Archive of Our Own

Tony was no stranger to waking up in a room he didn’t recognise.

Being the son of an infamous billionaire as a child and becoming an even more infamous Avenger himself throughout adulthood meant that Tony had encountered more than enough people who wished to use him for their own gain. Whether it was money or weapons or power they sought, they always tended to stick to the same routine:

Capture, monologue, escape.

Well… the escape was more Tony’s part of the plan, but his long list of captors never seemed to get the memo.

So when Tony opened his bleary eyes to be met with six bare, cemented walls, he found it in himself not to panic. Forced himself to take a deep breath because he had done this a dozen times before and would escape just like always.

But then he sat up and saw the unconscious figure lying on the other side of the room, his once calm heartrate speeding up like a racehorse as he scrambled to the person’s -the kid’s- side.

“Peter?” Tony breathed the name out shakily, his hands hovering over the boy’s limp form before settling on his shoulder. “Kid… Kid wake up.”

It took a gentle shake but eventually Peter stirred back to life, his face scrunching up with a groan as he tried to regain his bearings. It was then that Tony noticed the two red marks on the teen’s neck, swollen and sharp, like the one Tony quickly found on his own throat a moment later.

“Mi’er ‘tar-k…” Peter slurred as he finally blinked open his eyes. His pupils were blown wide, but Tony couldn’t find any blood through his hair that would suggest a concussion, so he forced himself not to panic.

“Yeah buddy, it’s me,” Tony answer gently. “It looks like our over-excited hosts gave you a double dose, so just take it easy for a second, okay?”

Too disoriented to do anything else, Peter just nodded and laid his head back against the cement to sleep off the rest of the sedatives or whatever the hell they had used on him. Tony sat at his side the entire time and brushed his fingers through the boy’s chestnut curls, trying to remember how they got here while simultaneously checking Peter for any injuries. He didn’t seem hurt much to Tony’s relief, but the longer the silence ensued, the longer he began to worry.

By now someone with a stick up their arse had already barged into the room and proclaimed how masterful they were to catch the one and only Ironman. They would gloat and sneer and probably beat them down for good measure, but just like always they would slip up, and Tony would twist their mistake into a key to freedom. Even with Peter here, he was confident he could get them out. Based on the fact they were both still wearing their civilian clothes -a classy suit for Tony and jeans and a science t-shirt for Peter-, they probably didn’t even know the teen was a hero himself, and Tony intended to keep it that way.

Keep their captor’s focus on him and not Peter, that was the goal.

But time ticked by with no real measure as Tony waited by Peter’s side, the silence that consumed the room so cold and foreboding. As expected, both of their watches had been taken away, and the cell was completely devoid of any windows and sunlight. Every inhale and exhale seemed amplified within the cement walls, and Tony wondered if it was soundproof too, just to mess with their heads.

Peter finally came to about half an hour later, pupils reduced back to normal and his body stiff but relatively unharmed. Tony ran through his usual list of questions though just to be sure he wasn’t hiding anything –“Can you breathe right?” “Yes Mr Stark.” “Can you see straight?” “Yeah, I’m fi-“ “Are you bleeding?” “Mr Stark.”- before Peter began looking around their cell with wide, startled eyes.

“W-Where are we?”

“No idea kid, but I’m going to get us out of here,” Tony said, squeezing the boy’s shoulder in reassurance when he noticed his panicked expression. “Don’t know if you’ve heard, but I’m actually pretty famous for this kind of situation.”

Just like he’d hoped Peter’s lips cracked into a weary smile, shoving his shoulder in the gentlest way possible and muttering “Yeah, yeah I know. Let’s not go on a walk down memory lane just yet Mr Stark.”

“Wow, such disrespect. I think I liked you better when you still had that sweet hero worship for me,” Tony scoffed in an attempt to keep the mood light-hearted.

“I like you better when you’re on a sugar high,” Peter mused.

“That was one time Parker, and you know it’s forbidden to mention it.”

This time Peter chuckled, the sound alleviating the heavy tension that had been hanging over them moments ago.

But just as quickly as their serenity had arrived, it was gone, broken like a sheet of ice as a metal creaking echoed across the room. Within seconds Tony had Peter behind his back with an arm thrown out protectively, finally noticing the outline of a concealed door in the wall as a panel slid open from behind it. A small slither of artificial light washed into the room through the opening, but it was barely wide enough for a mouse let alone a person, and the two were left to wonder what could be waiting on the other side.

“Hope you know that kidnapping a Stark has not historically ended well, whoever the hell you are,” Tony called towards the door, waiting to gauge a reaction. A clue as to what kind of person he was dealing with.

But then a deep, smooth voice answered, and their words made Tony freeze like a deer caught in headlights.

“How about a Spiderman?”

Peter’s eyes snapped open in horror, a hand gripping the back of his mentor’s jacket in search of reassurance that Tony wasn’t sure he could offer. The reveal of his identity would definitely make things more difficult, but if Tony played his cards right, he might be able to keep the boy out of harms way for a while longer.

“So what do you want then?” Tony called, deciding to get straight to the point. “Money? Tech?”

A pause, and then in a voice that made Tony shiver, “I just want to play a game.”

“Something tells me we have different kinds of games in mind,” Tony said coldly, his feet shifting to better shield Peter from view.

“Don’t worry,” the stranger replied with a hint of sadistic amusement. “I’ll teach you how to play.”

Shadows enveloped the cell again as something was pushed through the small opening, glinting a vibrant blue when the light revealed its form. It was a vial of some kind, barely the size of Tony’s thumb but swirling with a sickly neon liquid. Tony didn’t need a spider sense to know it wasn’t anything good.

“This bottle holds a poison that will neutralise your nervous system and render you a swift and painless death within minutes. There is only enough poison for one of you however, and any less than the full dose will render you permanently paralysed,” the man explained, his tone light as if anything he just said wasn’t completely mortifying. “Your role as the players is actually quite simple…”

“Pick who dies.”

A growl Tony didn’t even realise he had been holding back rumbled in his throat as he gripped Peter’s shoulder protectively, ignoring the slight tremors he could feel in the boy’s hands as he grasped onto the back of Tony’s jacket.

“When there is only one left, the door will open, and the game will be over.”

“Fuck you,” Tony spat back, the venom burning over his tongue. “I’m not playing any game of yours.”

“I’m afraid the game has already begun, Mr Stark,” the stranger replied simply. “Take as long as you need.”

Then the compartment slid shut and pushed the vial over the small ledge, falling to the ground with a light clatter before the glowing liquid settled inside, taunting them from afar. A poison designed to kill them- no, one of them. A poison designed to tear them apart.

“Mr Stark…”

Peter’s shaky breath is what drew the man back to reality, releasing his hold on the boy’s shoulder when he realised his fingernails had begun to dig in too harshly. “Sorry kid, I’m… I’m fine- we’re fine, alright?” he said, trying to school his voice back into something that even resembled calm.

But he forgot that Peter was too smart for that, feeling the boy’s forehead lean against his shoulder blades as he murmured “I can hear your heartbeat…”

Tony sighed. “Shit…”

“I’m sorry.”

“No, no, don’t- don’t be sorry kid,” Tony said, turning around to properly face his mentee, his kid, and stare into those big doe eyes that he loved so much. As a show of encouragement, Tony rested his hands on Peter’s shoulders -lightly this time-, and assured him “We’re going to be alright kid, you hear me? We’re just going to wait it out, and the Avengers will be here kicking down the door in no time.”

“What if he comes back?” Peter asked nervously.

“If he comes back then he’d have to come into the room, and right now, that’s a hell of a lot better than that fucking vial over there, okay?”

Hesitantly, Peter’s eyes flickered over towards that little, unassuming bottle on the floor, before Tony cupped the boy’s cheek in his hand and turned him back to meet his own firm stare. “Don’t kid,” he said, voice icy. “We’re not playing whatever sick game he has planned. We’re waiting this out together, and we’re going to get out of this together.”

Peter just blinked at him for a moment, the shadows hiding whatever emotions were swirling around his eyes, before he leant into Tony’s hand with an affirming nod. “Right, we’re in this together,” he murmured, and Tony couldn’t help but smile.

“Always, kiddo.”

…

Seconds ticked into minutes, and minutes blurred into hours, and hours dissolved into days.

It didn’t take long before they had completely lost track of time. Darkness had become their newfound friend, as had the heavy silence hanging over the cell aside from their own breathing and menial chatter. They searched for a weakness in their box, searched every nook and cranny for some kind of flaw, but all they found was more cement. Cold, damp cement. And when Peter finally worked up the guts to try and punch the wall where the door must have been, he was rewarded with a set of bloodied knuckles and a resounding humming from the wall.

Vibranium, because of course it couldn’t have been anything other than the strongest metal on earth.

Tony had sat at Peter’s side with his jacket pressed firmly against the open wounds, scolding him for being so reckless, for injuring himself when Tony was doing everything in his power to protect him. The heat was quick to die out of his voice though when Peter just nodded along slowly, his mind lost in thought.

“Do you think it’s covering the whole cell?” he’d asked after a moment, completely ignoring his mentor’s displeased frown from a moment ago.

Tony sighed and inspected the cuts again. “Can’t be sure… but vibranium is extremely rare. Would be a waste to use it on an old, dirty cell like this.”

Peter nodded along, and the two fell back into silence as his knuckles began to heal over like it had so many times before. Eventually they began to talk again, inspecting the cell a second time but finding nothing more than they had the first. There was no measure of time any more except for their own weariness, and in a room of almost complete shadows, it was easy to feel their eyes grow heavy. It could have been midday for all they knew but they were about ready to drop dead on their feet after their endless searching, deciding to take up sleeping shifts so they couldn’t get ambushed by their wild card of a captor.

The cell looked exactly the same from the moment they fell asleep to the moment they woke up. The first time, Peter wondered if he had even slept at all or if he’d simply blinked his eyes. Where the sun was positioned was nothing but a mystery to the two prisoners, and as they quickly realised, they didn’t even have regular meals to base a schedule off.

In fact, there were no meals at all. Not a single one.

Peter was the first to notice the absence of food, his stomach protesting loudly as they leant against the walls talking about what upgrades their suits needed when they got home. Not if, but when. Because they would get home.

“Do… do you think they’ll give us any food soon?” Peter asked reluctantly, refusing to meet Tony’s concerned gaze.

Tony didn’t want to say it aloud, but he was starting to get worried. He’d never had a captor that didn’t feed him before. Even the Ten Rings had made sure to keep him alive and working to do what he did best: create weapons of destruction. But whoever had taken them didn’t seem to want him for anything, and Tony couldn’t find it in himself to tell Peter how strange that was. How there was something inherently wrong about this whole situation, even for a kidnapping.

Still, Tony just mustered up a smile and said reassuringly “Probably. I bet they’re just making us wait, that’s all. Messing with our minds and all that.”

Peter nodded along like he agreed, but the darkness in his eyes made Tony think otherwise.

The food never came.

Not on the first day, or the second, or what Tony assumed was the third, because at this point he had no idea. He felt like they’d been stuck in here for a month, but his body was still kicking somehow, so he figured they had time.

Time is a funny thing though, because it’s completely relative. For Tony, he had a couple days without access to water, and a few weeks maybe without food.

But for Peter and his enhanced metabolism, time became a much more precious resource.

The powers which had gifted him with incredible agility and strength had now become his biggest weakness, and after being used to three, something four meals a day, his body was not handling the diet of concentrated air very well. To Peter’s credit, he tried to keep a brave face at first. Never complained even when his stomach growled like a dog, and just twitched his fingers when the spasms seem to grow closer together. When they both realised that food probably wasn’t going to be provided any time soon though, Peter abandoned his collected façade in favour of pressing his arms into his stomach, trying to quell the discomfort with pressure. Tony knew how Peter felt about appearing vulnerable so he tried not to mention it, but he could only imagine how much pain he was in, and offered him reassurance whenever possible.

A hand on his shoulder here. A tussle of his hair there. A thumb brushing over his cheek when it really got bad.

“D-Do you think they’ll be here soon? The Avengers?” Peter asked one time as he settled against the cold floor, about to take his shift to sleep.

“Hopefully kid,” Tony said as he brushed the curls away from his forehead. “Just rest for now though, okay?”

Peter tried to nod, but suddenly, his knees curled up to his chest with a pained grunt, catching Tony’s hand in his own in a desperate search for comfort. Within moments Tony was lying by his side and squeezing Peter’s fingers in reassurance, his other hand running down the boy’s neck to ground him. “I’m sorry Pete, I’m so sorry,” Tony whispered as the spasms wracked his kid’s frame. “I know it hurts bud, just hold on. I’m right here.”

“Oh god,” Peter said, gritting his teeth through the darkness. “I hope- I hope they get here soon.”

Swallowing down the dryness in his own mouth, Tony murmured “Me too kid… me too…”

When Peter finally managed to slip into unconsciousness, Tony spent every spare moment scanning over the cell with pinpoint precision, searching and hoping for something- anything at all. Anything to get his kid as far away from here as possible. Somewhere safe where he could eat as much as he wanted and sleep on a bed as soft as feathers, not cruel cement that was sapping away his body heat with every passing second.

Tony had given his jacket to the boy a while ago, but Peter still shivered on the ground, cold and in agony from a tank running on fumes.

For what seemed like hours Tony searched. He looked and felt and examined every wall and corner, but still found nothing. Nothing but those same six walls, and Peter…

And a small plastic vial.

A vial that could open that damned door and give Peter his freedom and future if Tony just flipped the lid and swallowed it…

He was holding the bottle between his fingers, contemplating, when Peter finally stirred. One groggy glance towards his mentor holding the poison in his hand was all the teen needed before he was suddenly on his feet and shouting at the man in abject horror.

“What the hell are you doing Mr Stark?!”

“Don’t panic kid I just-“

“Don’t panic? Don’t panic?! I can’t believe you- you would actually try and drink that shit while I slept-!”

“I didn’t drink anything!”

“But you were thinking about it, weren’t you?”

Tony felt his body still, watching the way Peter’s shoulders were heaving with anger but his fingers still dug into his stomach like talons. A mournful expression fell over the man’s face as he said “Pete, you’re in so much pain…”

“No, no!” Peter practically hissed, storming closer into Tony’s personal space as he snapped “You said we’d do this together! You- you said not to even think about using that!”

“And I’m not! I was just… just trying to figure something out, okay? That’s all,” Tony said, desperate to ease the boy’s increasing terror.

Instead, the anger that had flared around the boy cooled into something steely, his eyes flashing as he held out his opened palm to the man. “Give me the vial, Mr Stark,” he said, his voice leaving no room for argument.

But Tony was never one to back down from a challenge. “No kid, neither of us are going to touch it from now on.”

“That’s what you said the first time,” Peter said, his eyes narrowed into dark pits of hurt and betrayal and anguish.

“I wasn’t going to-“

“Give me the bottle Mr Stark,” he repeated firmly. “I’m going to hold onto it so you can’t try and pull this again.”

“No, Pete, I don’t want you near it either,” Tony said, gripping the vial tightly between his fingers as if keeping it out of sight would keep the kid safe. “I’ll put it in the corner again-“

“No! I don’t trust you with it!” Peter practically exploded. “Now give me the bottle!”

“No!” Tony snapped back, the hot fury in his voice startling the boy for a moment. Tony had never yelled at him like that before. Sure, they’d argued, and yeah he rose his voice that one time after the ferry incident, but he’d never sounded so… so angry with the teen before.

For a moment, Tony wanted to take it all back. But then Peter’s eyes were narrowing into slits again, and Tony felt something other than regret.

Fear.

“Don’t make me do this Mr Stark,” he said through gritted teeth.

Peter took a step forward, and Tony instinctively stumbled back a pace. “Kid,” he breathed, his heartbeat pounding in his eardrums. “Don’t you fucking dare.”

Something flashed across Peter’s eyes, something Tony would almost call remorse, before it was replaced by the heat of determination, of danger. And in the blink of an eye, Peter was jumping forward with a fierce yell to take the vial away by force.

The fight didn’t last long.

Tony stood almost no chance against Peter’s super strength, even with how weak the teen was becoming, but he still did everything in his power to keep the poison out of Peter’s hands. Tony never attacked back. Would never even think of attacking Peter. But he pulled out every defensive move in the books as the boy came at him, trying to pin him into a headlock only for Peter to throw him back into the wall with a gentleness he would only come to realise much later.

No matter how hard he struggled though, Peter was the one holding the vial by the end, staring down at his mentor’s shaken form with tears welling in his big, doe eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice shaking into a whisper. “But I can’t- I-I can’t lose you too…”

Tony blinked up at the boy, the boy who had lost so much, and felt his chest ache from something that had nothing to do with their tussle.

“Kid…”

Peter shook his head rapidly, cutting his mentor off before he could even begin to apologise, as if his words were too much to bear. And maybe they were. Maybe all of this -the cell, the hunger, the fight- was just all too much to handle at once. So when Peter retreated to the opposite corner of the cell with his knees pulled up to his chest, Tony didn’t stop him. When his hands shook from the sheer agony of the spasms in his empty stomach, Tony didn’t dare approach.

But when muffled sobs began to fill the silence of their prison, Tony left the wall where he sat nursing his own injuries and wrapped Peter into his embrace, relieved when he felt the boy lean into his touch instead of away from it. There wasn’t much to say. They had broken something more important than anything physical today; they had broken each other’s trust.

Maybe in another place they would have had time to collect their thoughts and truly apologise, but right here, right now, trapped and alone with nothing but each other, they couldn’t afford to wait.

“I’m s-sorry I hit you Mr Stark,” Peter mumbled after a moment.

Sighing into the boy’s mop of hair, Tony replied earnestly “I’m sorry too kid. I shouldn’t have scared you like that, and next time we disagree on something, we’ll try and talk it out first. Sound good?”

Peter hummed his approval and rested further into Tony’s arms, the vial of poison still clutched tightly in his fist.

…

Time continued to slip away like the sands of an hourglass. The concept that had once seemed so out of their reach was slowly coming into focus, revealing a time limit that was rapidly running out of digits.

It measured itself in the stubble forming around Tony’s cheeks, and the muscle getting eaten away from Peter’s bones, and the permanent dryness in their mouths. More often than not Peter was curled up on the floor as he tried to fight off the waves of agony crashing over his body, refusing to let go of the vial even as his ribs became countable through the fabric of his shirt. Tony’s voice was hoarse from the amount of times he’d tried -and failed- to bargain aloud with their captor, and in the more dire moments, screamed profanities into the air or begged them to let Peter go. Neither of them slept at different times anymore, certain that their captor wouldn’t ambush them by now, and also a little paranoid of that poisonous vial weighing heavily between them.

Tony and Peter knew each other like the backs of their hands. If there was one thing they had in common, it was their self-sacrificial nature. Stupidity, as May would call it, but sacrifice no less.

It was for that reason that Peter never released the vial from his sticky grip, and why Tony kept one hand covering said hand to ensure Peter wouldn’t try anything when he wasn’t looking either.

“I don’t think they’re coming,” Peter said eventually, his voice as rough as sandpaper.

Tony couldn’t find the strength or even the moisture in his mouth to reply, squeezing Peter’s shoulder -too thin, too bony- in an attempt to reassure him.

“Do you think he’s even here still? The one who took us?” Peter asked shakily.

“Not sure,” Tony managed to croak. “Doesn’t matter…”

Slowly, Peter nodded, staring off towards the opposite wall that, really, was no different to any of the other walls in this damn shithole. After a few moments though, Tony realised that Peter was staring at something specifically. The chip in the cement from where he’d tried to punch in the door near the beginning of their stay, and the tiniest patch of metal that served as a reminder for their impenetrable cell.

But seemingly thinking along the same lines, Peter asked blankly “You said vibranium is rare… too rare to waste on an entire cell…”

Tony had to fight the against the weariness fogging up his brain, lifting his head a little as he hummed “W-What?”

“The door is vibranium, we- we know that but…” Peter’s words trailed off into that oh so familiar silence, and Tony wondered if he’d lost his train of thought.

But then suddenly, Peter was on his feet, making Tony jerk from the sudden loss of warmth and weight beside him to stare widely at the teen stumbling towards the other wall. Not the one with the door, but the one beside it this time. Tony searched its plain surface for any kind of flaw that Peter may have spotted but found nothing. Maybe it was his vision, which was beginning to get a bit fuzzy as time went along.

And then Peter, swaying a little where he stood with a glazed look in his eye, pulled back his arm in a blur of motion and slammed his fist into the cemented wall with a resounding thud. The sound seemed like thunder in their usually silent world, and Tony could only blink in shock as Peter reared back his other arm for a second swing. He was so shocked in fact that the teen got at least five more furious punches in before Tony was able to stumble over and try to drag him away from the offending wall.

Thanks to his sticky powers though, Peter was able to keep his feet planted firmly on the spot as he slammed his bony fists into the wall over and over and over again. Blood smeared into cement and dripped over his pale skin, but still he didn’t stop, a wildfire burning in his eyes so savage and uncontrollable that Tony was almost afraid.

“Stop! Peter please, stop! You’re hurting yourself!”

His pleas fell on deaf ears though, and Peter continued to pummel away at the cement that yielded much slower to his hits than it might have at the beginning. Tony wondered how he could get him to stop short of physically tackling the teen, and even then Tony wasn’t sure it would do either of them much good.

But then Peter’s fist hit something solid, something that vibrated, and Peter fell to his knees with a breathless sob. “No!” he cried out, his voice cracking and reminding Tony of his youth. “No it- it can’t!”

Running off nothing but pure desperation, Peter slammed his fist into the vibranium twice more, and if his knuckles weren’t busted before, they sure were now.

The metal didn’t even dent.

“No!” Peter screamed, his surge of wild adrenaline and rage slipping away within seconds. “Please, no…”

“Peter,” Tony breathed out as he slid down to join the boy against the crackled wall, one arm falling over his thin shoulders and the other coming up to cradle his battered hands. “Oh Pete, god… what were you thinking? Shit…”

There was no reply as Tony began to wipe away the blood with the edge of his dress shirt, barely recognisable as the expensive fashionwear he had arrived in from all the dirt and red stains that covered it. The silence was eerie, and Tony felt himself missing the light hearted banter he had taken for granted since the moment he met the kid. He loved it when the kid talked. To go without it felt like a torture all of its own.

But then Peter opened his mouth, and Tony wished they had stayed in silence.

“I heard it… the vibranium,” he stammered. “When I hit it, I could fell the- the vibrations and… and it covers the whole room…”

Tony’s hands stilled from where they were hovering over Peter’s bloodied knuckles, two pairs of deep brown eyes meeting each other in a heavy understanding.

If vibranium covered every wall, then there was no way of getting out. And as far as they could tell, nobody was trying to get in to save them either. They were trapped and left with only two options:

Wait it out and pray the Avengers would break down the door soon, or open up the vial, and choose who walked away alive.

Peter leaned back into his mentor’s side without another word, neither of them wanting to acknowledge the cruel game they had been forced to play.

…

“I think we should wait,” Peter had said when they woke up again from their increasingly frequent rests.

Blinking the crust out of his eyes, Tony cast a glance to the boy’s hands and frowned when he realised that they had barely healed at all, except for the blood that had scabbed over to staunch the wounds over his knuckles. It wasn’t a good sign, and Tony felt physically ill just watching them press into Peter’s thin waistline. He looked like a stiff breeze could knock him down, and the hollowness of his cheeks suddenly seemed a lot more dire in Tony’s semi-refreshed vision.

“Waiting might not be an option bud,” Tony said, cautious with his wording. “We don’t even know if anyone is close to finding us yet.”

Staring down at his bloodied knuckles and frowning, Peter murmured back “There’s still time… we should at least give it a few more days.”

“And will you last a few more days?” Tony replied while trying to keep his tone soft.

As expected, Peter recoiled at the statement, his fingers tightening over the vial in a protective hold. “I’m fine,” he claimed despite his appearance saying the complete opposite.

Tony could see the fire kindling in his eyes though. The pure determination that made Spider-man a hero, and Peter Parker a survivor. He wouldn’t give up no matter what Tony said, and after losing enough battles with a similarly stubborn Pepper over the years, the genius knew when he was outmatched.

“Okay kid, we’ll wait a while longer,” he assured the boy gently.

Peter hesitated for a moment, as if he didn’t quite believe him, before relaxing back against the wall with a grimace and shutting his eyes again. There wasn’t much else they could do besides sleep anyway in their barren cell. At the very least, they could try and conserve whatever energy they had left to survive until their rescue.

A rescue wasn’t Tony’s usual style, but at this rate he’d take anything over watching his kid waste away beside him…

But true to his word, the two continued to wait, resting for the most part but also rambling about whatever came to mind when they found the voice to do so. Their words were scratchy and short, but it gave them a break from the stifling emptiness and the six grey walls that encompassed their prison. They slept. They talked. They waited. Around and around they went, a cycle that was destined to end in disaster.

Tony was forced to watch in mortified silence as Peter’s skin began to cling to his bones, writhing and whimpering at the pain constantly tearing into his organs like vultures that had arrived for an early feast. A similar searing pain had enveloped Tony’s stomach too, but it felt wrong to complain when his kid had been suffering with much worse for much longer. Had been forced to tears so many times that there were none left to shed.

It hurt on a level that nothing physical could ever match to sit there and be completely helpless as Peter struggled through the constant agony, smoothing back his hair and letting the boy squeeze his hand whenever the spasms spiked. There were so many times where Tony just wanted to rip the vial out of the boy’s hand and end this cruel torture once and for all, but he knew he couldn’t do that to Peter. Couldn’t force him to watch another person die before him.

But on the other hand, Tony wasn’t sure he could survive much longer himself if this continued. Peter was essentially letting himself die by refusing to do anything, and Tony knew that he wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he did, poison or otherwise. So Tony told himself that if things got worse, that if a rescue didn’t occur soon, then he would do something. He would fight if he had to, even if his joints protested at every slight movement. Above all though, he hoped that the Avengers would bust down the door before it ever came to that, and he would walk out of this cursed cell with Peter right beside him, smiling that smile that made the world spin again.

Tony should have known that hoping wasn’t enough.

It was the harsh coughing that woke Tony from his restless slumber, groaning as he tried to gather his bearings only to realise a moment later that Peter was the one making that awful hacking noise a few paces away from him. He’d obviously moved so not to disturb the man, but their cell was not exactly the most private place, and Tony quickly dragged himself to Peter’s side to rub a hand down his back, feeling every nob of his spine under his own shaking fingers.

“It’s okay Pete, it’s okay,” Tony hushed, still feeling a little groggy himself but forcing himself to sound secure.

The coughing didn’t stop though, and it pained Tony to no end that all he could do was pat his back and watch. Eventually he moved to rub the boy’s arms in an attempt to keep him warm, but even with the jacket covering his thin frame Peter was still shivering, trembling with the cold and the coughs that wracked his body.

When Peter finally got the coughing fit under control though, Tony’s brows creased in concern when he realised Peter’s breathing seemed to be raspier than before, each exhale smothered in a wheeze. Like a puppet cut from his strings, Peter leaned back against Tony’s shoulder and closed his eyes in exhaustion.

“Kid?” Tony murmured as the fear swirling in his chest tightened. “Hey buddy, can you wake up for a second? I need to check that you’re…”

Tony’s words fell into silence when he glanced down at Peter’s hand, the opened one that he’d been coughing into, and found a fresh spatter of blood staining his palm.

“Shit,” Tony gasped before immediately shaking the boy by the shoulders and rousing him back to consciousness. “Peter! Peter wake the fuck up right now!”

“W-Wha…” the teen grumbled, spots of red tinging his lips as his spoke. “’M fine…”

“No you’re not fine damnit!” Tony practically roared. The panic was crawling up ribs now, coiling around his beating heat and refusing to let it go. Peter was slowly gathering his energy, blinking up at him in a daze, but every time he tried to speak his breath hitched and his teeth came back painted with blood.

It must have been pneumonia. The cell was so cold, and Peter was already vulnerable to the temperature, let alone with all his bodily defences shutting down from the starvation. If they didn’t get him to a hospital soon, he wasn’t going to make it much longer…

“Oh god Peter…” Tony said, his voice wavering as he cupped the boy’s face in his hands and stuttered “You’re- shit you’re dying Pete. Do you hear me? You’re killing yourself!”

The boy finally seemed to catch his mentor’s panicked gaze, leaning into his hands as he murmured “I c-….I c’n make it…”

“No you can’t Pete, holy shit,” Tony muttered fiercely. “This- this is bad. You’ve probably got an infection and- oh god, I need to get you out of here…”

A flash of blue caught the man’s eye, and he stared down at Peter’s right hand where his fingers had loosened over the bottle, revealing its sickly neon glow against the boy’s skin. He was probably too tired to hold on anymore; too weak to keep his hands sticky. He barely had the energy to keep his eyes open for Christ’s sake!

But that also meant he wouldn’t have the energy to fight…

And maybe, just maybe, that had given him the chance to live…

Tony didn’t even hesitate.

“I’m sorry Pete, but I should’ve done this a long time ago.”

Quickly reaching for the bottle, Tony’s fingers had only just grazed the plastic surface when Peter’s hand coiled back around it, the boy’s once half-lidded eyes springing open with a startled “N-No!”

“Peter, give it to me. I’m not going to sit by any longer and watch you die,” Tony said as he began to pry his bony fingers away one by one.

Shoving his free hand against the man’s shoulder, Peter shook his head in dismay and whimpered “No… no- no- no, s… stop, can’t, p-please…”

“No Peter. Don’t you get what’s happening? If I don’t do this, you are going to die.”

It hurt to speak. It hurt even more to yell. But Tony knew that the pain of losing Peter would be worse than anything else on earth, and resolved never to have to feel it.

“Let go Peter.”

“No- no-“

“Buddy, it’s okay, just let go…”

“No! Get a-… away!”

“You’re making this harder than it has to be kid,” Tony growled when Peter resorted to shoving and pushing and kicking him in the chest. His hits were weak though, so much weaker than they should have been, and Tony was able to withstand the attacks easily despite his own weariness. The mere action of resisting seemed to be draining Peter’s energy even faster though, and feeling his worry spike again for his health, Tony resorted to an awkward side bear hug to keep the kid restrained, Peter’s arms falling limply by his sides when he realised he couldn’t fight back.

“Don’t…” he coughed out, his voice shaking with the plea. “Don’t Mr St’rk… can’t… can’t lose you too… please, don’t…”

“I’m sorry kid, but I can’t wait any longer.”

“Please… no, please…” Peter whimpered, and Tony felt his chest ache at his broken voice.

There were no tears. There hadn’t been for a long time. But still, Peter’s shoulders heaved with each wordless sob, and Tony gently nudged Peter into a more comfortable position, one they had assumed many times with the boy’s head tucked under his chin and his arms wrapped securely around his shoulders.

“It’s gonna be okay kid, I promise,” Tony murmured into his mop of curls. “But you got to let me do this buddy, okay? I can’t let you die.”

Sniffling, Peter began to say “I… M-Maybe I can-“ before Tony shut him down with a harsh “No. It has to be me.”

“Please… you can’t…”

“I’m sorry Pete, but I won’t let it be you.”

Gradually, the jump of Peter’s shoulders began to slow, and Tony felt the boy lean into his arms again like it was movie night at the tower and he had fallen asleep against his side. Some small, selfish part of Tony hoped that he had gone to sleep, because then it would make it a whole lot easier to flip the cap off that bottle and be done with it. But as awful as it was, Tony needed Peter to be awake when he took the poison. He had to be conscious enough to leave that door when it opened, because it had to open- it had to.

But then, like chalk scratching against a blackboard, Peter asked hoarsely “C’n we wait… just one m-more day…?”

Tony just shook his head sadly and ran a hand soothingly across the boy’s hair. “We can’t risk it, not when you’re like this.”

“Please? Ju-Just one, one more sleep,” he begged, so fearful and so devastated.

“I don’t know Pete-“

“I w… I won’t fight, prom’se,” Peter muttered, his free hand coming up to grip Tony’s shirt as he said “Just wait one… one more time, please… and I’ll give ‘t to you after that…”

Letting out a deep sigh, Tony rested his cheek against Peter’s hair in exhaustion. He was tired. So bone deep tired, and the idea of not having to fight the boy any more seemed like heaven right now. He didn’t want Peter’s last memory of him to be of them wrestling and hitting each other in this nightmare of a cell, or even of them arguing for that matter. Maybe it was selfish, but he wanted Peter to remember him fondly, and remember that he loved him.

Had he ever told Peter that? Tony didn’t think he had, and he regretted every time he had hesitated in the past. He wouldn’t make the same mistake again.

“I love you Peter,” he said as easily as breathing. “I love you so much. I’m sorry I didn’t say it sooner…”

For a moment, Peter tensed in his hold, and Tony worried that he’d said the wrong thing. That he’d offended the boy somehow. But then he felt Peter’s shoulders jump again in a muffled sob, replying through a tight wheeze “I love you too Mr Stark…”

A peace settled over Tony’s shoulders like a warm blanket, and he allowed his eyelids to lower as he added softly “We’ll wait one more time, okay Pete? But after that, I have to take it.”

Peter nodded against his collarbone. “I know…” A beat of silence, and then in a choked whisper “I w-wish you wouldn’t though…”

“Me neither kid, but… this is the way it has to be,” Tony hummed, moving one hand to cradle Peter’s cheek in reassurance. “But it’s gonna be alright though. You’re going to get out of here, and run into May’s arms and stay with your family where you belong, okay?”

“You’re my family,” Peter said, giving his mentor a moment of pause, before he ploughed on roughly “You and May a-and Ned, you’re- you’re all my family. An’ I love you all so much… so much…”

“I know kid, and you’ll get to see them soon, I promise,” Tony said as he pushed his fingers through the boy’s greasy locks of hair. “You’re going to be just fine, ‘cause I’m rooting for you kid… I always have been.”

Peter didn’t respond for a long while, and for a moment, Tony wondered if he had fallen asleep. He couldn’t blame the boy. Tony could already feel his eyelids growing as heavy as cement, and it would only be worse for Peter after the coughing fit and their brief scuffle. But so long as he could still hear the thready inhale and exhale from Peter’s lungs, Tony could keep his fears at bay for now.

“Can… can you t-talk please?” Peter whispered just before the man almost slipped into unconsciousness.

“Uh, sure…” Tony mumbled tiredly. “What about?”

“Anything…” Peter said, his voice softer than it had been for days. “I just wanna hear your voice… before we say goodbye…”

Tony supposed he couldn’t fault the kid for that. It was what he’d wanted after all, so mustering strength back into his cracked voice, Tony began to recall all his stories of adventure and mischief and just general happiness to the boy held securely in his arms. Remember me like this, Tony thought to himself as he rambled on about the day he met Rhodey in his MIT dorm room. As he retold the tale of meeting Pepper for the first time, and the time he had a Downtown Abbey marathon with Happy that the driver would deny ever occurring.

Tony told him about the day he found out about Spider-man, and how he spiralled into an investigation that lead him all the way to one Peter Parker. He told him how he admired the boy’s incredible intellect, and how he almost had a heart attack when Peter was knocked down at the airport. He told the teen how much he enjoyed getting closer with him, and learning about him, and spending their time -no matter how short it was- together.

Tony told Peter he loved him like the son he never had, and kissed his hairline and assured him that tomorrow would be better. That this would all be a nightmare that would fade away with time.

After raising both hands to his mouth and letting out a particularly harsh cough, Peter relaxed back into Tony’s arms with a tight-lipped smile and ducked further into his hold. “I love you…” he whispered, before letting out a shaky sigh. “I love you Tony…”

Something warm and light and so damn brilliant exploded in the man’s chest at the declaration, pressing a kiss to Peter’s forehead one last time before he leant back against the wall, ready to succumb to his own weariness.

“I love you too Pete… so, so much…”

The last thing Tony remembered before the darkness fully set in was Peter slumping against him with a content sigh, his permanently clenched hands releasing against Tony’s heart.

…

Tony was awoken to a burning in his eyes.

Hot and sharp and piercing through the darkness. He tried to turn away, but it seemed to follow his movement, refusing to let him go. He tried to close his eyes only to find they were already shut, prying them open after a moment of deliberation only to immediately recoil from the intense brightness surrounding him.

Blinking the water out of his vision, Tony glanced around in a daze at the cement walls they’d grown so accustomed to and realised there was something… odd, about them. They were pale grey instead of their usual navy darkness, and it took him a long moment to realise that it was because there was light flooding into the room.

He followed the harsh white rays and blinked sluggishly at their source.

It was the door, and the door was wide open.

It wasn’t until Tony saw the words imprinted onto the outside corridor that he realised what that meant, the simple phrase written in sharp black ink and reading:

GAME OVER

Immediately Tony’s eyes grew wide, and his heart began to pound and his lungs started to constrict because surely this had to be a trick. Some sort of twisted nightmare. The door couldn’t be open because he hadn’t taken the poison yet, he was sure of it!

Tony turned to the boy still resting peacefully in his arms with a warning on his tongue, ready to defend the boy from whatever threat their captor dared to throw at them, only to freeze with a chilling realisation.

The cell was completely silent.

No coughing.

No wheezing.

No heartbeat against his own.

Tony’s heart plummeted into his stomach as he rushed to move Peter across his legs, pressing two fingers into the teen’s throat and waiting -waiting, so much damn waiting- for that tell-tale thump. That beautiful sign of life.

The heartbeat never came, and Tony felt his whole world shatter into pieces.

“No… oh my god no! Peter! Wake up!” Tony almost screamed as he moved to start chest compressions like Rhodey had taught him to back when he first became Ironman. Maybe there was still a chance… maybe there was still time to save him.

“Peter, wake-wake up buddy. I need you to- to- fuck! Stay with me!”

Peter’s body remained lifeless, and Tony hated himself, he hated himself so much for agreeing to wait. The infection had probably gotten to him, or he’d choked in his sleep, or some other horrible thing that Tony’s mind continued to conjure up as he pushed his locked hands over Peter’s heart repeatedly.

Then he moved to Peter’s face -still and cold and so unlike his kid- to check for any blockage in his throat, only for his heart to somehow drop further than it already had at the sight of something shiny resting on the inside of the boy’s limp cheek.

Everything seemed to pause. The world, time, reality itself ground to a halt.

And then, fishing the object out with shaky fingers, the first sob of many broke through Tony’s chest as he held the plastic, empty vial up to the light.

“Oh my god…” he said, choking on the words and throwing the bottle aside like it had burnt his very skin. “Please no, no- no- no- no… Peter no…”

Tony cradled Peter’s face in his hands and searched for any slither of hope. A heartbeat. A breath. The light of his youthful brown orbs when they met his own.

But his search was met with nothing… nothing but the empty shell of what his kid had once been.

A scream unlike anything Tony had ever heard before tore out of his throat at the realisation, tearless sobs constricting his every breath as he gathered the kid -his kid- into a fierce embrace and prayed this was all a dream. That he would wake up at his desk in the lab and see Peter laughing at him from across the room, that beaming grin on his face and his eyes alight with fondness and love.

Not this cold, motionless kid lying in his arms. Not this cruel reality where Peter wasn’t here. Please, anything but this…

“I’m sorry Underoos, I’m so sorry…” he wept into Peter’s hairline, hating that he couldn’t even cry for a loss as important and as painful as this. “Oh god… fuck! It was supposed to be me Peter! What were you thinking? How- how could you- it… it wasn’t supposed to be like this…”

Silence. Utter silence except for his own pitiful cries.

“I should’ve known Roo, I should’ve- should’ve seen it coming,” Tony mumbled, his breath catching on an agonising laugh as he added “You were never going to quit without a fight, were you? I should’ve known you’d never… oh my god… how did I not see it?”

The body in his arms was as cool as the cement they sat on, but Tony still rubbed Peter’s back as if to generate some kind of heat, knowing how much he hated the cold. Like he was still alive to feel it as he pulled him closer against his heaving chest.

“Please don’t leave me kiddo…” Tony pleaded, his voice barely recognisable under the weeping. “I-… I love you… I love you like you were my own…”

A sob pierced through his chest like a spear.

“…Isn’t that enough?”

Silence. Nothing but silence...

Because Peter was gone, and no matter how much Tony loved him, no matter how much he fought for him, it would never be enough.

Peter Parker died peacefully in his sleep, secure in his mentor’s embrace and sent off with words of warmth and love. But Tony Stark died the next morning, holding the body of his lifeless son and begging it to be him instead, the silence the only companion to his cries.