Chapter Text
“You are so annoying. Why are you so annoying?”
“I’m not annoying. I’m funny and smart and extremely goodlooking. My fashion sense is impeccable.” Tony is wearing jeans, sneakers and a beat-up baseball cap and doesn’t seem to see the irony in that statement.
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“It means you have to trust my judgment.”
“Uuuuuggghhh,” Peter groans, rattling at the car door handle. “Let me out of here.”
“Not until you agree you’re going to let me teach you to drive,” Tony says placidly, reclining his seat to indicate they could be there for a long time.
“You can’t just keep me in this car all day,” Peter counters. “I have school.”
Tony laughs. “Your grades are perfect, you can miss a day.”
“I could literally rip this door off its hinges,” Peter says desperately.
“Ooh, and blow your secret identity in front of your classmates? Bold move, Parker. I like it.”
“Tony,” Peter tries, as a last ditch attempt, “You’ve seen me play Grand Theft Auto, haven’t you? Do you really want to unleash that on the roads of Fulton County?”
“Man, I could go for a burger,” Tony says, patting his stomach. “What do you think, Morguna? Should we take Petey out for hamburgers and then drive around another couple hours?”
“Hambuhgah,” Morgan chirps from the backseat.
Peter makes another long noise of exasperation and kicks petulantly at the glove box, not quite hard enough to leave a dent.
“Fine,” he says acidly. “You can try and teach me to drive. You’ll be sorry. The car’s gonna get totaled.”
“Happy first day of senior year,” Tony says, leaning over and putting him in a headlock so he can smack a kiss on Peter’s temple as FRIDAY unlocks the doors. “Be good and remember to always wrap it up.”
Peter scoffs and squirms away from him. “Ew, get off.”
“Love you!” Tony calls after him as Peter slams the door. Peter ignores him.
Tony starts honking the horn, drawing stares from the other students gathered. “Say it back!” he yells.
“YUV YOU!!” Morgan screams out the window.
Peter sighs, turns around, and goes back to give Morgan a kiss. “Love you,” he says grumpily to both of them. “Even though you suck.”
He can hear Tony cackling as he rolls up the windows and starts the engine.
“Your dad cracks me the fuck up,” Gwen says as they claim the pair of desks at the back of the classroom.
“He’s not my dad,” Peter mutters.
“Sure, orphan boy.” Gwen pushes his shoulder. “Hey, has anyone ever told him that he kind of looks like Tony Stark?”
“Please, please never tell him that,” Peter begs. “His stupid head would swell so much he’d never be ever to wear a hat again.”
“I can’t tell him that ‘cause you never let us come to your house.” Gwen starts pushing his shoulder again and again, making him rattle back and forth. “Come on. Invite us over. I wanna play with your sister.”
“No,” Peter says.
The defining factor of Gwen’s personality is her persistence. It’s not the patient, steady kind of persistence Peter has always had - the kind that gets back up no matter how many hits and carries on - because Gwen never even seems to get knocked down in the first place. She just keeps on going like some sort of horrible Terminator, kicking down doors and blasting any idiots who happen to find themselves in her mighty wake.
“Invite us over,” she whispers from the desk behind him in their next class.
“No.”
She pokes him directly between the shoulder blades with her sharpened pencil.
“Invite us over,” she says at lunch, with an opened packet of salt poised over Peter’s chocolate pudding, ready to dump it in.
“If I say no, are you going to fuck up my pudding?” Peter moans. Gwen shakes the salt packet threateningly.
“What have we got here,” comes a voice from behind them. “You bullying Pete again, Gwennie?”
“Yes,” Gwen says, never breaking eye contact with Peter, and moving the salt half an inch closer to the pudding cup.
Leo slides into the seat next to Peter, leaning his chin on his fist and watching the proceedings with interest. Gwen had aggressively recruited him to their friend group last year when he had transferred in midway through the spring. Not because Leo was tall and gorgeous, with impossibly pretty dark skin and a genius flair for DIY fashion - moreso because he loved robotics and she’d figured it was her best chance at starting an underground bot battling ring. The battle ring had never gotten off the ground, but Leo had fit in with the two of them as seamlessly as if he’d always been there.
“Give in,” Gwen orders. “I’m going to wreck your pudding and then everything you love.”
“Yeah,” Leo agrees, making the cut throat sign at Peter. “We’ll smash your DS. Hey, Gwen, what are we shaking him down for?”
“I wanna go to his house after school."
“Yeah!” Leo exclaims. “Pete, invite us over. I wanna see your room.”
“Why,” Peter groans, resting his head on his arms, “do you want to see my room?”
“I have two theories and I want to see which one’s right. Either it’s the classic skinny white boy nerd room with like, Iron Man posters and no sheets, or it’s totally decked out in granny florals and doilies and shit.”
“Neither,” Peter grumbles. “Do your worst.”
“You asked for it,” Gwen shrugs, and dumps the salt into the pudding and stirs. She ponders it for a moment, then dips her spoon in.
“You are not going to eat that, Gwendolyne Stacy,” Leo says, putting a hand over his heart.
“You know what,” Gwen says, after taking the first bite, “I think like, ten percent less salt would have actually improved this. It’s not bad.”
Peter sticks his finger in and licks it. “Huh, you’re right.”
After lunch Leo takes up Gwen’s cause in English Lit. Every time Mrs. Hollister turns around, Leo reaches over and aims a finger right for the ticklish spot between Peter’s ribs and hipbone. Peter can only use his senses to dodge so many times before it becomes implausible, so eventually he has to let Leo land a hit.
Unfortunately this happens to be a particularly hard poke, and Peter doubles over from a combination of a laugh and a wheeze. Mrs. Hollister turns around with murder written on her face.
“Mr. Parker, Mr. Zemlinsky,” she says flatly. “Are we finished behaving like gradeschoolers yet, or do we need a time-out?”
As soon as she turns around, Leo points threateningly at Peter with his poking finger and mouths, ‘Invite us over.’
Peter buries his face into his hands and mimes a silent scream. He looks up at Leo, mouths, ‘Fine!’ then flips him the middle finger.
His phone lights up shortly after. Leo sending a bunch of trophy and medal emojis in their groupchat, followed by a gif of Elle from Legally Blonde captioned with, “We did it!,” and Gwen replying with a gif of a twerking Squidward.
I hate you both and you’ll be sorry, Peter texts, then switches to his conversation with Tony. Can I have friends over after school? It’s okay if it’s too short notice. You can say no. We can just go somewhere else. It’s fine.
Yes I’ll make pizza, Tony texts back in about five seconds, dashing all his hopes, then following it with a stack of emojis. Sunglasses, pizza, pizza, pizza, baby, spider, alien, alien.
The fuck is that, Peter replies.
It’s me making pizza for Morgan, and you, and your friends. The joke is that anyone who would want to be friends with you is probably an extraterrestrial wearing a human flesh suit.
“Oh shit, roasted,” Leo whispers from directly over his shoulder, where he’s clearly been hovering and watching the whole text exchange. Peter startles so badly he knocks nearly everything off his desk.
“Mr. Parker!”
Peter narrowly avoids a detention in English Lit, but then it hits him that detention would have gotten him out of the whole situation, so he doodles giant veiny dicks all through last period art class in an attempt to get himself thrown in the slammer. Unfortunately his stoner burnout tablemate Felicia takes way too much interest and starts giving him honest-to-God critique on his shading, and their art teacher just leaves them to it with a long-suffering look.
“Here, a present,” Peter says, throwing himself bodily into the seat next to Leo on the bus and handing him a folded-up piece of paper with ‘UR INVITED TO MY HOUSE’ scrawled on the outside.
“Hey, thanks, man,” Leo replies with genuine delight. He opens it up to reveal a paper full of dicks and ‘JUST KIDDING GO HOME DICKWAD’ printed on the inside. “I’ll treasure it. Nice shading.”
“Thanks,” Peter mutters. Gwen makes it onto the bus just as the engine starts and hurls herself on top of both of them.
“We’re going to Peter’s house,” she sings.
“Miss Stacy, this bus is not moving until you’re in your own seat,” the bus driver yells. Gwen vaults over the back of the seat and slams down next to a terrified junior.
“Peter’s hot dad’s gonna make us pizza, yes he is, hell yeah,” she continues singing, without missing a beat, while Leo croons improv backup vocals.
Once they get off the bus the annoyance fades and the reality of the situation really hits Peter. His stomach starts to hurt and his palms go clammy and sweaty. Every step they take along the long dirt road reinforces the feeling of a march towards certain doom. Gwen and Leo are beyond hyped to the point where they’re both practically skipping, occasionally bumping hips or trying to shove each other into the ditch, so they don’t notice until Peter stops walking and sits down abruptly in the dirt.
“Oh, hey, what’s wrong, baby boy?” Leo says, kneeling down in front of Peter. “Talk to me, Pete.”
“You okay?” Gwen’s tone turns abruptly motherly as she crouches down and starts rubbing Peter’s back. “Hey, what’s the matter?”
“I don’t feel so good,” Peter mumbles.
Gwen takes one of his sweaty palms, continuing to rub his back with the other. “Oh, honey. Is this that thing where you get so nervous you make yourself sick?”
“I don’t do that,” Peter defends.
“Last year’s finals beg to differ,” Gwen says.
“Aw, Petey, we didn’t mean to put so much pressure on you,” Leo says soothingly, squeezing Peter’s knee. “We don’t have to go to your house. Let’s turn around right now. We can try and hitch to Bleecker, dick around there for a while.”
Peter is very tempted to take him up on it, but Tony’s expecting them, and he’s probably hyped up Morgan too. So he takes a deep breath. “I kinda have to tell you guys something.”
“No way,” Gwen says, eyes going wide in exaggerated shock. “Your dad really is Tony Stark?”
“Gwennie, don’t tease him,” Leo says.
Peter winces. “Um...yes. Kind of.”
A pause.
“What?” Leo and Gwen shriek in unison. Leo sits down heavily on his butt, and Gwen scuttles away backwards like a startled crab.
Peter sighs. “He’s not my dad.”
Gwen’s eyes are like saucers, for real this time. “But he is Tony Stark.”
“Yeah,” Peter says miserably.
“Tony Stark, Iron Man, dropped you off at school and honked the horn like an embarrassing soccer dad until you told him you loved him.”
“Uh huh.” Peter draws his knees up to his chest and buries his face into his arms.
“Well, shit,” Leo says, still flat on his butt in the dust. “I’d heard Stark had gone upstate somewhere and was running the company remotely, but...”
“How...who...what...” Gwen splutters. “Um, can we have some context here?”
“I was his intern. You know, before. And then I lost my aunt and kind of...had no one to look after me? So he kinda volunteered, but also he needed help with the baby...” Peter trails off.
“Oh my God, your sister is Morgan Stark,” Leo breathes.
“Were you worried we’d make a big deal about it?” Gwen says, recovering her composure a little and scooting back towards Peter to squeeze his wrist.
Peter squints. “Is that not what’s happening right now?”
“Point taken.” Leo stands back up, slapping the dust off the rear of his jeans. “C’mere, Pete. Upsy-daisy.” He grabs both Peter’s hands and hauls him to his feet. “Okay. I’m adjusted. You adjusted, Gwennie?”
“Yup,” Gwen says. “Shock over. Peter is Tony Stark’s adopted ward. Tony Stark is a lame dad who wears baseball hats to drop his kids off at school. Got it.” She dusts herself off daintily and links her arm with Peter’s. “Onwards!”
Peter feels a little better as they approach the house. They stop to say hello to Gerald and feed him leftover carrots from Leo’s lunch, then Peter shows them the garden, and then he can’t stall anymore.
“We’re home!” Peter calls as he bangs through the front door.
“Hey kid,” he hears Tony yell from somewhere in the vicinity of the kitchen, then the man himself comes into view, wearing one of his least ridiculous aprons and dusted in a light coating of flour. He wipes a hand on the apron front and extends it to Gwen.
“Hey, I’m Tony,” he says.
Gwen is clearly trying not to Make a Big Deal, so she settles for a simple “Gwen Stacy” as she shakes his hand, but Peter can tell by the glint in her eye that she’s dying to start interrogating Tony about Stark nanotech at the first opportunity.
“Leo Zemlinsky,” Leo says. Tony shakes his hand and then squints at him.
“Is that Versace? That jacket’s not even supposed to be out yet.”
“Oh, uh,” Leo says shyly, picking at the sleeves. “I kind of made it. Using the runway shots as reference. Good eye.”
“Wow!” Tony crows, leaning forward to inspect the jacket. “That’s incredible. The stitching on this is obscene. What kind of leather is that?”
Leo laughs. “Don’t know. Cannibalized it from an XXXL men’s jacket at Goodwill.”
“Genius,” Tony says appreciatively. “Hey, Gwen, Peter was telling me about your paper on biomedical nanotech the other day. You know that’s the kind of stuff I studied at MIT back in the day? It’s like kids just keep getting smarter and smarter. Maybe Morgan will be engineering little tiny doombots of her own by the time she’s in elementary school. Hey, where is she, anyways?” Having successfully distracted himself, Tony turns around, casting a suspicious eye towards the living room. “You know what they say about toddlers...it’s when the little assholes are too quiet that you start worrying...Morgan!”
A heavy clunking noise starts making its way towards them, accompanied by a little call of “I comin’!”
Morgan shuffles into view, looking like a literal cherub wearing the most slap-you-in-the-face adorable animal-print pinafore dress with her hair done up in tiny twin buns. She’s dragging Baby behind her.
“Petey!” she shrieks excitedly, stretching her hands towards him. Baby drops with a thunk to the ground.
“Shit,” Morgan says.
“Okay, that’s enough out of you,” Tony says, leaning down to collect her. She squirms out of his grasp and makes a mad dash for Peter.
“Petey, Petey, Petey,” she chants, trying to climb up his pant leg. Peter gives in with a laugh and lifts her up onto his hip. “Who dat?” she asks him, pointing towards Gwen and Leo. “Who dat?”
Since Leo is too busy trying to smother his laughter in his elbow, Gwen leans forward. “Hey, Morgan,” she says with a smile. “I’m Gwen.”
“Why she know my name?” Morgan whispers to Peter, wide-eyed. “Huh, Petey?”
“’Cause you’re famous, monkey,” Peter stage-whispers back.
“Oh,” Morgan whispers. “Hi, Gwen,” she says shyly, then buries her head in Peter’s shoulder with a squeal.
“Okay, honey, we’ve got pizza to make,” Tony says to Morgan. “Back to the kitchen. We’ll hang out with Petey and his friends later.”
“’Kay,” Morgan agrees, and does that terrifying thing where she tries to launch herself wholesale out of Peter’s arms without waiting to be put down. Peter catches her at the last second and manages to get her safely to the ground before she takes off after Tony.
“Don’t leave Baby lying around,” Tony calls over his shoulder.
“Baby!” Morgan squeals, scampering back to pick Baby up and then lugging it back towards the kitchen, one heavy clunk at a time.
“Oh my God,” Leo says, the second Peter shuts the door to his room behind them. “Your family is precious and I would literally die for them.”
“Yeah?” Peter says, with a hesitant smile.
“Seriously,” Gwen agrees. “So cute. Tony Stark in an apron.”
“Ew, don’t perv on my dad,” Peter complains.
“Oh, so he is your dad,” Leo teases.
Peter realizes what he’s said and can feel himself flushing a deep scarlet. “Ugh! No! He’s not! I just meant, stop perving on my...sort-of-dad-type...guy!”
“Hey, don’t pick on him,” Gwen says to Leo with a frown.
Peter throws himself onto his bed, quietly screaming into his pillow at the hypocrisy.
“Okay, okay, we’re sorry,” Leo says, climbing right into bed with him and spooning him. “We didn’t mean it. You’re just so damn cute when you get worked up.”
“Yeah,” Gwen agrees, squeezing herself in and cuddling him aggressively from the other side. “Our little flailing lobster son. We love you. Don’t be mad.”
“Okay,” Peter says sulkily, because he’s a sucker for cuddles and they both know it. “Can we play Mortal Kombat?”
“Of course we can,” Gwen says fondly, dropping a smacking kiss on the top of his head.
After a few rounds of Mortal Kombat, Leo loses interest and starts poking around the room while he lets Gwen and Peter demolish each other.
“Oh, holy shit, look at this thing!” he cries, picking up Droney. “You made this, Pete?”
“Um, Tony made it,” Peter says, twisting around to take a look. Gwen takes advantage of the split second of distraction to combo Peter’s fighter straight into oblivion. “I helped, though. Ugh, Gwen.”
“Fatality,” the announcer booms, as Gwen’s character eats Peter’s character’s brain in a grotesquely detailed cutscene.
“Hey, look,” Leo says. He grabs a photo frame off the dresser. “This you and Ned?”
Peter smiles as Leo sits back down next to them and hands him the photo. “Yeah,” he says. It’s a picture of them on the first day of junior high, grinning toothily on the front stoop of Ned’s house. They’re wearing matching Star Wars shirts.
“Aw,” Gwen says, resting her chin on Peter’s shoulder. “I love it. Do you have more?”
“Uh huh,” Peter says, and reaches over to dig out one of the many scrapbooks he’s made over the past year. He flips through until he finds a picture of the AcaDec team.
“Oh, you went to one of those fancy inner-city magnet schools, huh?” Gwen says. “Is that how you scored an internship with Tony Stark?”
“Yep,” Peter agrees, relieved for the built-in cover story.
Leo points to the picture. “Who’s that girl flipping off the camera behind you?”
“MJ. Michelle. You guys would’ve liked her. She’s...she was really cool.” Peter laughs and scratches the back of his neck. “I kind of had a huge crush on her.”
“Sorry, man,” Leo says. Leo’s boyfriend had been Dusted. He doesn’t really talk about it, but Peter reaches over and squeezes his hand anyways.
Tony calls them down for dinner shortly afterward, while they’re playing with Droney. He’s made a truly excessive amount of pizza, but now that Peter’s over the worst of his nerves he finds it kinda sweet. He wraps Tony in a quick hug.
“Why are you being so nice? Did aliens take your brain? Go sit down,” Tony replies gruffly, but he’s making that weird face that he always does when he’s having feelings, so Peter just grins back and turns to lift Morgan into her chair.
“Hey, can we talk about the drone in Peter’s room?” Leo says. “What’s the efficiency on that motor?”
“Around ninety percent,” Tony replies, helping himself to a slice of siciliana.
“You’re kidding. I saw that thing in motion, it was doing flips. Wouldn’t the RPM have to be at least fifty thousand?”
“Yup. Pete found a way to use a magnetic sheet to increase the heat dissipation, bumped the efficiency up by about two percent without compromising RPM.”
And they’re off, into a conversation that careens through biology, nanotech, robotics, pizza recipes, and everything in between. Morgan manages almost a full slice of pizza before getting antsy and spending the rest of the meal climbing in and out of people’s laps. When it’s Leo’s turn his face melts into an expression of pure adoration, like he’s been personally selected by a tiny angel, and he lets Morgan pick all of the basil off his pizza without complaint.
“Hold Baby,” Morgan instructs him, climbing off his lap and holding up the wrench. “I go see Gwen.”
“Anything for you, Miss Morgan,” Leo says gravely and sets Baby across his knees.
After dinner Tony sends them all outside and they elect for a raucous, shrieking game of tag with Morgan, who is surprisingly fast for her size. The rules keep getting more and more complicated as they play.
“Leo, you Bowser,” Morgan orders. She hasn’t mastered her L’s quite yet, so it comes out like Yee-o. “Run like Bowser.”
“Aw man, isn’t that a handicap?” Leo complains. “Can I eat people when I catch them at least?”
“Yeah,” Morgan agrees, then takes off screaming “I MARIO! I MARIO!” Leo lumbers after her roaring, and then Peter decides this is his chance to do his best Donkey Kong impression and ambles towards Gwen on his knuckles.
“No no no no no!” Gwen squeals, skipping backwards. “That’s weird and I hate it! No!”
“Ooh ooh,” Peter hoots, picking up the pace.
“Fine, then I’m Peach and I’ll kill you with my sword!” Gwen yells, picking up a stick to fend him off.
The game ends when Morgan abruptly flops onto her tummy in the middle of the grass and says “’Kay, we done.”
They all troop back inside, sweaty and exhausted. Tony makes everyone iced tea before he drives Gwen and Leo home.
“I like your friends,” Tony says on the way back from Gwen’s house. “Do you think you’ll ever have them over again, or did we scare them away?”
“Nah,” Peter says with a grin. “They loved you. You created a monster, now they’re going to be over all the time.”
“Suits me,” Tony shrugs. “Could always use more help in the lab, and you’ve found two fine new recruits for my army of child labourers.”
“You know Gwen would literally kill a man to get into your lab, right?”
“I got that impression, yeah. Good for her. I admire that kind of terrifying ambition.”
As they step into the front door, Peter turns and hugs Tony again, burying his face into his chest.
“Hi, kid,” Tony says, wrapping his arms around Peter. “What’s this all about?”
“Thanks,” Peter says. “For being a really good...sort-of-dad-type...guy.” He releases Tony abruptly and runs up the stairs to his room, yells “LEAVE SOME OF THE PESTO PIZZA FOR ME OR I’LL DIE!” for good measure, and then slams his door.
The mood always gets weightier in the weeks leading up to the anniversary of the Snap. Everywhere. News coverage is full of planned events for the memorial day, retrospectives, shitty re-enactments of the events in Wakanda, and endless speculation on the future of a halved planet. (There had been a push last year to rebrand it as ‘the Decimation’ - Peter supposes the Snap didn’t sound ominous enough - but it never really caught on.)
Everyone handles it differently. Peter’s teachers are all quieter, drawn, moving through lessons without enthusiasm. The students are pretty much evenly split between making increasingly dark jokes to cope or straight-up wandering the halls crying. Leo just stops showing up for a while. Gwen quietly sings ‘Another One Bites the Dust’ to herself as she sets out on an equally grim and maniacal study marathon that Peter knows has nothing to do with their upcoming midterms.
Last year Peter and Tony hadn’t acknowledged the anniversary in the slightest. By some unspoken agreement they hadn’t turned on the TV once in the month leading up to it. They didn’t laugh or joke much, but neither expressed any outward sadness, either. They’d just kept going, day after day, battling through the murky grey armed only with the hope that they’d come out the other side eventually.
Peter feels like they’re sharing a burden so heavy that if either one of them makes the tiniest slip, the whole thing will come down and crush them both underneath it, and they’ll never be able to get up again. They have no choice. They just have to keep going and watch their step.
Last year the fog had been so heavy that it was easy enough to just keep going with eyes straight ahead. This year Peter feels sharper, clearer, more awake. And that’s dangerous. It’s like there’s an enormous number ticker lodged behind his eyelids, counting down the minutes until he has to face his ultimate failure.
(He wonders if Tony sees it too.)
In the two weeks before the anniversary Peter visits May’s grave every day. It wasn’t like he didn’t visit often before. Every time he wanted to talk to her, he wandered out and laid on his back and just talked, sometimes for hours. Now it’s different. Now he sits with his legs crossed in front of that smooth marbled stone and stares, the words all bunched up in his throat. Tony hasn’t been to see Pepper for the entire month. Peter brings extra flowers for her and is careful to keep the stone clear of dirt and weeds. It’s all he can do.
(It’s not enough.)
Morgan is small, but even she understands that something is different. She gets fiercely clingy, screaming if Tony tries to put her down, and refusing to sleep anywhere but Peter’s bed. Tony and Peter try their best to seem normal around her but the weight is so heavy and there’s nowhere to put it down.
One night, while Morgan throws a truly epic tantrum over a vegetable that she had eaten happily the day before, Peter makes eye contact with Tony. The screams are grating on him. He’s so tired. He hasn’t been this tired since those first few months.
“Should we tell her? You know, about...”
Tony’s face cracks into something so terrifying and raw that it feels like Peter has been punched directly in the chest.
“Next year,” Tony says, his voice barely above a whisper. “She’s...she’s too young.” He stands up abruptly, like he’s going to run in the other direction, then takes a deep breath and sits back down. Peter watches him put his broken expression back together, unable to look away.
“Okay, honey,” Tony says to Morgan, with only a hint of a tremble. “No corn.” He gathers her into his arms and presses his face into her hair. “I’m sorry.”
Peter suddenly feels like he’s been pulled out of his own body and is watching the whole scene from five feet above. Drifting, like a spectre. All he can think is, I don’t belong, I shouldn’t be here.
“Peter,” Tony says sharply, pulling him back down into himself. Peter gets up and leaves the table.
The night before the anniversary, Peter pushes open the door to the lab. Tony is there. He’s not doing anything. He’s just hunched over, staring at nothing.
He looks smaller and older than Peter has ever seen him. It makes something terrible well up in Peter’s chest.
“We have to talk,” Peter says loudly.
Tony doesn’t move a muscle. Just keeps staring. “Peter,” he says hoarsely, “please don’t.”
“Please don’t what?” Peter snaps, taking a step forward and letting the door bang shut behind him.
“I know you’re angry at me,” Tony whispers. “I’m so sorry.”
“How could you-” Peter runs his hands through his hair so roughly he accidentally yanks a few strands out. “Why do you have to always make everything about you? I’m mad at myself.”
That gets Tony’s attention. He looks up at Peter. His face is so grey and lined, like all the life has been sucked out of it. “What?”
“You were there. You know I couldn’t get the gauntlet off in time. I was useless-”
“Stop, Peter,” Tony says, his voice taking on a warning edge to it.
“We have to talk about this,” Peter yells, slamming his fist into the wall, only because he knows it’s reinforced and won’t even dent. His hand throbs instead. “We have to-”
“We don’t,” Tony thunders. He stands up so fast that his chair clatters to the floor behind him. “I failed the entire universe and I know that!”
“We failed!” Peter screams back at him. “I was there!”
“Only because you wouldn’t fucking listen to me!” Tony yells. “I didn’t want you to be there! I would’ve given anything for you not to be there!”
The words clang and ricochet through Peter’s head like bullets off a wall of steel. I didn’t want you to be there. I didn’t want you. They’re so loud that he can’t think straight. I didn’t want you. You wouldn’t fucking listen.
“Fuck you!” Peter shouts, so loudly that his voice starts to go hoarse. “You should’ve let me die in space then! Fuck you!”
He knows as soon as the words leave his mouth that he’s crossed a line. That awful shattered look breaks across Tony’s face again, but orders of magnitude worse than the last time. His eyes are empty and haunted, and Peter knows Tony is watching him die all over again in his mind’s eye. He steps back, horrified at himself, and turns to throw the lab door open and sprint back up the stairs.
“Get out,” he hears Tony say weakly after him, before the door slams shut again.
The next morning Peter sneaks out, crawling as silently as he can out his bedroom window and dropping lightly down to the grass below. He pulls his hoodie closer against the chill and starts walking, then picks up to a jog, then to a full out run, his feet pounding as he whips through the forest, at his full enhanced speed. The scream of his muscles is a welcome distraction, each ragged breath loosening the knot behind his sternum.
Gwen meets him at the McDonald’s in Gloversville two hours later. Peter’s already eaten three combo meals and carefully disposed of the evidence, but he’s hungry and pissed enough that he orders more food when she does.
They don’t talk. Peter knows that Gwen misses her mom and most of her extended family. Gwen knows that Peter misses May, and Ned, and all the people he lost before Thanos. There’s no need to say it again. So they just keep ordering coffees and single wrapped cookies and four-packs of chicken nuggets, picking at them in silence, even though they know the girl behind the counter doesn’t give enough of a shit to kick them out today of all days.
“Shouldn’t you be with your dad today?” Peter asks her, pushing fries around in a pool of ketchup.
“Shouldn’t you be with yours?” Gwen shoots back.
“It’s just...suffocating in that house right now.”
“Yep,” Gwen agrees, stealing a fry. “Exactly.”
“Think we could get Leo to come out?” Peter wonders absently.
Gwen gives him a look, full of sorrow. “Not today, Pete.”
When the McDonald’s finally closes at seven, Peter insists on escorting Gwen back home. They walk hand-in-hand and in complete silence.
“Go home,” Gwen says gently as they come to a stop in front of her house. “Go be with Tony.”
“He doesn’t want me there,” Peter says, his eyes filling with unexpected tears.
“I think you know that’s not true,” Gwen murmurs, leaning over to gather Peter into a loose hug.
Peter walks back, and it takes him three hours this time. He doesn’t cut through the forest and moves at trudging pace.
When he finally crawls back through his window, his room is completely undisturbed. It doesn’t look like the door’s even been opened. He drops into his bed without changing his clothes. It’s cold, so cold, but he can’t bring himself to even get under the covers. He just lays there staring at the wall until it’s impossible to tell whether he’s awake or dreaming.
Peter and Tony don’t talk for days, not really. They skirt awkwardly past each other in the kitchen and Peter spends all his time either locked in his room or wandering around the edge of the lake. He doesn’t visit May. He’s too ashamed.
I didn’t want you, a harsh, distorted version of Tony’s voice echoes in his brain, whenever he closes his eyes. It makes him wince.
But then, sometimes, he hears Gwen: I think you know that’s not true.
Peter desperately wants to apologize, but every time he looks at Tony all he can see is the uncharacteristic stoop in his shoulders, the exhausted tinge to his voice when he talks to Morgan, and all he can think is I caused that, and it hurts so much he wants to throw up.
One night as Peter is laying in bed, staring at the wall, a knock sounds on his door.
His breath hitches and he tries to force down all the irrational panic thoughts, like this is it, this is when he kicks me out, and calls “Come in.”
Tony doesn’t say anything, but the bedsprings creak and the mattress sinks with his weight. After a moment a tentative hand rests on Peter’s shoulder.
Tears start to roll down Peter’s cheeks. He takes a deep, shuddering breath.
“I’m so sorry, Tony,” he sobs. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean it. I’m sorry.”
The mattress shifts again as Tony lays down next to Peter and gathers him in his arms. Peter rolls over and buries his face into Tony’s soft worn AC/DC t-shirt, crying so hard he starts to hiccup.
“Oh, okay, okay,” Tony whispers, rubbing small circles in Peter’s back. “It’s okay, bambino.”
“Please don’t make me leave,” Peter says, his voice shaking so much it’s almost inaudible.
“What?” Tony says, sounding alarmed. “Why would you think that?”
“I’m eighteen now,” Peter reminds him, refusing to meet his eyes. “You - you don’t have to look after me anymore.”
“Oh, Peter,” Tony sighs, dropping a kiss on his temple. “I’m going to look after you for the rest of your life, whether you want me to or not.”
“Why?”
“Because that’s what fathers do.”
“Okay,” Peter says, and finally lifts his face to look at Tony directly. Tony’s crying too, but that horrible broken look is gone, and something gentle and sad has taken its place. He buries his head back in Tony’s chest and they let the pain and the tears out until there’s nothing left but a bone-deep exhaustion, and then a long dreamless sleep.
“Let’s go to MIT.”
“What?” Leo says, barely looking up from his stitching.
“Gwennie’s going,” Peter coaxes, sticking his head between Leo and the fabric he’s working on. “We should go too.”
“Gwen has been gunning for MIT her entire life like a heat-seeking missile aimed straight out of her mother’s womb.” Leo tries to push Peter’s head out of the way. “Two walnuts like us have no chance.”
“Oh, don’t listen to him,” Leo’s mom says as she passes through the living room, stopping to ruffle Peter’s hair. “You keep dreaming, baby.”
“See?” Peter pesters. “Your mom agrees with me.”
Leo finally puts down his project. “What is this all of a sudden, Pete?”
“I just...” Peter flaps his hands in frustration. “You’re smart, and I’m smart, and there’s no reason we can’t go to MIT.”
“Grades, extracurriculars, volunteer activities,” Leo drones, ticking them off on his fingers. “And sad essays about your life don’t work with admissions committees anymore.”
“Yeah, I’d kinda been counting on playing the orphan card,” Peter says with a frown.
“Come on, Pete,” Leo says, folding his long legs and shifting until he’s facing Peter. “What is this? Why MIT?”
Peter turns to face Leo too, sitting cross-legged, and takes both Leo’s hands in his. “Because I love you guys and I want us to stay together and Tony went to MIT and I really want to go,” he says, all in one breath.
Leo tries not to smile and fails. “What if I want to go to NYU, huh?”
“I would love you and support you and miss you every single day.” Peter thinks for a moment, then adds: “Counterpoint: MIT robotics club.”
“Yeah, okay,” Leo says. “MIT it is.”
When they bring their MIT plan to Gwen, she sits them down and gives them a round lecture to make sure they’re serious and not just fucking around. The next day she brings an enormous colour-coded binder to school filled with calculations on how they can get their grades up, volunteer activities they can sign up for, and a five-step plan to create a Mayfield Robotics Club that’s actually just Gwen’s dream underground bot battling ring disguised in admissions-friendly language.
“Let’s go to Empire State College,” Peter suggests one evening. Gwen won’t let them leave the library until they’ve scored over 95% on the practice midterm she’s designed.
“Too late, Parker,” Leo says, scribbling answers down frantically. “We dug this grave and now we’re sleeping in it.”
“I think you mixed up two sayings there.”
“It’s called a malapropism,” Gwen says, whacking Peter on the back of the head with her ruler.
Volunteer opportunities in Fulton County are few and far between, so Leo ends up leading a Girl Scout troop and Peter takes Dance and Bingo Night shifts at Johnstown Senior Center. Gwen has already been volunteering for years at county libraries and animal shelters, and when she’s feeling magnanimous she’ll swap shifts with Peter every now and again so he can take a break from breaking up bingo arguments and break up dog arguments instead.
As the days turn cold again the house seems warmer and warmer. Not just because Tony had taken on a characteristically extra summer project of building a new furnace from scratch, but also because Morgan’s first Hanukkah is bearing down on them and the excitement is contagious.
“Latkele, latkele, hop in the pan,” Morgan and Tony are belting together as Tony fries latkes at the stove. Tony is holding Morgan on his hip, her thick sweater, leggings, and little apron keeping her safe from any stray droplets of oil.
“Oh my god that smells so good if I don’t eat one right now I’m going to die,” Peter says, promptly worming his way under Tony’s other arm and making it impossible for him to use his spatula properly.
“Rest in peace, kid,” Tony says solemnly. “How was bingo night?”
“It was lit,” Peter responds, stealing the spatula from Tony and poking at the latkes.
“What’s with all this altruism all of a sudden, huh?” Tony says.
“I’m a naturally altruistic person.”
Morgan is still singing the latke song to herself at top volume. Tony taps his ear. “What?”
“It’s for college.”
“Oh,” Tony says, very obviously trying not to sound too pleased. “Well, carry on then.”
On the fifth night of Hanukkah, Peter and Tony watch Morgan sorting gelt in some kind of incomprehensible system that seems to make sense in her toddler brain. Peter has demonstrated to her over and over again that gelt is for eating, but so far Morgan has yet to unwrap a single one. Tony keeps finding them in extremely weird places and Peter accidentally triggered a temper tantrum by starting a fire without realizing Morgan had hidden a stash in the ashes.
“She’s just like her mom that way,” Tony says. Peter is lying stretched across the couch with his head in Tony’s lap, and he can feel Tony laughing. He can’t move because for once in his life he overestimated how much sufganiyot he could eat in one sitting.
“Yeah?” Peter says, smiling sleepily.
“Used to drive me nuts. I’d buy Pep all her favourite chocolate and candy for birthdays and anniversaries, and she’d just stash it in random places, like a squirrel. Then I’d get in shit if I ate any. What was she going to do with year-old chocolate, anyways?”
“Never had that problem in our house,” Peter muses. “All three of us were candy fiends. No stash ever lasted more than a week. Ben was the worst, he was like a chocolate bloodhound.”
“Oh, so that’s where you get it from.”
“Yup.” Peter grins cheekily up at Tony. “Sorry about your M&M’s, by the way.”
Tony groans. “Oh, you didn’t.”
“I didn’t,” Peter says cheerfully. “Just fucking with you.”
“I will destroy everything you love.”
“That’s Gwen’s go-to threat, find a different one.”
“I’ll place a curse on your descendants until the end of time.”
“Nice.”
A few long, warm moments pass. Peter watches the fire and smiles as Morgan mutters to herself, something along the lines of One, ten, free, four, go there, dat go here, etc. etc. She’s too young to really count things, more just saying numbers that she knows as she plays with her gelt, but Peter still can’t help feeling insanely proud of her. That’s his little sister. She’s so cute and so weird. He wishes he could read her mind and figure out what’s going on in her baby brain. He loves her so much it makes his chest ache.
Peter can feel more than hear Tony’s breathing slowing, bordering on a snore.
“Tony, wake up,” he says. Tony snorts and jerks a little.
“Huh? What? I’m awake,” Tony grumbles. “What do you want, you menace?”
“Can you teach me to drive tomorrow?”
“Rome wasn’t built in a day,” Tony says, pinching Peter’s ear. “But yeah, we can take the car out and get started.”
Tony insists they bring Morgan, probably out of a misguided notion that having a baby in the car will somehow force Peter to be a better driver. He’s wrong. There’s a lot of screaming, some crying (mostly from Morgan, a little from Peter) and the whole thing ends with Peter flinging himself out of the driver’s seat and vowing never to return.
“I don’t know why you wanted to learn to drive from this jackass,” Rhodes says a couple days later, clapping Peter on the shoulder as they get in the car. “You should’ve called me from the start.”
“Yeah, whatever,” Tony scoffs. “You only agreed when I bribed you with brisket and knishes.” He goes to open the rear door.
“Out,” Rhodes orders. “You don’t get to come along for the maiden voyage.”
“What? What do you mean? It’s my car.”
“You stress the kid out.”
“I have perfectly reasonable reactions to him driving like a goddamned maniac.”
“Pot, meet kettle,” Rhodes says, and that’s that. Tony stomps back inside, Morgan in tow, only to be vindicated when Rhodes and Peter return an hour later.
“You’re right,” Rhodes groans. “The kid is deranged. How can he be so aggressive on a rural road with literally no one else on it?”
“I’m not aggressive,” Peter protests, shucking his snow-covered boots. “I drive defensively.”
Rhodes raises an eyebrow. “Who the hell taught you that?”
“May did,” Peter says.
“Oh, the same May who punched me in the face the second time we met,” Tony says blandly. “I see.”
“Enough of this bullshit. Where’s my brisket?” Rhodes interrupts, making a beeline for the kitchen.
After dinner they light the menorah and then spread themselves out in front of the fire for a game of dreidl, which eventually gets so absurdly competitive that everyone’s yelling like it’s a football match. Morgan puts an abrupt end to it all by eating half the raisins they’re using as game pieces.
“I was going to get you a car for Christmas,” Tony says sourly, “but now I’m not so sure.”
“God, you’re a sore loser,” Rhodes says as he rolls his eyes.
“I wasn’t losing. If Morgan hadn’t eaten the pot I would’ve turned things around.”
“Don’t buy me a car,” Peter protests.
Tony sits up and turns to face him. “Why not, kid?”
“Because...” Peter searches for the words. “You’re going to get me something crazy and expensive and then I’ll just have to feel guilty about it for the rest of my life.”
“That’s not how that works,” Tony frowns. “I’m getting you a car.”
“You are not.”
Rhodes grins. “You two are so fucking strange. It’s delightful.”
“I’m not strange,” Tony says. “He’s strange. What kid doesn’t want a car? Wouldn’t it be easier than having to take the bus everywhere? Transit out here is so shitty.”
“Don’t want it,” Peter says, then plants his face into the carpet.
“What are you doing? You think you can hide from me like an ostrich or something? You can’t escape this conversation. What if I agreed to a budget?”
“Fifty dollars,” Peter mumbles into the floor.
“Two thousand.”
“Too much.”
“What? That’s what a beater goes for these days. Don’t be obtuse.”
“Three hundred.”
“Fine,” Tony agrees, sounding utterly exasperated. “Three hundred.”
Peter figures he’s safe, since he’s pretty sure Tony has never owned anything that cost less than three hundred dollars in his entire life and probably can’t even conceptualize that amount of money.
He’s wrong. On Christmas Day, after Morgan has unwrapped her presents and proceeded to start playing with the boxes instead, Tony throws him a tiny package.
It bounces off Peter’s forehead. “Ow.”
“Open it,” Tony says with a suspicious amount of glee.
It’s a set of very worn car keys. Peter looks up. “Tony...” he says.
“It’s under budget. Come see.” Tony jogs to the front door and flings it open. Peter follows hesitantly.
There in the driveway is an old, boxy, rusted, utterly beat-to-shit turquoise station wagon.
Peter takes one step, then another, then takes off at a run towards the car. He inspects it from every angle and then turns back to Tony.
“I...I kinda love it,” he says, feeling a little overwhelmed.
“I knew you would,” Tony brags. “1995 Honda Accord. Sturdy as hell but great driving dynamics. This thing’s older than you are, kid. Got it on Craigslist for two fifty.”
Peter hurls himself into Tony’s chest, nearly knocking him over. “I take back every time I ever talked back to you this is the best car I’ve ever seen I love it and did I mention you’re also the best dad ever and I love you,” he says so fast that it comes out in a barely-intelligible jumble.
Tony bear hugs him back. “We’re gonna have so much fun fixing this thing up. Let’s put armor on it.”
“And flamethrowers.”
“Spikes on the front. Turret gun on the back.”
“Mounted tablet on the backseat for Morgan’s movies.”
“Badass.”
The station wagon isn’t driveable yet (Peter doesn’t ask how Tony managed to get it into the driveway in the first place), but Tony lets Peter drive his car on their way into New York for Christmas dinner at the Avengers compound. Peter only freaks out once when a lifted pickup cuts him off on the highway and Tony does his best to deep breathe through the whole thing. It’s progress.
“Hey, there’s my kids,” Rhodes says when they arrive, gathering all three of them into his arms at once and kissing them each soundly on both cheeks. “Look at these three, Bruce. They’re so grown up.”
“Aw, you’re right,” Bruce says. “Look, Tony’s even got some greys coming in.”
“Fuck you,” Tony says happily, enveloping Bruce in a crushing embrace while Natasha and Steve melt down in tandem over Morgan’s little red Christmas dress complete with matching green bows in her hair.
A woman Peter doesn’t know approaches him and promptly wraps him in a hug of her own. “Hey, Peter Parker,” she says warmly. Her voice sounds sort of familiar.
“Hi,” Peter says nervously.
“Carol, last time you saw the kid he was dead,” another woman calls from behind her. “Honey, that’s Carol Danvers. I’m Maria, and this is my daughter Monica.”
“Oh!” Peter says, a lightbulb going off in his head. “You’re Captain Marvel! Wow! You totally saved my life, and also you’re like super strong and could probably blow up a planet with your bare hands!”
Carol laughs and releases him. “Haven’t tried yet. Good to see you in the land of the living, kid.”
“Good to see you too,” Peter says, feeling shy and awkward but also thrilled. “Um...thanks. For everything.”
Carol grins at him and punches his arm, and then Natasha is muscling in for a hug and everyone’s offering him Christmas cookies and the gathering is suddenly in full swing.
On the drive back home, Peter watches Tony for a while. His profile is soft and indistinct in the flickering streetlights, and then the headlights of passing cars on the highway.
“What’s up, kid?” Tony says, still watching the road carefully. Peter remembers a time long ago when Tony had picked him up for one of the few evenings he’d spent at the Compound. Tony had never watched the road then, turning around and happily chattering to Peter while skillfully weaving through traffic in his flashy Audi at a terrifying speed. It seems so far away. Almost like a dream.
“You don’t have to try so hard to get along with Steve,” Peter says. Tony doesn’t visibly react and takes his time to think that over.
“Where’s this coming from?” he says at last. “Weren’t you the one all excited for the band to get back together?”
“Yeah,” Peter admits. “I was wrong. I’m sorry I pushed you about it so much.”
“Pete, you weren’t wrong. Your intentions were good.”
“I know,” Peter says. “And I know you’re trying. I can really tell. It just seems like...if it’s been this long and you still have to try so hard, something really bad must’ve happened.”
Tony hums. “I thought you knew what happened.”
“I thought I did too,” Peter says. “Like, the whole thing with the Winter Soldier and your parents. But I know there was something that went down after you found out, and you got hurt, bad. I overheard Nat and Rhodey talking about it once.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Tony says brusquely. “Past is past.”
“No it’s not,” Peter argues. “It’s not okay if someone hurts you.”
“You sound like a Captain America PSA.”
“Tony.”
Tony sighs, long and heavy. “Okay. I’m sorry, deflecting is what I do. Peter, I’ve had years and years to think about it. Years to ask myself questions like, what if the Winter Soldier had been someone important to me. Someone like you, or Rhodey. What if it were Steve’s parents? Would I be able to keep a secret like that from him to protect someone I loved that much?”
“And?” Peter says quietly.
“Without a doubt.”
“What about the thing that happened after?”
Tony pauses. Peter watches his brow furrow.
“I don’t know, kid. That’s where it gets fuzzy for me. I just don’t know.”
“Okay,” Peter whispers.
“Oh, bambino.” Tony takes one hand off the steering wheel and grasps Peter’s fingers in his own. “You don’t have to worry about us old men and our grudges. I know I brought you into it, and it was because I was a selfish stupid asshole and I wasn’t thinking straight, but I’m telling you now you don’t have to worry about it anymore.”
“I’ll always worry about you,” Peter counters, frowning. “And you can’t stop me.”
“God, kid, you are such a mensch. What am I going to do with you?” Tony laughs.
“Always listen to me and tell me everything and be my best friend forever.”
Tony pulls into the driveway and throws the car into park. “Yeah, okay,” he says with a grin, squeezing Peter's hand. “I can do that.”