Chapter Text
Apparently, Peter’s panic had worn his body out more than he had realized, seeing as he spent the entire following morning flitting in and out of sleep in the medbay. True to his word, Tony was there the entire day.
By the time he was finally awake enough for his brain to process information, Tony was handing him a bagel.
“You need to eat up,” he said, sliding a bottle of water closer to him as well.
Peter nodded, realizing how hungry he was as he quickly tore into the warm bagel, barely concealing a content sigh.
Tony cleared his throat slightly to get his attention once he had moved on to sipping his water.
“Your mo- Pepper wants to know if you’re ok with her coming to see you. We don’t want to overwhelm you, and we want to move slowly, but she’s really happy you’re home and would love to be here if you want.” He said.
Peter was nodding almost immediately. After his talk with Tony last night, he had gotten his eyes opened to realize how wrong he had been to let himself panic yesterday. Now that he wasn’t imagining every awful scenario that could happen, he was just starting to let himself have a little hope for rejoining his family. He was still worried, but for the first time since Friday dropped the news, he was more excited by the prospect than scared.
Tony smiled wide, “Perfect, I’ll text her to head down. She’s been worried about you all night, even though I’ve been sending frequent updates to everyone she wouldn’t believe me until she sees you with her own eyes.”
Pepper must have been waiting for a text, because it took about 30 seconds between Tony sending her a text and her gently knocking on the medbay door as she walked in.
“Oh Peter, I’m so glad you’re ok. I was so worried,” she said, hurrying over but being mindful not to get too close and overwhelm him.
Peter smiled, it felt nice having people care about you enough to worry when something was wrong. “I’m ok. I’m sorry I worried you.”
Pepper shook her head, “Don’t apologize, silly. It’s not your fault. I’m sorry that we overwhelmed you last night. I know Tony’s already talked to you about it, but we don’t want to stress you out at all. We’re just glad you’re home. We’ve missed you. We’ve waited a long time for you to be home.” The faint sheen of tears in Pepper’s eyes was matched with that of Peter’s.
Tony stood up, guiding Pepper gently to take his chair. “I’m going to head upstairs for a few minutes and let everyone know what’s going on, and that Pete’s okay,” He glanced over at Peter, “There’s a lot of people who are worried about you.”
The two of them sat in a comfortable silence for a while after Tony left. Pepper fixed the blanket around him a few times too many, but Peter liked being cared for, so he let her do it.
“Y’know,” She started, absentmindedly adjusting the items on the side table, “I’ve spent the past 14 years feeling so guilty.” Peter blinked up at her, not sure where this was going.
“I was the last person to see you before you were taken. I was the one who trusted that man to watch you and keep you safe. I shouldn’t have left you with him, and I’ve blamed myself for what happened since the moment we realized you were gone. I wasn’t handling it well at all, no one was. A year after you were taken, I started going to therapy sessions twice a week, my therapist's face will be priceless once I tell her you’re back. You’re all she’s been hearing about for 14 years. Every session for years, I would say that if someway, James somehow came home, that I would tell him how sorry I was that he got taken, and that I knew it was my fault. That the guilt and regret has been eating away at me nonstop since he was taken. These past few years I was starting to think that I would never get the chance, but now here we are. I’m sorry, it’s a lot, I don’t want to stress you or anything, but I just need you to know how sorry I am.”
Peter watched as she wiped away her own tears before sitting up a little better and taking her hand in his own. Peter wasn’t very good with emotions, since he had spent his entire life being told to not let them show, but man, 3 weeks here and he was getting plenty of practice.
“Pepper…” he began softly, “I understand why you’ve been blaming yourself, I do, I would have been doing the same thing if I was in your position, but I found out last night that I’m James and that my whole life turned out the way it did because I was kidnapped by Hydra, and not once did it ever even cross my mind to blame you. You didn’t know. You and I, and everyone else all know that Hydra spends years planning missions, that guy had spent years gaining your trust, no one could have known what would happen. It isn’t your fault. It never has been.”
Pepper squeezed his hand tighter as she began to cry more. Peter panicked, thinking he said the wrong thing and made things worse.
“I’m sorry! Please don’t cry, I didn’t mean to make you more upset…” He squeezed her hand back.
Pepper shook her head, quickly wiping her tears. “No, no, you didn’t make me more upset. You could never,” She sniffled, “I just can’t believe you’re here, and how good you are. You spent so long in such an awful place and yet you still came out with such a good heart. I’m so proud of you.”
Peter smiled bashfully, giving a slight shrug.
“Can I give you a hug?” She asked, “And it’s ok if you don’t want to. You can always say no to anything.”
Peter nodded, “That would be nice.”
Pepper moved closer, pulling him into a firm hug which Peter immediately melted into. Man, he had been missing out. Hugs were great. They stayed like that for a few minutes.
“Thank you, Peter,” she said softly before pulling away. Peter gave her a grin, “I’m glad you and Tony are my mom and dad,” he said quietly.
Pepper smiled back, “and we’re so glad that you’re our son.”
A knock at the door interrupted them. Tony peeked his head in slightly.
“I hope I’m not interrupting,” He said, “Pete, would you mind a couple more visitors?”
Peter shook his head, “That’s fine.”
“Good,” Tony said, pushing open the door, “Because it was getting really hard to hold them back.”
Peter held back a laugh as Harley and Morgan fell forward as Tony opened the door they were both leaning against.
“Petey,” Morgan said, quickly getting to her feet and running over as fast as her little legs could take her. Pepper lifted her up into her lap, but Morgan shimmied out her arms and crawled onto the bed to sit next to Peter instead. Peter smiled at her. “Hi Morgs.”
“Daddy told me that you’re my brother! He used to tell me stories about you when you were a baby, but now you’re all big and you’re actually here! And now I have two big brothers to play with me!”
Peter laughed, “Yeah, you do.”
Harley joined them, leaning against the side of Peter’s bed and ruffling Morgan’s hair.
“I’m still so in shock that you’re James. No wonder we got along so quickly, you’re literally my brother! We have so many sibling arguments to catch up on.”
Peter laughed. The deep talks with Tony and Pepper had been really nice and really necessary, but he was very glad that Harley was keeping it lighthearted.
“You’re lucky, I’m the best big brother ever, Morgan can vouch for me, right Morgs?” Harley asked.
“Hmmm. I like Petey better now,” she said, cuddling up to Peter’s side.
Harley stuck his tongue out at her before continuing with a sly smile, “Imagine how badly we can annoy mom and dad now that there’s three of us!”
“Pete, you’ve turned out so good, don’t let Harley be a bad influence on you,” Tony said with mock seriousness.
“Now, how did this turn into a bully Harley moment?” Harley asked, rolling his eyes.
Tony shoved his shoulder lightly, to which Harley dramatically fell over both Peter and Morgan with an exaggerated groan which caused the room to fill with laughter.
His family’s laughter. Peter liked that.
*******
It wasn’t until the next day at around lunch time that Helen had come in and deemed Peter well enough to go back upstairs.
He and Tony were in the elevator going back up to the Avenger’s floor. Harley and Morgan had school, and Pepper had just left for a meeting right before Helen came in.
“You can go to your room if you want. Have some alone time, I know you must need it,” Tony said as they stepped out of the elevator, “Anytime you want alone time or need any of us to back off, you can go to your room, and we’ll leave you alone.”
Peter gave him a smile, “Thanks.”
Tony ruffled his hair, “Also, uhm,” He looked a little nervous all of a sudden, “We were thinking- if you want- feel free to say no- but uhm” He paused to collect himself, “If you’re comfortable with it, we were thinking that we could set up your old room on our floor and have you move in with us again? It’ll take a few days at least, we haven’t touched it since the day you were taken… but if you want...”
Peter hadn’t seen Tony look this nervous before, he wanted to laugh, but all he could think right now was how nice the feeling of being wanted felt.
He nodded, “Yeah. I think I’d like that a lot.”