opposite-although there wasn’t exactly a common example of this situation for him to go off of. He’s pretty sure being Spider-Man could have been healthy…before Peter decided that him being there to protect everyone to the point he doesn’t have a life-or his own needs met. 

It’s strange isn’t it? That Peter just got wiped off the planet completely? Him throwing himself completely into being a willing Atlas is kind of understandable. Not something Tony’s happy about-but something understandable. The thing that got him there in the first place? 

Tony doesn’t even know how something like this… happens . Why was there so much about Spider-Man but not even a word about Peter? If it was a villain he’d think it would be easier to just erase Spider-Man . No Spider-Man, no problem. No hero to come save the day.

No seventeen year old child struggling to keep a ship together. 

Instead Peter was missing-and Spider-Man was being constantly bombarded with problems-both too small for him, and much much too large for him-and hardly surviving. 

It didn’t make sense. 

What else didn’t make sense was Pete’s trust issues with him. Okay-so he’s been a bit…cautious from the beginning. Punching Tony fucking Stark in the ribs, and bolting was not cautious. That was scared. Peter was scared of him, and he wasn’t sure why. He had mentioned a Mystery-a uh…Mister Ioh? Eh-whatever, he mentioned them-some Beck dude who tried to kill him-and Beck was an achingly familiar name to Tony. 

Quinn-Quincy? Quinn Beck- probably -was the name of the man who threw a fit because he created BARF under a contract, and would not be allowed to use it to kill people. He quit Stark industries after that. He could see him going after Peter. He was always a little unhinged-but he couldn’t see him doing any harm. Last he checked he didn’t have a single power, nor the resources to create powerful tech-much less look like Tony. 

Which left Tony to assume there was another man named Beck…strange coincidence as that would be, and that Beck could either turn into other people-and things, or somehow mess with people's minds. 

Tony had looked , and there hadn’t been a single mention of a Mister Ioh-or Mystery-eio-or even a Quinn-Quincy-Quentin Beck! 

That only incited a whole new worry that there may be a surplus of villains that only Spider-Man knew he had ever fought. 

That was not comforting to Tony in the slightest. 

Tony opened the door to the shop, gaining a humid blast of air in the face. Surprisingly enough there were at least three people in there who seemed adamant about taking refuge from the cold. Tony wished he could be one of them, but he had Peter waiting on him. 

Hopefully. 

It wasn’t very long before Tony walked out of the store, and back towards his car with those same worries. It was something for him to be concerned about. Peter could have a whole list of people that he’s almost gotten killed by, and no one else would know-either that or there was some kind of mass-villain trickery going on that removed Peter from his-and everyone else’s memories. 

Maybe he could ask him about it when they recovered from their…blip in conversation.Tony should have kept his mouth shut about May. There was nothing else he could say about that-he shouldn’t have brought up the child's deceased care-taker, regardless of how she died- and Tony was starting to think Pete thought he had something to do with that -it just wasn’t appropriate to bring up. 

Especially once the kid made it clear he didn’t trust him. 

Tony struggled to both get in the car-and open the door with his hands full, barely managing to throw the door open with his own foot. To his delight, and surprise, Peter was still waiting for him in the car. Peter, who was now looking at him as he got in the car, staring at him as he got settled. Tony-when Peter refused to take the drink-stuffed it into the cupholder, trying to find a place to put his own. 

“Who are you supposed to be ?” 

Chapter Text

None of this was fair. All he wanted was to help people. Life wasn’t fair-yeah he knew that already, but he would like it if it could give him a single break. 

It wasn’t Tony. Despite the face, and the voice, and the names, and the looks-it wasn’t him. Peter wasn’t going to be fooled again, and his own want for him to be real wasn’t going to sway him. His firm-belief in the beginning had to be right-and he should be ashamed for trying to find a way around what had to be the truth. 

It might not be Beck who’s car he willingly climbed into-

For the second time .

-but it certainly wasn’t Mister Stark. Peter knew Mister Stark. Mister Stark was dead, and he watched it happen. He watched the life fade from his eyes . 

He couldn’t come back from that. He still had nightmares about him crawling out of his grave, and condemning him for being a horrible hero. He still called his phone when he was upset-and no one answered. He wasn’t coming back. 

Mister Stark-the man who sacrificed himself for the-well the entire planet , wouldn’t be so…what was it? Disgruntled-disapproving? One of those over Peter’s minor sacrifices. His ‘sacrifices’ weren’t even close to what was expected of him. He was supposed to be the next Tony-and he’d barely been able to fill that role. Tony wanted Peter to be better than him-better was not what he was. Tony functioned for what seemed like weeks without sleep-or properly eating, and even when he did properly sleep it wasn’t for long. Peter wasn’t even able to go a few days . How was he going to be better than Tony if he couldn’t even manage what Tony did? 

Tony would be disappointed. Not disconcerted. Not disapproving. He’d be wondering why Peter wasn’t doing more. Not playing twenty something questions about him being alone . Tony was alone at first. 

All heroes ended up alone eventually-and Tony would know it was for the best, even if he was retiring. Only the best heroes were brave enough to have other people, and Peter had yet to reach inhuman as Spider-Man. 

That’s what heroes were. They were inhuman saviors that were above everything. Tireless beings that everyone expected-and needed to be saved by. And eventually-like every good hero, he would die trying, and people would enjoy that. 

But right now, he wasn’t doing enough, and there was no way he had gotten in the car with who he wished he had. 

He still couldn’t bring himself to force his way out. If he didn’t look-and sound and feel so much like his long-gone mentor-if you could call it that-it would have been much easier to run away-and not get into his car, and not sit there, and try to ignore his own mixed feelings. They weren’t really mixed. He knew how he should be feeling-he just wasn’t feeling it. 

It’s one of his flaws. 

It wasn’t his fault his feelings weren’t easy to ignore. He was trying to just keep his head down, and ignore all of this. 

He really really wanted it to be real. He wanted Tony to not be disappointed in him-and to do…whatever this was. But that wouldn’t happen. 

It didn’t matter if he wanted it to or not, Tony couldn’t just not be dead.

Peter’s tried that before-on several different people, and so far none of it had worked. 

If anyone could make it back it could be Tony. He was stubborn.

Stubborn didn’t mean undead. Besides-even if he was back that didn’t explain anything else. He wouldn't remember Peter-for starters. Even if he did he wouldn’t go out of his way to find him for-for whatever this was. 

Maybe he was a nice alien trying to fit in. 

Peter’s met nice alien’s, and they don’t impersonate people (almost) to a T, all in an effort to make someone trust them. They don’t make Peter have to explain himself to them, or buy him something he’s sure he can’t eat. And they don’t make him question himself this much.

Except for that one with the antenna thingies, she was nice-but she made him question a lot. 

He wanted to just get up and go. Disappear, maybe go by Peter again-even if he knew he wasn’t going to do that deep down-and never be found as anyone again. 

He couldn’t do that though. He was Spider-Man, and he couldn’t disappear-that and it felt like if he moved he might just fall over, and never have the energy or the strength to get back up. 

The question-of which he had been thinking while he watched him get into the car-had slipped out of his mouth before he had so much as a second to censor himself 

He was too tired to start a fight like this. 

Why did he always open his stupid mouth when he wasn’t ready to fight someone?! 

He wasn’t sure he could fight someone who looked like Tony. 

No. He was sure that he couldn’t . He was pretty sure he’d rather die than hit Mister Stark…again. He thought he was going to disperse-even momentarily like an illusion-and now he was sitting in his car, letting his own suspicions drive him crazy.

It’s not crazy to be suspicious of something impossible. If it was, he’d be utterly insane by now. 

That wasn’t helping.

“Kid. We’ve been through this already, you know who I am.” 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tony was starting to wish Peter was Morgan’s age. Not that he wanted a six year old wandering the streets in spandex-but issue-wise, Tony was almost sure this would be easier to fix if Peter just so happened to be six years old. Instead Peter was…a lot older, and he had no real idea as to what he should be doing. So far, what he has been doing hasn’t helped. 

What was he supposed to do then? He couldn’t just force Peter to trust him, and he didn't want to get himself punched once again. He wasn't so sure he would survive it.

"I don’t believe you." That's exactly what the problem is, now isn't it? There was no reason for Peter to not trust him, or not believe him. He was him , they had a good relationship-Tony thought they did at least. He could see him being a bit uncomfortable after him being gone so long, but really ? If he was a super villain, especially one that wanted Pete dead? Pete would be dead by now-poisoned food, or just plain fighting by now.

If he was someone who for some inconceivable reason thought that kid should be dead? He wouldn't have waited for him to get in the car, now would he?

"Why not? There’s nothing I’ve done to even suggest that I’m not me , is there?” No, there wasn’t. He was Tony-and whatever he did would not make him not Tony. Everything he did was something he would do. 

That’s just how it was. 

“Tony Stark is dead -and people don’t come back from the dead-and I would know , I’ve tried that before-and it doesn’t work.” Tony-Tony wasn’t even going to look into that one. He wasn’t going to think about it at all-and he wasn’t going to wonder who Peter tried to dabble into the ‘dark arts’ for. Instead he was going to just…pull right through. 

“Peter, I’m not dead -I wasn’t-I wasn’t all the way dead.” Unbelievable as that was-he was only ‘dead’ for a year. Why no one told Peter-or apparently Happy-or…or anyone that..that he was almost not dead was a mystery-all of his friends and family thought he was going to die like that too-but he didn’t -and apparently Peter never got any of those memo’s.

“I heard his breathing-and his pulse-and his everything stop-he died infront of me. He’s not alive, and you’re not him.” Tony tried to search his brain for any semblance of a way to make Peter believe him. For some reason-Tony was sure that if he wasn’t careful he might receive more than bruised ribs-and he’d rather just have a civil conversation with him. 

“Pete, there wasn’t a funeral-or a body-or…or anything -”

“Yes there was-I-I wasn’t invited-but there was. There were pictures of Pepper, and his daughter going back home after it-” Bull fucking shit .

“No-No No No, you wait a second-why in-in what world would you not be invited?!” Peter Parker was like Tony’s pre-child child-and he still was-why would he of all people not be invited to his fucking funeral?

“I-I don’t know -and it doesn’t matter-he’s dead either way.” 

“Peter, what would it possibly take to convince you that I’m not dead ?” Peter didn’t answer him, clearly too busy being already convinced the other way-and in that exact moment, Tony came up with a solution. Well-what was hopefully a solution. “Pete-do you remember EDITH? Well-Happy was supposed to give her to you if I was to kick the bucket.” Tony took EDITH off of his face. “It’s funny because he said he remembered giving her to someone-but no, she was there with all his stuff at the old tower.” Tony had the firm belief-well, he had developed it once he remembered Peter-but he firmly believed that Peter had returned them when the whole ‘forgotten thing’ happened. “But you know-EDITH knows everything-so I guess , if you really wanted to know if I was alive or not, you could ask her.” Peter looked between Tony-and the unassuming glasses like Tony was instead offering him a ticking bomb instead. “What’s wrong?” Peter-who had begun to look unnecessarily pale-shook his head. 

“Is-Is that really EDITH?” If this was the time for sarcasm-and not gentle urging, Tony would be having the time of his life with all the opportunities Peter kept giving him. 

“Why don’t you ask her?” Peter glanced between EDITH, and Tony, like if he looked suspicious enough of Tony-and EDITH, he would suddenly have an answer as to what he should do. 

It’s still upsetting that Peter’s terrified of both Tony-and who Tony could be, and EDITH-for no apparent reason. 

“Here Peter, she’s not going to bite.” Tony shook the glasses at him, receiving little more than a worried look. He continued to look between the glasses, and Tony, before finally taking them out of his hand. That was good-now he could ask EDITH for proof-of either his death (of which he’d find no real proof) or him not being dead-which he was bound to find something of. 

Hopefully. 

Maybe then they could actually talk. 

There’s a few things Tony would like to ask him right about now. 

Chapter Text

Peter tried to avoid the thoughts of Beck that tried to flood his head when he took the glasses out. He didn’t want to take them. Not at all. 

He still took them. Mister Stark had given them to him -and he had left them with Happy. He was supposed to have it.

Just because Mister Stark wanted to 

EDITH. It was just EDITH. Just…just loveable, wearable EDITH. The same EDITH he foolishly gave up to Beck-and let almost kill him-the same EDITH that didn’t rightly care whether he lived or died. 

That EDITH. Well…it looked like her. It-it really did, and he doubted anyone could make a fake EDITH. 

There were a lot of things throwing him for a loop when he looked at those glasses. For starters-Beck knew about EDITH-he knew a bit too much-and that Peter would be receiving it-but he wouldn’t know that Happy was the deliver-er would he? That didn’t really make sense, did it? Happy-stupid passwords and all was the head of security-and no one ever mentioned, or really thought about all the Stark Labs stuff he really had.It planted that little seed of doubt back in his head. 

No, you just want it to be Mister Stark. No matter how impossible that is.

They were a pair of glasses. He could feel them-could touch them up, and they felt like glasses. They weren’t going to trick him-he wasn’t wearing his suit, so he could differentiate between what kind of ‘solid’ things were. At the worst they weren’t EDITH-and he needs to jump head first out of the car. He can just hold it a few inches in front of his face. 

If he got lucky, and ‘Mister Stark’ didn’t take the time to attack. Or the glasses weren’t mind-controlling.

How would they be mind controlling ? That didn’t even make sense.

Trusting the first person who so happens to show up looking like Mister Stark doesn't make sense either. 

He just needed to be a bit cautious. That’s all. Maybe reality was splitting again? 

There could be another Peter, with a living Tony-and he’s confused.

Peter would have a different face , if that was it. 

Peter held the glasses in front of his eyes-well aware of the awkward stare he was receiving. 

“Kid, I know you know how glasses work, but I’m pretty sure that’s not it.” Hah. Ha. Ha. That wasn’t funny. Not really-Peter’s hands were shaking just considering putting them on-regardless of how badly he wanted to put them on or-for this to be exactly what it looked like. 

He’d just have to trust it. Somehow he would have to believe that EDITH wouldn’t hurt him-

Even though she’s done it before -

-And that his Spidey-Sense was working.

Was it? He got hit in the face with a frisbee the other day. 

Peter tingle’s were not for frisbee’s-that enveloping screaming little buzz he got around danger was for dangerous people. 

Like Beck?

No, like Norman Osborne. 

His Peter tingle was late on that one too-too late to save May, and too late to save him from his broken ribs, and nose. 

That was on Peter for not being able to listen in time. It wasn’t his power’s fault-it was his own. As always. 

Peter left his finger’s on the rims of the glasses-so he had a hope to yank them off if it did in fact turn sour. He was still staring at him-and he wasn’t sure he could handle it much longer if he continued to do so. 

Then EDITH lit up-and it was indeed EDITH. She greeted him by Peter-the same way Karen had for almost three years now. A.I. didn’t seem to be able to forget-and it was relieving if he was honest-but that still didn’t soothe his worries completely. 

There was always the chance it’s a fake.

A fake EDITH ?

Just because Karen didn’t forget you didn’t mean that EDITH would-EDITH could be faked.

That was unbelievably unlikely. How likely is it that someone would go through all this work just to trick him? 

Peter has enemies !

All of them would have already hurt him already. It’s not a hard task-sure he could be planning to wait until Peter believe’s him, but how likely is that? He has him alone already. He could do whatever he wanted-and he bought him donuts. 

Maybe they’re drugged. It wouldn’t be the first time someone tried to poison him.

Peter never said he was going to eat the donuts. 

He might not have common sense, but he had experience. 

Besides, it would be a lot worse right now if it actually was Tony. Sure-he might be in a vehicle with someone planning to attack him, but Peter can stop a bus with his bare hands. He can pick up ant man in any form he arrives in-and he can catch crumbling buildings-occasionally without getting crushed. He wouldn’t loose a fight against someone who needed thirty minutes to get up and text him after a little punch. 

He preferred the idea that Tony was dead to the idea that he had abandoned him like he feared he would. Sure, he hadn’t been in Tony’s life long , and he did disappear for five years-but he wouldn’t just leave him to go through all of….that when he could have at least shown support right? Right. If he was alive, Peter would have known. Mister Stark wouldn’t have just…just left him right? Not unless he hated him. 

That was worse than thinking he was in a car with a stranger. That meant that one of the people in his life who he was devastated at the loss of didn’t care enough to send him a text to at least tell him to leave him alone. 

He got it-he had a family, and it would have never been the same when he came back-even if he didn’t die, but the idea that he abandoned him completely wasn’t exactly putting him at ease. 

If it was really Tony, and he just…just left him like that, then what did he want now?

It doesn’t matter, because he’s going to wear EDITH (if he can call her that) and she’s not going to be able to tell him anything verifying, and he’s going to have to fight for his life. 

At least he knew how to do that. 

“Kid, you got to ask her something.” He didn’t want to ask her something. He wanted to slip between this being real, and being fake, and never have to feel the problems that came with both. 

“EDITH. How do I know this is real?” Without warning EDITH started listing off her licensing, both confusing, and alarming Peter. That wasn’t very helpful at all-he didn’t know what her licensing said before-and he still didn’t know-how was that supposed to make him anymore confident in his questions? 

He’d probably have to ask something else then, wouldn’t he?

Like what? ‘Bring down suped up drones, and show me what’s really happening?’ He doubted that would even work . Even if it did, what happens next? Does he become the flying Spider? No. No he doesn’t. 

Peter was starting to feel sick-sicker than he had earlier. If it was true, it was bad, if it wasn’t, it was also bad. There’s not a win-win here. There’s not even a win. 

“EDITH, can you show me Anthony Stark’s death certificate?” 

============================================

Tony wasn’t sure how he felt at this point. His kid looked like him-not just Morgan-Peter? In those glasses? Looked like him. Okay-he didn’t look like him, they were two very different people, but Peter reminded him of himself. 

It was utterly terrifying. 

He was almost sure that they were making progress. They had to be. Peter took the glasses out of his hands-he took EDITH despite his apparent distrust of Tony. He was sitting there staring right into them-and if Tony hadn’t seen it, he wouldn’t have thought Peter had asked EDITH anything at all. 

There were times when he wished he had super-hearing, and this was one of them. Watching Peter stare blankly through EDITH-likely at something Tony couldn’t see or hear after asking her something he also couldn’t hear was able to do that to him. Tony watched Peter-who was seemingly done with movement altogether. 

He wouldn’t be lying if he said he was worried about the kid. First everyone dies on him-and now the whole willing-Atlas and ‘It has to be me’ thing he’s got going on-it’s not what he was expecting from him. Now with the distrust-and genuine fear that he’s a man named Beck-Tony’s not so sure how quickly he’ll believe any proof EDITH can provide for him-and that was a cause for worry. 

Tony was good with people. Peter did not often fall into the category of people he could rationalize, or incentivize into agreeing-or at least listening to what he had to say. Most of the time before it had been because he was a noble-teenager, with little to no real life experience, no common sense-a knack for investigating, and a good heart-all of which seemed to be wrapped up in a ‘why not?’ bow. Now Tony’s not too sure-but it’s almost the same kid under there-even if he’s pushed himself past ‘noble’ and far into ‘on the verge of going off the edge’-but right now that’s not who he’s talking to. He’s talking to a kid who’s afraid that he’s some stranger wearing a mask-and that’s a hard person to talk to. 

Tony’s just got to see how far EDITH get’s with him. If EDITH can get his foot in the door, he can keep it from closing-at least for a little while. 

“That’s not real. Right? That’s not-” Peter shook his head-taking a shaky breath. “You-you wouldn’t just. No. I-I saw it-I heard the Arc Reactor shut down-and-and you wouldn’t. You wouldn’t.” Peter didn’t move to take EDITH off before running the heels of his hands up his face, into his eyes. Shoving EDITH unceremoniously towards his forehead. 

“I wouldn’t what Pete?” 

“You wouldn’t-you wouldn’t just leave me.” Of course he wouldn’t. If Tony had the choice he would have woken up sooner-found Peter as soon as he could. He would have come and found him sooner if he could have remembered him. “You would have found me-”

“I did find you kid.” He found him, and it certainly wasn’t easy. But it happened. They were in the same car. Three long, stupid years, (two of which Tony was awake for) without so much as the faintest memory of one of his kids, and now they were in the same car. 

Peter didn’t seem nearly as happy about that as Tony was. 

“ Why ? If you-if you were alive-and you wanted to find me-why would you wait so long ? If-If you knew who I was-and where I was, why didn’t you find me?” 

Chapter Text

Tony didn’t know how he should answer that. He knew what he should say. That he only just found him-and if he was able to he wouldn’t have ever lost him. That he was there now-and they could ‘figure out what happened’ if Peter didn’t already know. (It seemed like Peter already knew.) Tony knew what he should say-and he still found that it felt impossible to say it. 

He couldn’t just sit there in silence though, now could he?

“I came to find you as soon as I could Peter.”  Peter took his hands away from his eyes long enough to stare at him through a pair of suspiciously watery eyes. Peter softly shook his head, averting his gaze to the steering wheel. 

“If-if you-” Peter swallowed, decidingly pressing his lips together, “If-if you knew I was…I was me , and you-you were alive-why didn’t Happy tell me?” Tony wasn’t sure-there were a lot of unusual holes in his own reasoning-Happy would have told him if he knew he hadn’t died yet-but he knew when Tony woke up-and Peter was left in the dark? That didn’t make sense to him. A lot of this didn’t make sense to him-but he couldn’t exactly tell his crying-kid that,  now could he? 

“Kid, Happy doesn’t even know who you are .” Tony didn’t feel good about this. In fact the look that slipped onto-and back off of Pete’s face for a moment made his artificial chest hurt. “Pete, if I knew what happened, I would tell you, but I don’t.” He didn’t think him being there would make Peter so upset. “I wish I knew what happened, but y’know there’s a lot of blanks.” If he had known he would have tried to be a bit less forward. He might not have chased him down at all-at least not like this. “All I know is that I woke up one day, and I didn’t know who you were-I was just…there. No one else knew you-I didn’t know anything about Spider-Man or you-or anything until I got back to the lab-and well…FRIDAY asked about you, and it all came back.” Okay-so that was a bit of a reprise, so what? It got his point across, and it got Peter do something other than press his face into his hands. 

“ Oh .” Peter’s sudden voice-crack reminded Tony a little too well of the kid who had called someone who thought was dead, sobbing over his Aunt’s death. “Why does everyone else think you’re dead?” It seemed like an honest enough question, unlike the accusatory ones Tony had been receiving for an hour now. 

“Yeah, being dead to the public has it’s perks. I don’t know why you weren’t told Peter-but I promise if I had been there you would have been the first person I wanted to see. I just don’t know what happened to me-or anyone else.” He could practically still hear Peter telling him about their victory. He would have liked to talk to him about it. Peter’s face slid into something guilty when he took them out of his hands. 

Maybe Tony would figure out what happened after all. 

“Do you know what happened?” Peter slid his hands back onto his face-seemingly uncaring about EDITH being trapped upon his forehead. 

He thought he was going to go all stoic on him again-he didn’t want him to slip back into the silence, or to sit there quietly, ignoring everything Tony did until he dropped him off-but instead of proceeding to ignore him, shook his head. 

“I do.” Well that was kind of conflicting, wasn’t it? “I-I do , and I’m sorry .” Peter’s shoulders hunched up around his neck, as if that could stop him from crying.

Oh Peter. 

“Kid, I’m sure it wasn’t your fault.” Tony already knew about the trend his kid was on, and if he could help it he wasn’t going to let it grow. Tony knows plenty about self-blame and he’s sure some monster trying to erase Peter from the earth entirely wasn’t Peter’s fault. He was a kid-a very large kid now-but a kid nonetheless, and kids with almost no real life experience can’t really be at fault for mistakes they didn’t know not to make-especially when it comes to crime fighting. 

They were right when they told him not to bring a thirteen year old into this. He should have listened, if Peter was never dragged into an Avenger’s dispute they might not have been this close-sure, but he would likely have been safer. 

It was a bit too late now-all Tony should be concerned with is getting to know his kid again. 

“It is .” Peter took a short breath. “I’m the reason all of this happened. I’m not good enough.” That unlike many of the things Peter had brought up that hurt Tony physically, was said very matter-of-factly. For a second Tony thought he misheard-but no. There it was. Sitting in between them, dressed up as a fact-when in reality it clearly wasn’t true. Sure, Peter could do better, but just because he was doing this didn’t mean Peter wasn’t inherently good-enough. Peter was great-even if somehow he had made a mistake and caused-whatever happened, that didn’t mean he needed to blame himself for it. 

Tony’s not going to say any of that though-not yet. He wants Peter to keep talking to him, and he’s figured it out. Every time Tony’s tried to be reassuring, Peter either goes off topic arguing about it with him, or goes quiet. As much as Tony wants to reassure his kid that he’s sure it was a mistake, or that he’s good enough for whatever he needs to do, he wants answers more, and he has a feeling that he’s not going to get them if he gets Peter off on another tirade. 

“How come?” Peter finally let EDITH return to her spot on his face before taking her off, and wiping his face with his coat sleeve. He didn’t put her back on.

“I don’t know .” 

----------------------------------------------

He doesn’t know why he’s not. There’s no set thing he can push past, or fight through to be good enough, he’s tried-it just makes it worse. 

He’s not good enough. He knows that-everyone who’s ever fought him has known it. Not being good enough encapsulates absolutely everything that’s wrong with him. He’s not strong enough-his spider-sense is unreliable-he’s too gullible, and too-he’s too slow. Too slow to realize Beck wasn’t on his side, too slow to realize he was in the presence of the Goblin, and too slow to save anyone close to him. His mom, and dad, Ben, May, Mister Stark, any of them. Too slow to save people from suffering. Always a step behind, and it was a horrible feeling. He can’t rely on anyone else-but half the time he can’t even rely on himself.

He’s not like Mister Stark. Maybe that’s the real problem. He’s not good enough to be Mister Stark-much less better than Mister Stark-he can’t sacrifice enough-he’s tried, but there’s not a chance he can forgo everything. He can fight until his eyes feel like closing, but then they close, and he’s done-he can’t seem to push past where he is to where he should be. He’s not going to get better than this-not unless he figures out a way to force his way into being inhuman, and that’s a long shot. He’s tried shoving one thing away at a time, but it makes something else unbearably worse. One day he’s going to die, and no one’s going to say ‘there’s the kid that fixed everyone’s problems, he’s a true hero’ they’re going to wonder why he died when there was more he could do, and that would be that. He’d just be a disappointing memory of a hero, that died when there was more work to be done. That was terrifying. 

The idea that he would die like a nameless civilian-like everyone else he couldn’t save was worse. His backpack started going everywhere with him for a reason. 

He really should have been smarter. If he was smarter he would have snapped for Tony. 

May would have been upset.

May would have understood him dying to save the universe. Besides, it didn’t kill Tony somehow . He might’ve lived. Maybe retired too-saved her from dying by not being an idiot and fighting Mysterio. 

It all did start with Mysterio, didn’t it?

No, he’s been less than what he needs for years before that dome-head was villain-ified. Before everything that happened, and what he had to do to fix it. 

What’s the point of a sacrifice like your name if no one’s there to know what it used to be ?

Peter knows that keeping people safe was the ‘point’ he had a responsibility. He owed them.

It didn’t make him feel better about it. 

“I’m-I can’t. I’m not going to be the hero I’m supposed to be.” Peter’s face was wet again-but his sleeve didn’t seem to help that time. “I-I can’t stop being stupid -I ruined everything by being a trusting idiot.” 

He couldn’t really tell if he was referring to not snapping, or Mysterio. It didn’t really matter, it felt the same.

“You’re not stupid Peter.” Yeah, he was good academically-but so far he’s only been smart enough to clean up his own messes. That’s not very inhuman of him. “You know that kid.” He wasn’t saying academically-he was book smart, it just so happened that book smarts only help you when you’re doing chemistry-or saving someone who doesn’t deserve to live if May doesn’t. It doesn’t help him outrun the Prowler, or figure out why and where things are going. It just helps him clean things up when he’d rather have never messed up in the first place. 

“I know . I’m just gullible-and slow to act-and naive-and oblivious when I shouldn’t be.” He certainly shouldn’t be any of that when he’s in the middle of fighting someone dangerous-but there it was. He couldn’t get away from it. He wasn’t good enough-and he was an idiot who couldn’t seem to get any better-either as a hero, or when it came to who he should be trusting. 

It should be no one. He shouldn’t even be in this car. 

“I was dumb enough to trust Mysterio-and what did that get me?! I got my name everywhere for his murder !” Peter did not kill him. He didn’t. Spider-Man doesn’t kill people even when they deserve it . Beck killed himself-he shot the drones right into him. 

He might not even be dead. Who uploaded that video?

Not him. He’s seen dead bodies, and he doesn’t need EDITH to tell him he was dead. 

“ Murder ?!” Add ‘keeping-mouth-shut’ to the list of things he can’t do. Now Mister Stark isn’t going to believe him either, is he? He’s going to give him that look that people give people they don’t trust, and then he’s going to go home and never see him again. His pictures are going to be on the news again. The thought alone made him nauseous. “Kid-”

“I didn’t. I-I wouldn’t.” He had to wipe his face on his coat sleeve again. He wasn’t going to cry over this, it was trivial. Heroes didn’t cry. People cry, not heroes. “Spider-Man doesn’t kill people.” He didn’t look up from EDITH when Tony moved. He was busy trying to pretend it wasn’t getting difficult to swallow. 

“That’s why it sounds so crazy. You’re not a killer-why would they think that?” That was a loaded question, and it sounded like the kind of question his uncle used to ask him to get him to explain himself more. It made Peter’s chest hurt. 

It’s because J. Jonah Jamieson thought it was fine to expose a sixteen year old on the news. 

“Mysterio died. Everyone blamed me because his team edited me calling off the drones.” How was he supposed to escape this car when Tony got upset? So far it was looking like they had a window lock-and Tony would be able to stop him from opening the door. He was much smarter than Peter-that’s why it was one of the things he had to work on. He was going to put two and two together and realize it was Stark drones. “It-it was that, and then..then he told everyone my name.” The police weren’t happy. 

“Is that after you fought the ‘Elementals’?” 

“Yeah. They-they were all Mysterio, and…and the drones.” They slipped into an uncomfortable silence. Peter chose to ignore it by picking at the rough skin on his fingers. He wasn’t thinking about ways out of the care at all. 

Okay maybe a little bit. 

It was hard not to in the silence Mister Stark created. He wasn’t going to interrupt it. If he did he’d just start rambling, and he’d rather not get himself into trouble for losing the drones, and for rambling. 

Mister Stark took a sip from whatever he had brought back with him, setting it back down a few silent seconds later. He cleared his throat, turning to look at Peter.

It’s not Awkward. It’s very very Awkward. 

“I don’t see how that’s your fault. I mean-from what you’ve told me, I don’t think it’s your fault he tricked you-I mean yes it sucks-and trust me he sounds like a grade-a dick, but I don’t see how that makes you the bad guy here. I mean, unless I’m missing something, I don’t really see you being any of those things.” 

That doesn’t make any sense . It’s like he didn’t listen to anything he just said. That’s not even the beginning of what he’s done wrong! 

He really thought someone like Mister Stark would get it. It was Peter who was gullible and dumb-even if you ignored every other stupid move he made in every other fight it didn’t erase the fact that he fell for drones . Stupid whirring drones which he should have bee able to hear , and stupid cgi that wasn’t even real . He fell for it-and it was just because he was stupid .

Stupid and desperate for a new Mister Stark.

He wasn’t going to go there. Just because he lost Mister Stark didn’t mean that he shouldn’t have acted right. Just because he was alone, and no other super-powered adult wanted to talk to him-and that Beck was so…so nice to him-and acted like he believed in him didn’t mean he should have fell for it-it should have been his first warning! Peter wasn’t who-or where he should be. It didn’t make sense for Beck not to treat him like the stupid kid he was. 

“I-I gave him EDITH. He-I knew better, and I still gave her to him.” Peter ran his hands into the hair tangling on the sides of his head. “He-he lied to me-and I knew they were lies, and I didn’t care . I-I just listened to him because he told me what I wanted to hear-that-that I could have friends, and family, and a girlfriend too -I know I don’t deserve a normal life-but I listened to him anyway! I-I let him take EDITH-and he tried to kill me -he ran me over with a train! He-He tried to kill hundreds of people-and I opened the door for him. I-I was practically asking for him to expose me to the world!”

“Kid-”

“-and-and then when that was over I was too selfish to ask Doctor Strange to just erase me-so I tried to make him makes my friends, and my Aunt know who I was-and-” Peter’s breathing sped up as he rambled, until he wasn’t sure if he was breathing at all. It didn’t stop him from ranting on. “-and I messed it all up, and I had to fight creeps from another dimension-he killed my aunt because of that-I was stupid -I just wanted to go to MIT -but no she wanted me to help them and I tried-and-and she’s dead -I couldn’t save her because I was stupid enough to trust rando’s from another dimension! I-I tried to kill someone-and-and that’s not what a hero does I-I messed everything up and now I’m alone -I lost everyone I cared about because I was stupid ! I-I didn’t I wouldn’t have saved M.J.-I trusted Mysterio, and I paid for it-I tried to make the wizard edit the spell, and I trusted what aunt May said-and now she’s dead -I lost my name because I’m just a stupid kid who brought a spider home and woke up buff-I-I lost you because I wasn’t smart enough to figure it out and snap for you when I had the gauntlet in my arms!” Peter’s eyes were blurry. His eyes were blurry, and his face was wet, and he wasn’t sure if he could breathe at all anymore. “I-I’m not like you Mister Stark-I can’t-I’m not-i-I don’t want to be a hero anymore Mister Stark. I don’t think I’m doing it right.”

“ Kid .”

Chapter Text

Did he just say that the Wizard tried to kill him?

There was a seemingly endless swirl going on in his head of what his kid had sprouted. If he was being honest-he didn’t expect it-he should have, but obviously he hadn’t. He had expected more of the self blame-as disheartening as it was-and maybe more mentions of Mysterio-or his ‘duty’ to the people, but he hadn’t truly been expecting him to go off in a rant. Not about failing everyone, and not about that Wizard -and not about weirdos from another dimension-which would really suggest that the multiverse theory that Peter had been so firmly against had actually been true-or really anything else he touched on. Not his Aunt being killed (hopefully for that caped-fucks sake not by the Wizard), not being hit by a train- he was hit by a fucking train?! -the whole rant was confusing-right down to the end. 

If Tony didn’t focus he could hear ‘I want you to be better’ echoing around in his head, and it wasn’t something he was trying to experience on a day like this. His kid shouldn’t have taken that to heart-much like all the other things he had already-it was just one throw-away spur of the moment thing. 

A spur of the moment ‘inspirational’ thing that Peter took to heart. Peter took it to heart, and now he wasn’t going to let it go because Tony never corrected himself. He wanted him to be doing better. This is not better, and he wasn’t going to let his statement go.

Well Tony would have to pry it from his scrawny teenager arms, and stomp it into bits then, wouldn’t he? 

“I’m sorry .” Peter’s breath seemed to catch in his throat as he started to talk again. “I-I know I shouldn’t say that-because it’s my job-and now you’re gonna be mad-and I’m not doing it good enough-and-”

“ Kid .” Tony found himself saying that a lot. It wasn’t wrong. It was applicable to Peter-but it was an upsetting reminder that it was exactly what Peter was. He was a kid. A seventeen-eighteen year old kid, who’s mentor had abandoned him, and left him to figure out everything else on his own-and where did that get him? He just ended up boxing himself into limits he can’t reach, and pushing Tony’s own stupid image onto a pedastool. Tony used to have this somewhat-irrational-somewhat-rational fear that Peter was going to crash and burn somehow, and nothing Tony put in his suit-or told him would help it. This was that coming to a true horrendous fruition. Nothing Tony gave Peter prevented this-if anything it shoved him right towards it. It wasn’t a good feeling. “You don’t need to apologize. I mean-being…being a hero is hard. I know it is.” It wasn’t an easy job-it shouldn’t really be a job-but it is. It’s a difficult job kids shouldn’t be forced to do. Peter included. “Buddy-I know you don’t agree with me, but it’s not your fault that the job is hard -and forcing yourself to do it, giving up everything else to do it doesn’t help anyone.” Peter dragged his feet up into his seat with him, leaving himself to bury his face into his knees. If his shoulders shook, Tony pretended not to see it. “I don’t think I understand everything Pete, but I know you’ve been through a lot.” A lot of unnecessary things that Tony could have helped him through if he had known him. 

Peter made a noise that was almost inevitably swallowed by his knees. “That doesn’t matter.” Peter shifted his head enough to allow Tony a glimpse at his puffy-face. “Bad things happen. That-that doesn’t mean I get to be-I don’t get to just stop just because I’m hopeless -”

“Don’t say that.” It was like Peter was trying to break the reactor embedded in his chest. He might be. He wouldn’t put it past him, not after the emotional rollercoaster he kept dragging him onto-well…not really a roller coaster-it’s mostly been steadily down. “Don’t say that when it’s not true Peter.” Despite Peter’s best efforts, Tony knew his kid-and his kid was far from hopeless. Tony made an attempt to branch out by carefully bringing one of his hands to Peter’s shoulder. It was surprisingly well received. “You’re not hopeless-not at being a hero, or anything else kid. Bad things happen-and you’ve stopped a lot from being worse. Don’t beat yourself up over impossible odds.” That’s exactly what they were. The odds of Peter never making a mistake-and surviving on zero sleep-or life-sustaining items were intangible at best. Lethal at worst. The most Tony could imagine Peter doing-and persevering was a week at best-and that might get him to collapse at the end of it. 

Tony’s done it often enough to know. 

“You’re supposed to be mad -I can’t even come close to what you wanted!” How many things that he happened oto have said in the past were going to come back and hit him in the back of the head today? It really seemed like the list wasn’t going to end. 

It didn’t help that he could see where he was coming from. That he could see how a one-off for Tony had somehow drilled itself into one of his kid’s brains so hard that he thought he’d take the time to be upset with him when they clearly had larger issues to deal with-all because he wasn’t somehow uninhibited by basic human needs-and functions. Hell somehow he blurred the line between Tony wanting better for Peter and somehow sacrificing every aspect of himself for people who didn’t even know his name -or his face-or anything else. He could understand Peter taking more of his time to be Spider-Man, if Tony’d been hit by a train, and apparently received death threats from a fucking Wizard , he’d probably hide behind Ironman whenever he got the chance. What he didn’t understand was how Peter just ‘decided’ not to be a person anymore, and to be just some unfathomable savior-who really couldn’t exist. Nor did he see how he made Tony into one either, 

It’d been eight real years since he’s gotten a chance to be this close to his kid for any real amount of time. A lot can change in eight years-but surely Peter didn’t see him like some-above-all figure truly ? It was hard enough knowing he blamed himself for every little mistake he’s ever made-but surely it’s not because of him right? He cared about Peter. He was like his kid-he was his kid-he knew-well he thought he knew about every painful villain he fought-and Peter knew Tony’s experience with heroism didn’t put him in a golden light. Right -right. It just so happened Peter seemed to ignore every not-so-black-and-white-heroic moment in Tony’s life-and Tony honestly had no idea what he was talking about for most of it. Right. 

God , he wasn’t that aloof was he? It didn’t matter. Even if he was-or wasn’t, damage has clearly been done. They’ve (hopefully) hit rock bottom, and now the only way is up. Tony’s just got to figure out how to make a ladder.

After all, his kid should be in MIT-or wherever it is he wanted to go-not doing this to himself. He’s seen plenty of people crash, and he refuses to let Peter be another one of them. 

“I shouldn’t have said that to you.” Even before all of this, it wasn’t right of him to tell an impressionable kid that he expected him-a fourteen year old child, to be better than him. He was a grown-somewhat stable man that had no business telling Peter that he expected him to be better. That was too much pressure-especially to put on someone who clearly was prepared to assume he was below street sludge. “You were a kid Peter-you still are. You’re not like me Peter. You’re loyal, kind-all kinds of brave,” possibly too brave for his own good, “and smart .” He replicated spider webbing in a chemistry classroom. He didn’t need much more proof than that. “You’re selfless, and you’re persistent.” Maybe a little too persistent for his liking. “You’re a great hero-whether you think so or not-you’re a good kid Peter. You just happen to be Peter Parker, and not Tony Stark. Being a great kid is nothing to beat yourself up over.” Peter-for the first time in what felt like forever, turned his head around where he could see his face. 

He really wished he didn’t have to see Peter so upset. 

“You wouldn’t say that if you were there.” He wasn’t wrong. Tony likely wouldn’t have to be reminding Peter of any of that if he was there. 

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there buddy. I know you needed me-and I’m sorry. I’m sorry no one else tried to help you either. You’ve been through a lot-and you tried to explain it, and I’m not sure I understood half of it-” He better not have understood, for Stephen’s sake. “-but you’re still my kid, and I don’t think you should just talk yourself into the ground. You’re a person-people make mistakes-even heroic people can’t save everyone-or they forget, or all kinds of things-they make mistakes too. People aren’t perfect-and heroes can’t be perfect.” They can try. They can do what Peter did-and then they can kill themselves doing it. 

“I keep making the same one’s Mister Stark-”

“So what? You see good things in people. It’s not a horrible curse Peter.” Tony’s attempt at rubbing comfort into Peter’s shoulder did not seem to work. He kept doing it anyway. “You want people to be better-and sometimes they’re just not. I’m sure it pays off sometimes, right?” Peter stared at the gear stick, before trying to nod from his spot atop his knees. 

“Doc Ock. He was grumpy.” Tony hadn’t heard of Doc Ock-he presumed it had a multiversal explanation. Peter’s frown returned shortly, much to Tony’s disheartment. “He’s the only one that really…lived up to expectations.” Peter’s lip wobbled. “Goblin messed everything up. I was gonna fix everyone, and send them home, and he ruined it, and I can’t even blame him because it wasn’t Norman’s fault, and he’s all that’s left.” Several questions arose in Tony’s mind, that he knew were not something he should ask right then. He still wanted to. “If I stopped the Goblin before he started attacking people, I wouldn’t have lost anyone.” 

“I’m sorry Peter.” He shouldn’t have to lose his only parent-and then literally be alone in the world. That wasn’t fair. No matter how unfair the world was, it never seemed to stop shocking him. “It’s not your fault she’s gone Peter. You didn’t know that was going to happen. Sometimes you can’t save everyone.” Tears forced their way out of Peter’s eyes, and down his angled face.

“I want to.” Peter straightened enough to get his chin away from his knees, making a futile attempt to stop his own crying. “I don’t like it when everyone dies.” 

“I know you don’t buddy. I know you don’t-no one likes it.” Especially not when it was in their arms. “That’s why a lot of people stop doing it. They can’t handle it anymore.” Peter could handle it. Oh he could handle it-and everything else in all the worst ways. “That’s why I stopped.” Tony couldn’t be sure Peter would have looked more shocked than if he reached out, and punched him. 

“You-you stopped because there wasn’t anything else you could do.” No, he left because there was nothing else he was willing to do. He had been slowing down for a while. He completely stopped after Peter…well disappeared . He never intended to do that forever. 

“I snapped because I had the technology, the chance, and the will to do it Peter. I hadn’t done anything heroic in years. Some people just don’t want to be heroes anymore-and that’s okay. There’s always more-and no one’s going to stop you from going back if you feel like it. It’s a hard job.” Especially for a kid who-as of Tony’s last conversation with May, still believed that the Easter Bunny was perfectly plausible. There were a few beats of silence in which neither of them said anything at all. Well, beside’s Peter’s poorly sedated sobs, and the sound of Tony’s hand failing to reassure him. 

Peter took a shaky breath in. “I’m tired .” He shook his head. “I don’t want to do it anymore.”

“Do you want a hug buddy?”

Chapter Text

He didn’t want anyone else to die. He didn’t want anyone else to die, but instead of getting what he wanted he was going to have to watch someone die. It always had to be someone. Always. 

He felt awful. Absolutely horrid.

He didn’t have a reason to be upset anymore. He got what he wanted, Mister Stark told him exactly what he wanted to hear. He was still upset though. Mister Stark told him exactly what he wanted to hear-even if it wasn’t true. That he was deserving, and doing well enough-and that he got where he needed to be. Mister Stark even went as far as to try and make him feel better by trying to tell him he did the same. 

He did all of that, and here Peter was. Still crying-for no reason . The hug helped-not much, but it was better than burying his head in his knees. It was just awkward to lean over the center console, and over what could be food just for someone to wrap their arms around his shoulders-and not because he was helping them with something-or pulling them out of a rather sticky (ahah) situation. 

It might have helped that Mister Stark smelled the same- yes his whole…overbearing cologne thing had died down-no, it hadn’t been erased. It was the same-more or less. Peter was bigger too-he wasn’t a kid anymore. He’d never be one again. 

“It’s alright bud, I know.” He wasn’t too sure how much of that was true. It didn’t really matter though, did it? It’s not like Peter knew what was going on with him. 

He didn’t really have to think about it, did he? Mister Stark said some things, he said some things. He didn’t plan on saying much more. He was tired. He was tired, and he didn’t want to do it anymore-like it wasn’t the job he actively chose. He chose a job where people would die-that’s like the biggest cliche of cliches he chose a job where he knew that he’d see people get hurt-see people die , and now he can’t handle it. 

When did everything get so hard ?

When was anything ever easy ? 

He just wanted to go to bed. He had things to think about, and things to probably overwork himself untangling, and he’d rather wait until his eyes were done burning, and he was curled up somewhere warm. He didn’t get that though, he got to sit there in the car, with his head buried in his ex-? Yeah….his ex-mentors shoulder, and be as upset as he wanted while thoughts went in one ear, and out the other. 

“We got to work on your self-talk though buddy-that was rough .” When did Peter-two start to sound like Tony Stark ? Was it the other way around? Did it matter ? No, it probably didn’t. It still made him smile a bit despite himself. He doubted that it was that important. It was probably more important than he thought it was-but it was likely just another old man tactic. 

“You sound like Peter-Two.”

“Mhm, it sounds like Peter-Two knows his shit.” The windshield wipers were too loud. They were swiping hopelessly at nearly nothing, and it was really getting under Peter’s nerves. At least he wasn’t going crazy. Not yet anyway. 

“I missed you Mister Stark.” 

“I missed you too, kid.” He could just go to sleep right there, ignore the buzz of incoherent sentence-fragments claiming to be thoughts, and go to sleep. He would have too-if not for the return of the lump in his throat. 

“I’m sorry everything is messed up.” Even if it wasn’t ‘his’ fault according to Mister-I-did-lot’s-wrong-Stark, he still needed to apologize. Everything was messed up-and the only solution-or cause he could think of to blame was Parker luck. Might as well apologize for the thing that’s been tormenting him for years now. 

“I know you are. I am too.” They sat there like that in the car until Peter felt far past crying, and Mister Stark let him slink back into his own seat. He didn’t pay any mind to the relevant thoughts he was having. Did he want to quit? It wasn’t important right now, even though either choice felt like the heaviest, most final decision he’d ever make. He knew that wasn’t true-common sense did anyway. He could go back. Start doing it again-or stop later. But it didn’t seem like a feasible option. They were both final decisions, that’s what they sounded like, and that’s what they felt like. He knew which one he was supposed to choose. 

He also knew he wasn’t going to choose. Pretending he didn’t have a choice-which if he thought about it he really shouldn’t consider having-even after what Mister Stark said-pretending he didn’t have a choice made it easier to ignore the fact that he wanted to do something that would- could endanger like…everyone. Ruin their lives-their days. Get them killed.

He could only intervene on little things, there’s other heroes-and he’s close to Hell’s Kitchen. 

He’s been to space- twice -and crushed by buildings. 

He’s not friendly-neighborhood anymore. 

“Are you alright now?” No. 

“I guess.” Mister Stark didn’t look convinced-and Peter frankly wasn’t convinced himself. He hadn’t sounded convincing at all. He was too tired to be convincing. Too tired, and much too cried out. He didn’t want to deal with any of this anymore. 

Maybe he wouldn’t wake up tomorrow. Maybe he’d wake up weeks later.

Or not at all. Right now he’d rather be in his cocoon-ish bed, with his eyes shut, pretending that he’d wake up soon, and find himself back in his old room, with May telling him he’s late. He’d remember to shut that window, and the space around his bed would be cool-not cold , and it would be hot inside of the blankets, and he’d be so comfortable he’d dream about May again. He’d wake up sad sure , but he’d get to see her, and hear her voice. 

That was worth some stupid tears. It was worth upsetting himself-maybe he’d get lucky, and he’d have some kind of concussion, and he’d stay out. 

This could be a dream.  

“You guess?” Peter made some kind of motion with his head that resembled a nod, watching the snow slowly freeze to the windshield. Mister Stark shifted around somewhere next to him with a sigh, picking up the second drink he’d gotten by the lid. “Here, why don’t you drink some hot….well warm chocolate. It’ll make you feel better.” Peter hadn’t thought about food. Now that something somewhat-nutritional was being offered, his appetite decided to make an appearance. It was unwelcomed. He knew how it went-he’d tire himself out of everything else, and then he’d be hungry. Not the mild-hungry that’d persisted back when he still had a family, and a limited budget, but the type of hunger he just couldn’t satisfy on his selfie-based income. He didn’t have enough food at home to last him the week-especially not if he went around trying to be full of all things. He should have kept crying. 

It’s hard to be unnecessarily hungry when he’s crying his eyes out. 

The ‘warm chocolate’, as Mister Stark had called it, was indeed lukewarm, and awfully grainy. Peter made an attempt to drink it down anyway. 

“I know that today’s hard-so I’m not going to push for… more , but tomorrow-if you’re planning on being home, I was hoping we could try and figure out what actually happened?” He has other things to do-such-well, he would have-regardless of if he felt like doing them or not.

“I’ll…I’ll be home in the morning.” Hopefully-if he’s lucky, this is going to be one of those odd dreams, and he’ll wake up where he left off, saving people, without a nagging want in his mind. 

“Alright-well, let’s get you home then.” 

Chapter Text

His bed was warm. His bed was warm, and so comforting, but he couldn’t stay in it. He wasn’t going to sleep well-he had too much nervous energy for that. He’d rather do anything but lie there and think, and right then his head was refusing to let him do anything else. Even his bones-which he was pretty sure the spider took-were tired, and sore, and close to giving out. 

“Go to sleep already Peter. You’re gonna crash if you go out.” He was going to crash-again, hopefully not into a building this time-and that meant his stupid human brain needed to turn off, and stop torturing him with things he knew weren’t an option. 

It’s always terrible when he argues with himself.

One side arguing for all the innocents, and all the helpless people who needed his help-and the other arguing for college, and an actual life-whether he deserved it or not-that wasn’t what was important. 

He knew who he had to choose. He already knew-and, even if it made him selfish, he wasn’t going to make the ‘choice’ yet. He wanted to believe Tony-he did. But he also knew that Parker luck would never let him rest. Even if he wanted to take time off, something horrible was going to pop up, and then he wouldn’t be there, and his face-his masked face, would be everywhere, and everyone would be wondering why he abandoned them when he shouldn’t have. 

If he kept going the way he was going, there to stop every little thing, everyone would trust him, no one would even think about his supposed murder, and he’d be loved the way IronMan was-just without a face to the mask. People would depend on him, and know he’d always be there-and that he was trustable, worthy of their support, and then when the bad things happen, he’d be there regardless to save them. 

They wouldn’t trust them if he only showed up when it was convenient for him. Therefore-even considering quitting-whether he wanted it or not-or slowing down was asinine. It was ridiculous to even consider.

Like everyone else didn’t see how tired he was. Just the other day a lady bought him something to eat, and asked him to eat with her because she ‘didn’t feel safe’. They were in a park, in broad daylight, surrounded by children. There was no reason not to feel safe. 

Maybe someone was following her-or she had a fear of children, and happened to be a masochist. Who knew? It wasn’t his business if someone wanted to be nice to him. 

It was his business when every person who was nice to him happened to have that same look on their face. It was because he was up, day, and night, and ever-working, and they’d noticed already. 

They noticed, and it worried them-they probably saw him slowing down too. Like passing out is going to make them sure he’ll save them.

That’s not nice. 

He wasn’t thinking about this right now-he’s decided not to, and now it was time for his spider-brain to shut its mouth.

Pressing a pillow across his eyes did nothing. Nothing at all. In fact it made his spider-senses buzz in the worst way, because he was apparently scared of suffocation as well. 

Okay-so maybe he shouldn’t have drank some more of that not-so-hot chocolate-and maybe he shouldn’t have slipped into his suit.

He had little to no chance of sleeping. 

It’s not like he had anything else to do.

Besides? Who else could it hurt? He had no decision made. He’d done it before-he’d be fine. 

He was not fine. 

By the end of the night he felt a moment away from falling into unconsciousness, and that was not in fact fun. 

Maybe he should go to bed.

Maybe he should. His shoulders burnt, and his ever-hungry stomach was particularly upset-with the current substandard of food. He could lie in his bed, and ignore his mind for awhile. 

Maybe.

The climb up to the window was a struggle, his powers were deciding that they were exhausted too-and his hands, despite still being properly prickly, refused to securely cling to anything he wanted them to. They could cling to his leg-sure, but not the damned icey wall. 

He ended up just using the fire escape. 

He felt worse when he woke up. Absolutely worse. Everything still throbbed, and apparently he had gone to bed with some kind of broken hand-thing, and now it was purple. He was not having a good time. 

The worst part was that his room was warm, and comfortable. His room was warm, and comfortable, and it was tempting him to go back to bed, despite the fact that there was someone he knew outside the building. 

He should just lock the door, and go back to bed until he feels better.

He couldn’t do that. Mister Stark would knock-and then he’d be just plain rude.

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He brought Happy with him, just in case. Not in case Peter hit him again-even though that was a likely possibility, but just in case there was any chance talking to someone about what happened that was there might help. 

He was right-Happy didn’t know who Peter was. He knew Spider-Man, and he remembered driving him around-and conversing with him-as Spider-Man. There was no Peter-sized hole in his heart, just a ‘May’ one, and Tony was slightly upset at this.

Alright, maybe more than slightly. 

It was that Wizard’s doing after all. It was his fault everyone remembered Spider-Man, and not Peter, and now Peter was….where he was. There’s nothing wrong with struggling-but the way Peter was forcing himself into it further wasn’t alright.

It made his old-non-existent heart hurt, and damn it, he was going to make that wizard fix this shit. If he refused, Tony might just beat him senseless, magic or not. He was probably going to do that anyway.

Tony did what Pepper called a ‘Tony sized mistake’ by inviting Happy at five in the morning. Happy of course-had already been on his way-he did work there after all-but calling Happy all the way out to the cabin? Not exactly regulatory-and their conversation beforehand reflected that. 

He really really needed Happy on his side for this one-maybe not as terribly as he felt he did, but at five in the morning, after a short amount of sleep, it felt kind of dire to have him there with him. 

He wanted to actually get a clear image of what happened-he needed to know who needed to find themselves in an accidental incident-and Happy was there. Even if the kid could tell him everything without getting so…upset, as last night-it would still be better if Peter had someone who was there. Tony wasn’t there-if he was, he was sure his kid wouldn’t be where he was right now-

Not that he could really stop him.

It didn’t matter if he ‘could have’ stopped him from ending up where he is. What happened is what happened. Having someone there who was there-saw it too, and at least actually knew what happened would be good for him. 

It would have been good for Tony too-but that wasn’t what he was going to think over right now. 

It would have been nice-for once, for Tony Stark to somehow be wrong-but the universe chose to make him a know-it-all, and his assumption that Happy didn’t know Peter was correct. Tony did what he thought he should-which in this case, was when Pepper told him to keep his Tony sized mishaps to a minimum. 

He just wanted Happy to remember-and it took a frustratingly long hour for anything at all to swoop back into place-much less for it to ‘hit him’ like it did with Tony-and wasn’t that absolutely frustrating. It was the same material-exact same things that had just made everything in Tony’s head click-but here Happy was, unable to remember a thing. 

At least when he did feel everything click into place, he got a sight of not-so-grumpy Happy. Sadly, not-so-grumpy Happy was not a Happy Happy Hogan, It was a bit awkward, like watching someone apparently go through different stages of everything at once should be. 

He was oddly quiet-even for Mister ‘I don’t smile Hogan’-he agreed to come-barely-he actually nearly jumped at the idea of seeing the kid-he just so happened to…also be slightly silent the rest of the time. 

It was awkward in the car. 

Tony pretended that none of this made it awkward-and that his phone had all of his attention captured, rather than his friend’s tight grip on the steering wheel. If he was smart he would’ve just kept staring lamely into that phone, and not opened to ask why he was so desperate. Tony had been desperate to see his kid when he realized that he hadn’t seen him for that long. 

The gps said something about turning left, and Happy did it, without hesitation.

“Is he alright? I mean-is he doing alright for himself?” Happy didn’t really look over at him when he spoke, and it led Tony to consider his words before he spat them out. 

“He’s got a roof over his head.” Happy relaxed-not really-he stopped working his jaw. That was good enough.

“He was at May’s funeral, you know? In the back? I didn’t even recognize him. He didn’t walk up to the casket-none of that.” Happy shook his head, like he could shake the recently retrieved memory back. “I didn’t recognize him. Didn’t even think I knew him-he got up and left in the middle of it-and I thought he was just some random kid.” Happy seemed even less happy than usual. “I-I just don’t get it, I-I couldn’t just forget Peter-not like that-who would do that?!”

“A wizard, that’s going to get his shit wrecked.” Happy sent Tony a custom look.

“No-No, did Peter tell you Doctor Strange did it? Or are you assuming?” Tony wet his lips.”Tony, you can’t just beat up a wizard without just cause-”

“He implied it-heavily!” He said it outright-kind of. That was just cause enough. “Peter said something about him making everyone forget-that’s just cause Happy, that’s how it works.” Happy seemed to ponder it. It didn’t take long for Happy-used-to-box-Hogan to choose violence as well.

“I’ll run him over. I’ll do it.” Happy’s grip on the wheel got tight again. “I’ll-we’ll figure out what exactly happened-and if Doctor Strange-whatever his real name is, if he did just up and do this-I’m going to kill him-I mean-why!? Peter’s-he’s annoying-but he’s a nice kid Tony. He’s nice-he doesn’t deserve to be alone.”

“I don’t know-I eman Peter said something about the multiverse, and him breaking it, but he was…really being rough on himself-I don’t know how true that is.” Happy grimaced. 

“He’s alright-isn’t he?” 

“Somewhat.”

“Tony.”

“He’s….doing. Alright? He’s not-the best he could be.” He’s not dead either. That’s a plus-the whole death certificate thing had terrified him a little. Alright, a lot. It was terrifying. He saw May’s-and thought he’d find Peter’s right next to them. But he didn’t-and now it was time for…this. “Don’t worry Hap-I’m sure it’s going to be fine.” 

Chapter Text

“That’s not it, is it?”

Peter’s apartment building-when put in simple words, was not very enticing. Compared to the one next to it-well, it certainly wasn’t the place you’d imagine a super-kid living. Not really. Not Peter anyway. 

“Yeah-that’s it. Sixth floor, fourth door on the left end.” He wanted to question it-just a little maybe-but he didn’t get the chance to. Tony was already climbing out of the car like he’d been here a hundred times already. Happy got out with a sigh.

Today hadn’t been pleasant so far-waking up early to drive all the way out-just to be cornered and forced to watch Spider-Man media for far too long was unpleasant at best-for a good minute or two there he was sure Tony had lost it.

Remembering Peter wasn’t as easy as it sounded. He was sure that the something missing had been May-and in some parts it had been-in other’s it really hadn’t. Being hit with the name-and the face all at once-much to Happy’s own frustration-had hurt. He wasn’t going to lie-it hurt. It felt like part of his life had been locked away-and every time he remembered something it hurt . 

He remembered the plane first-not Germany, or the first time he met him-or anything else. It wasn’t a pleasant first memory of Peter-neither was the funeral. All he did was sit in the very back-and when he got up he was already gone. 

These were not the things he thought he would be remembering about Peter. When Peter’s name came out- somehow he still thought that he’d still be… filling in ? Alright-he wasn’t really sure what his place with Peter was-he wasn’t even really sure what his place with May was-but he still thought he’d be there.

He thought he’d be there-and surprise surprise, he most certainly wasn’t.

That wasn’t the only thing bothering him though. There was something itching at the back of his head-something about Tony now-and he wasn’t quite sure why it was there. He wasn’t sure he wanted to find out either.

“So…a wizard ? Really? Doctor Strange did this?” Tony made the hazardous climb up icy stairs first, nodding while he did it. It was impressive for someone who’d gotten into trouble this morning for attempting to disassemble their arm. 

“Yep.” Tony took great pleasure in popping the last letter, most likely just to annoy Happy. “Well-that’s what he told me. He was pretty upset though.” Happy’s pretty sure he’d be ‘pretty upset’ too. 

Losing everything many- many times couldn't be fun. 

Happy was still more than willing to run over a wizard. 

Stairs turned out to be awkwardly quiet. That was fine. They were steep-and the steps themselves weren’t easy to fit his foot on either-it took a lot of concentration. 

He wasn’t nervous to see Peter after nearly what? A year? Okay-maybe he was a little nervous to see where the kid ended up. Now that he could remember Peter , he felt bad. He could remember knowing him-and all the incidents after Tony….and well-the thing with that Mysterio guy-and what he had said on that jet had him worried. 

Happy felt a sort of responsibility for him-at least after what happened-and he was responsible for him. Tony couldn’t be-he was….unconscious? Unconscious. Happy was one of the last adults who were close-and responsible for Peter. Happy should have been there for him-he lost May-they both kind of lost May-but that wasn’t the important part. Peter lost his only parent -and the only…available adult in his life just-just forgot he existed. 

He lost his aunt, and found himself all alone-and that was Happy’s fault. He remembered the grave-meeting-and the funeral- god the funeral. He’d barely seen Peter there-he’d been some kind of red-faced, teary-eyed face in the back row, sitting alone. He hadn’t signed the visitor registration, or gone to see May in the casket-he’d just disappeared halfway through the service.

He could see why-his only remaining family member was dead, and he was alone-and no one was there to support him. 

At least he was doing better than Happy thought he would be. 

He’d admit it-when he realized that Peter had been alone for so long-especially after being forgotten -he’d expected a bit of the worst, for Tony to have found him on the streets-or that his self-sacrificing nature would have led him to an early grave without someone reasonable there to pull him back.

But this wasn’t that. He had a roof over his head-no matter how shoddy-but then again, he was eighteen and on his own once too-it’s not like he had it great. If he was paying rent, he had a job-and if he had a job, he had food, and a bed. If he had time for a job, and all the time for that Spider-manning footage to have been shot in the last year, that meant he was doing alright.

He could live with ‘alright’.

Happy was hoping wherever Peter was-it wouldn’t be as horrible as he feared. 

His thoughts were of course-absolutely denied any chance of being something positive, when Peter opened the door. 

Admittedly-at first, Happy thought Tony had led him to knock on the wrong door. Peter-at first glance, did not look like Peter. 

He didn’t look like Peter , and Happy couldn’t really place why. Everything he had…going on was characteristic of Peter-it was his face -it just so happened to be tired-and bruised. Not the first time Happy had seen that. 

He doubted it would be the last either. 

Peter was apparently trying very hard not to look at Happy. He’d spared him a mildly surprised glance through puffy eyes when he first opened the door-and afterward, began decidedly stared into the mold-befriended window behind Tony’s head. 

“Hey…?” Well. That was certainly a way to greet someone he hadn’t seen in a year.

“Hey underoos, you hungry?”

-----------------------------------------------------------

Tony, despite chattering away in the front seat about the few mundane things he could tolerate, was filled with dread. 

He personally believed he had every reason to be. His kid-after a long, meaningful, and stressful reconnection, chose to reappear with heavy bruising. If he thought Peter was trying to break his heart last night, he was clearly trying to give him a heart attack now. Tony knew -he knew his suggestion wasn’t going to be taken well-if at all-and he didn’t expect to find that ohohoh, Peter’s never going to Spider-man again, and he’s willing to be wrapped up in bubble wrap, so Tony can protect him for the rest of his life-but he didn’t expect him to go out after he left. 

Sure , he should have. Pepper told him he probably would when Tony was pacing the hallway at two in the morning, and occasionally checking in on Morgan-much to her dismay, it did not help him sleep that miss ‘All knowing Pepper’ thought that Peter was going to go out. 

It was only eight hours. He was only physically away from his kid for eight hours, and now a good portion of his face is heavily bruised. 

A good portion of his face was heavily bruised, and it didn’t seem to be healing. Tony’d watched Peter heal from a miraculous amount of lab-accidents, and all of them-no matter the weight, seemed to shrink off before the hour. This looked like it was settling in to stay.

Tony stared at his kids face, possibly for too long in the mirror as he continued to talk about the weather of all things. Peter needed one of them to be an adult. Right now he was really wishing he could push that on Happy, and bring up Peter’s injury-and well, everything else. He wanted to know who he had to kill. Or maim. Just who , what and why . That’s all he needed. 

Not that he was going to bring it up in the car. No, right now he was busy trying not to stare at his kid-or wonder what was going on with his hand-and remembering to look up where they were going. When asked-Peter has suggested a diner-which according to it’s looks, only sold burgers. It-according to Happy’s car clock-was ten in the morning. He wasn’t worried about the whole grill food for breakfast thing. If that’s what his ‘heroes don’t need food’ kid wanted, that was what he was going to get. 

No, he was worried about the ‘C’ rating on the more recent review photos. 

“Hey bud, are you sure you don’t want to eat somewhere else?“ Maybe somewhere without a review that claimed to find a roach in their milkshake- oh and there was the picture. Great. He was pretty sure that should have ended in less than a ‘C’ rating, but sure. 

“Uh.” And there was the look from Happy. He’d been real snippy when it came to him suggesting things to Peter, from the time they saw each other, and until then.

Then again, Tony would be snippy with Happy if Peter was refusing to talk to him. Not that he blamed him. This whole thing was awkward. Awkward, and hard to focus on when he saw Peter’s face, and ended up stuck thinking back to the night before, specifically when Peter was in the middle of sobbing so hard he couldn’t breathe. 

He was really tired of feelings coming to hit him upside the head when he was trying to ignore it long enough to feed his kid. 

Peter glanced up into the rear-view mirror momentarily, before going back to his lap. This was still better than how last night started. It was awkward-but Peter was probably just tired. He was likely up far too late after all. 

“If-you… guys want to.” Happy-spotting his time to jump in, and choosing to do exactly that, seemed to almost seemed too excited to speak to Peter. He got it. He remembered first getting the chance to talk to Peter. 

Peter hit him for the trouble-but that was neither here, nor there. It was awkward, and tense when you were actually sitting there with… Peter. Understandable for two people who hadn’t seen each other in forever. There hadn’t been much effort between those two to speak, and Tony was glad to see… some of it relieved, even if it was just on Happy’s end. That was how Tony got Peter to talk to him after all. Progress was progress, even if it was excruciatingly small. 

Or if it felt like it was shrinking.

“I know a great place-it’s like an off brand waffle-house, I’m sure you’ll like it.” 

Chapter Text

Peter was trying very hard to ignore the shame attempting to crawl up his neck as he walked. He didn’t think he’d come back-much less with Happy, and now he was wandering around in pain. 

What a proud moment for Spider-man.

He had hoped he’d come back of course. He didn’t want him to see him like this though. He didn’t want to be waddling along next to Mister Stark and Happy. It wasn’t really pleasant to see him after all this time. The last time he’d seen him was after May’s…..nevermind. It just wasn’t very pleasant to see him when looking at his face made his throat feel like ripping itself out. 

He wasn’t going to cry in front of Mister Stark again though. He’d already embarrassed himself once. He was just going to pretend that he didn’t cry like a baby in his ex-mentors car about his own selfish wants and desires, before forcing himself to go back out into the cold, and getting the snot beat out of him. 

Nope. He was just walking with two men he had thought he’d never and hoped never to see again, wishing the sidewalk would come alive, and swallow him whole before he spent the last of his money on a glass of water he didn’t even really want . 

He was starving.

He was hungry- yes , but not hungry enough to spend the few bucks he had on something he couldn’t afford. Right now he couldn’t afford to breathe the air in his apartment, much less spend his last cents on a frivolous meal he didn’t really need. He wasn’t even dizzy. 

He was beyond fine. 

Because people who are fine have finger bones, and bruises that won’t heal. Sure.

That was normal now. He probably just grew out of his old-super-healing. It happens.

No it doesn’t. No one just ages out of their abilities-that’s not how this works. 

It could be. He wouldn’t know. There were only two other Spider-people he’d ever met, and they had been too busy trying to cure those super-villains to really get into the down and gritty of their powers. Fuck-they hadn’t even gotten the chance to talk about the whole ‘I fought an alien goo’ thing. He hadn’t really gotten to know them-he didn’t know what was normal . No one really did. It was just him. Alone. 

Just like it had been for the last year. 

Peter’s Spider-sense started screaming at him, another round of burning, sensless whispered thoughts he couldn’t decipher. Sometimes he thought some part of his brain could only speak in Spider-and that’s why he could never seem to figure out what was wrong until it was hitting him. Either way, it burned between his ears, and refused to tell him straight out what was wrong. He had a faint idea. Either the heavy clouds hanging over the city-the ice patch about three feet in front of them, or Mister Stark, or Happy-or the sleet running into the storm drain-or the cold wind. 

Spider-sense was great in a fight, but right now this was about as helpful as a emergency phone that only hosted calls if they got four hundred people on the line first. It was far too busy to help when there wasn’t nine-hundred things he needed to be aware of. 

Mister Stark clapped him on the shoulder-his bad one, because he neglected to refer to it as such, sending a nice ache into his bones. He just hoped Mister Stark didn’t see him wince. He didn’t need him-or… Happy asking him about it. 

“You alright bud?” 

No.

“Yeah-I’m just….I’m just… really tired.” They had no reason to question him about that. He had been up all night. Maybe if he tries to sleep in a restaurant, Mr. Stark’ll be so ashamed of him he’ll send him home to bed, and never come back. 

Even if it was a long shot, it didn’t hurt to hope. If Mr. Stark left him alone, he could stop obsessing over what he said last night. He could stop fussing over what he wanted, and what he wasn’t allowed to have-and just…keep going. Forever. And Ever. 

And die doing what no one expects of him. He’s barely eighteen. No one expects any other teenager to die saving New York. 

Well, he wasn’t a normal teenager, was he?

No. He wasn’t, and there was no going back to what he used to be. He’d never really had normal to cling onto-but his normal was long gone, and it wasn’t coming back. Even if sometimes he thought it would, it wasn’t. This was normal now, and he had to be happy with that. 

“Long night?” Right. Happy. He was here. He existed, and if Peter was lucky he knew nothing about how long it had been. 

“Uh-yeah. Kind of.” He hadn’t had enough time to so much as sleep for more than two hours. It had definitely been long, even if it’d been his own fault he couldn’t rest. He shouldn’t have been stressing out over something like that. Just because Mister Stark thought they should ‘talk about it’, didn’t mean that it was going to change his mind. Peter was going to be stupidly stubborn, and Stark was going to realize that Peter was a lost cause. He’d be alone again, just like before, and he’d have nothing again. 

The restaurant he was being sheep dogged into was nice, nicer than the restaurant he’d chosen-and the dollar store he’d been buying his groceries at. So far, his hopes for anything bigger than a small glass of water were being crushed. 

At least it was warmer in there. Despite the fact that he was constantly being burnt by the coldness of the outdoors-sometimes because of his own stupidity-or because of his very own spider-genes-anyway-despite him constantly freezing, he had yet to get used to being cold. A whole evenly-heated restaurant tore right through where the cold had invaded his coat, and replaced it entirely. 

It was a nice, momentary distraction that somewhat soothed his newly found pains. Alright not really, but being able to feel his skin was an upside that felt a little more important than his need to cradle one of his hands. 

This restaurant, apparently hoping to make Peter spend his whole necessity fund on a glass of water, was well off enough to have a host. 

They ended up in a booth, Peter trapped between the unbelievably cold glass on one side, and Mister Stark on the other. This, of course, meant he was stuck facing Happy. Not that there was anything wrong with that. No. Happy was great. 

He totally didn’t feel nauseous when he saw his face, almost identical to what he saw right before he had to leave May there. Alone, before she died, and he lost everything. Forever. No. He definitely didn’t feel like that at all. Happy sparing him unusually frequent looks was fine. Perfectly fine.

Besides-how would he know if Happy-Stop Doing That Peter-Hogan just did that now? He wouldn’t. He hadn’t seen him in a year at least . The last place he had seen him was at….nevermind. It’d been awhile. 

Just because it’d been awhile didn’t mean that he had to feel so…off about it. It was fine. He was over it. It happened…and he did what May thought he should-and now everything was as it should be. He was alone, doing exactly what she thought he should. May used to say everyone should give what they can, and that’s exactly what he was doing. 

He wasn’t upset over May anymore, much less upset over Happy-or Tony. This was fine. 

At least he could look out the window. He might’ve just been very very tired, but the outside world, despite it’s lack of heating, seemed like a fair distraction. 

“What have you….uh been up to?” He should’ve just pretended he wasn’t at home. If he’d managed that, he could still be sleeping. Sure , Mister Stark would realize he was being difficult, and get either really persistent, like last night, or leave him forever, and they’d both know , but neither would venture out to see each other because it had been what? Eight years in Mister Stark’s life-and three in Peter’s, and honestly they should both have stopped caring about each other a long time ago? 

He’s not sure which one would be worse-but he’s ninety percent sure that those are the only ways that would go. 

Not like it’ll happen now-it’s far too late for him to pretend not to be home now. Now he’s stuck here, being asked questions by someone who made it a bit too painful to look at. 

“Not much.” Nothing really could be done when he was so busy. Not that he was complaining. It wasn’t fun, but he wasn’t complaining. In fact he wasn’t even going to think back to when he was complaining. “I’ve just been working.” Mister Stark made a noise as he shifted through his menu. 

He chose to ignore it, even if he had to swallow the little lump that just seemed to keep coming back. 

He was going to pretend that Tony was huffing about something on the menu being ridiculous, or  gross-and not because of his semi-lie. It wasn’t really a lie anyway. He’d been working hard….not hard enough -but hard. Spider-manning and scrounging enough money together from selfie-meets, and Spider-man-views wasn’t easy-or fun, or whatever else everyone assumed disqualified it as a job.

He had no reason to have shame crawling up his neck. Just because he, Spider-man had spent the night whining about something he didn’t have a choice in to Ironman , just to run off and get himself hurt doing something he’d practically begged Ironman not to let him do anymore didn’t mean anything. It’s like it didn’t happen. At all. Nothing had changed, and it was all fine. Just because Mister Stark remembered the most embarrassing two weeks of his life all in great enough detail to scoff at one run off remark didn’t mean he should be feeling like this. 

“Uh…what’ve you been up to?”

=====================================

Happy, like always, was more than happy to fill up the space between them with discussion about the DODC hounding him. Tony was grateful for it. Even if he was great at small talk-he managed to run out of non-inappropriate things to say around his kid. 

Well, he had plenty of things he wanted to say to his kid-appropriate or not. The longer he sat next to him, and listened to him make hesitant conversation with Happy, the harder it became to prove that he could hold his tongue. 

It was almost funny.

Almost. 

What was most certainly not funny, was the hand he just couldn’t seem to stop cradling-or the still-too-dark bruises lingering around Peter’s face. He’s seen the kid heal in real time, and this is taking…suspiciously long. Alright-not suspiciously-worryingly , and Tony won’t stand for it. He’s not too sure how Peter’s powers work-they never really made it to powe-secret spilling- but he knows how Steve’s worked, and he knows how vital food is to the rest of it. 

If Peter’s the same, and he’s been out there fighting criminals without enough nutrients in his system to allow him to heal , Tony’s getting out the damn bubble wrap. 

“And I of course-I denied it-as far as they know that was a tanning bed I broke-” Not the Fabricator-Tanning-bed story. Not again. Tony’s spent two weeks listening to this story be told to several different people while he was too bed-bound to get up and move, and  he would rather not hear him tell it again. 

It gets less funny every time he tells it, and right now it’s about as funny as telling him sand is dry. 

Not that he’s about to interrupt his time with Peter. Peter’s hardly looked at the man since they’d shown up this morning-opting instead to do anything but-and Happy, now that he’s been given a chance has hopped right to it. He wants Peter back, and in his life just as badly as Tony does. Who is Tony to take what he has now from him? 

Sure-right now Tony would like to skip the inevitable calm, rational conversation they have to have so Tony can do his job as fifth-parent and decide death penalties-just so that he could wrap Peter in a thick towel-or blanket like a distressed kitten, and smuggle him upstate where he could ever be alone again. Maybe even shake the hazardous behaviors out of him. 

But he’s not going to. 

Yet. 

Either way, he’s going to let Happy have his time to talk to Peter while Tony silently scours the pancake menu-and makes a plan of action. The next two steps are obvious- first he’s going to find out what Peter knows in a calm, peaceful-non-blaming manner, and then he’s going to make heads roll. His problem is what comes after that . 

It’s not exactly like Peter will willingly let him hold onto him forever. Much less live in a bubble wrap ball. He can’t offer him chocolate milk, shove him in his car, and take him to his house. That’s kidnapping for starters-and has all kinds of gross images that come with it. 

The point is that he can’t make Peter do anything-especially after being hit by him. No. He doesn’t want that to ever happen again. He can’t make Peter do anything-which means he’s going to need an awful lot of sweet-talking until this all feels…normal…er. 

He can’t keep going like this, and Tony can’t say he cares about his kid if he lets him.  

Maybe he should buy a glue-trap.