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Over the course of a few months, these have been erected worldwide. Memorials. Wide stone pillars, evenly distributed into rows upon rows, upon rows upon rows, on an ample, endless field, the Wall of the Vanished recorded the names of those who had fallen victim to the snap.
Three-point-eight billion people – and that from Earth alone. The survivors had been left with nothing but an empty, broken world.
There had been an official inauguration. People, crowds, had gathered in fields such as this – flowers arranged in bouquets, twisted in wreaths, candles lit and lighting others, pictures and postcards, and so many more mementos had been set at the foot of each stone – and, collectively, they had mourned the loss of their loved ones, of those whose lives have been cut so short so soon. Tony remembers the news coverage of that day, the extensive and almost exclusive broadcast from any television and radio station from memorials such as this from all around the world. He remembers catching a glimpse of the monuments, the crowds, the abject misery in the faces of the people before having to step out of the room – he hadn’t been able to watch it.
He had been two months, give or take, into a grueling recovery after returning from space broken and bruised, ill and feverish from the infection his damaged body hadn’t been capable of fighting on top of the dehydration and the malnourishment, and the wound he had sustained that ran him through – a broken man, – and the guilt, all of the pain that he had been carrying ever since the loss on Titan had become immeasurably heavy for him to shoulder with the first few introductory words from the anchorperson.
Tony hadn’t been able to set foot anywhere near any of these memorials, either. Not until today.
“Hey, Mr. Stark. I was just wondering… Hum. Can you come pick me up?”
The workshop had gone eerily quiet for the half a second it took Friday to put Peter’s call through the speakers.
Ever since the Vulture incident, and after Tony had been yelled at for twenty minutes straight by a furious Aunt May after she had discovered that Peter moonlighted as Spider-man, Tony had replaced the fake-'decoy’-internship with a real and official internship that Peter could write down on a college application in the future.
That arrangement was bordering on six months. And for the last six months, Peter had been coming over to the Compound every Thursday afternoon for suit upgrades and training purposes. For the last six months, Peter had also been texting Tony directly, and in growing frequency (and not only about Spider-man or the internship, either), regardless of the fact that Tony had a direct access to Karen’s log, and Karen had an emergency override protocol that would send a flashing alert to his wristwatch in case of immediate danger or in the event of a life-threatening situation that required his intervention pronto.
Calls weren’t nearly as frequent – something about a ‘generation gap’, that Tony took full offense to (he wasn’t that old); and about texting being the superior form of communication because, for one, fully respected the recipient’s privacy, availability and schedule, and for two, didn’t trigger any form of social anxiety, the second mostly by respecting number one, which Tony agreed were valid points of concern, – but not irregular to the point of producing an immediate reaction of concern. What caught Tony off guard, however, was the tone.
Tony’s fingers stilled on top of the keyboard he had been typing on, his train of thought already going off the rails and down the hill from the moment Peter’s voice rang through the speakers.
“I mean, it’s… fine,” Peter continued to speak right away, taking away any chances for Tony to say anything. “Yeah, fine. You’re probably busy right now anyway, I shouldn’t have… I mean. It’s nothing, Sir. Just… Forget I said anything. I’m sorry for—”
“Let’s try it this way,” Tony spoke up before Peter decided to hang up on him right in the middle of what Tony would easily classify as a distressing phone call from the receiving end. “Why don’t you tell me what’s going on and let me decide whether or not I should forget about this?” Because he would, let alone could, not forget about a call like that without a damn good reason not to worry.
There was a stretching silence from the other end of the line, and if it wasn’t for the occasional shuffling noise, Tony would have thought Peter had hung up.
“Pete,” Tony called out after a sound minute of silence. “You’re worrying me, kid. What’s going on? Are you hurt? Where are you?” With a swift swiping motion of his fingers, Tony pulled up Karen’s log; the suit had been disconnected since yesterday evening, and there were no records of any flesh wounds that could have worsened ever since – wouldn’t have been the first time Peter had tried to hide something of the sort…
“No, I’m… fine. This has nothing to do with Spider-man,” Peter answered curtly.
“Okay,” Tony released a breath, but the answer did nothing to ease his concern. Peter had never been the type to call without a reason.
Mostly, the calls were placed directly through Karen from the suit; there had been the occasional lab session rescheduling, even if those were mostly started by Tony himself. Everything else, he kept to texting. And sure, Peter had sent him the odd funny text after erroneously sending a meme to Tony instead of the groupchat with his school friends that one time (to which Tony had responded with a plain ‘lol’ for Peter’s mortification and Pepper’s chagrin – they had been in a meeting, and the meme had been funny enough for him to snort out a laugh).
But Peter never called without a reason, and a good one at that. “Then… what is it, kid? What’s this about?”
“It’s fine, Mr. Stark, really…” Peter insisted. “I’m just being… me, and weird. And if you’re busy…”
“I’m talking to you, now,” Tony stated. He swiped the suit’s log away to bring up the tracker on Peter’s phone, his worry only growing with every second of silence and with every time Peter attempted to dismiss the actual problem. “Okay? Tell me.”
Tony thought he heard a sniffle from Peter’s end of the line. “I’ll send you my location.”
All at once, his phone beeped with the incoming text, a separate window popped up in front of him displaying the location that Peter had just sent him, matching with exact precision the one that came through from the tracker.
Tony let out a sigh. Oh, kid…
“Got it,” Tony let out in confirmation, trying to invoke a cheerfulness he didn’t think he could possess. He quickly swept his desk with his eyes for his phone, the call rerouting from the lab’s speakers back to it when he grabbed it and pressed it to his ear as he stood up. “Stay put, Pete. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
The first anniversary of the snap happens in two weeks. Cowardly, Tony had driven here today. He had slipped out of the house in the wee hours of the morning, leaving Pepper with nothing but a message through Friday, and had arrived just early enough in the day not to cross paths with any other visitors.
This is what he had been reduced to: a creature creeping out from an abyss of his own making, crawling up to the ledge on his hands and knees, head low and shoulders hunched, standing so close to the dirt beneath him that the Earth can reach up and swallow him whole.
He doesn’t have any strength left in him to keep up the façade he had donned for the biggest part of his life; he doesn’t have the energy or the presence of mind to give a hoot about his image or cares about the perception of him. He creeps and crawls, hoping to a God he never believed in and now knows can’t possibly exist that no other person finds him here, that he doesn’t come face to face with anyone that would take one look at him and blame him, through either thoughts or words, or both, as he’s so sure that he deserves.
The moment he steps out of the car, heart pounding almost painfully in his chest and resounding loudly at his ears, hands shaking violently like they hadn’t in years of sobriety, Tony feels himself sinking into wobbly knees. It strikes him all at once, much like it had months ago after his return when he had been face to face with the official numbers, the enormity of the loss.
Three-point-eight billion. All of those people… dusted. It was all on him.
Approaching further on unsteady legs, close enough for the names engraved on the walls to be visible to him, it hits him how absolutely idiotic, moronic and selfish his coming here is. All of those people had lost their lives, so many others had lost those that were closest to them, and he, one of the selected few that could have – should have – stopped it from happening, that should have protected them from this horrifying reality, stands here today amidst ghosts and shadows from a lost world for his own personal atonement.
For just one person amongst billions upon billions, upon billions of intelligent, sentient lives lost from all over the Universe, that he had never thought he could miss so profoundly – like breathing.
Tony loathes himself as he passes the first few pillars, eyes trained forward and pointedly away from the names that cover them. All of them had been someone else’s sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, husbands, wives, fathers, mothers… All of them people he couldn’t save. And now he can’t bring himself to so much as glance at their names, in what he can so frankly describe as a walk down a real-life purgatory as he awaits his final judgment. He can’t bring himself to read them, to wonder who they had been in life, who they could have become had they been given a chance to carry out their lives as it was meant to be.
Surely and without a doubt, someone endlessly better than him. Someone infinitely more deserving.
Peter sat crossed-legged on the stone pavement when Tony arrived, his back pressed against the wall adjacent to the large metal gates, elbows on his knees and head bowed. Tony had spotted him before slotting the car into the parking spot. His eyes quickly surveyed the entrance for a trace of the kid, a rush of relief flowing through him when he did, but not enough to dull the nervous energy that had been accumulating through the afternoon traffic ever since he had received that call. Stepping out of the car, Tony beelined toward the kid in an instant.
As he approached, Tony noticed that Peter was hunching over his phone on his lap, earbuds on and fingers scrolling down a playlist as his eyes glazed over the screen. Peter didn’t notice him coming closer, and Tony took that moment to brace himself for the conversation they were about to have on his last few steps.
“There you are,” Tony chirped. “Thought I’d spotted that sparkling nose of yours from a mile away.”
“Mr. Stark,” Peter snapped his neck to look up at him, eyes widening, almost surprised, and reached one hand upward to pull his earbuds from his ears.
Tony smiled. “Hey.”
“Hey,” Peter echoed.
One hand on his knee, Tony lowered himself to a crouch in front of Peter and watched him for a moment. Peter tangled the wires around his phone, his eyes trained solely on that action for a few seconds, pointedly keeping them away from Tony’s. Tony hadn’t expected anything short from embarrassment from him – for as long as he had known Peter, even more so after they had begun the real internship, Tony hadn’t known anything other than pure excitement and amazement; most of everything that related to Spider-man induced that, but in that moment, it was Peter Parker that was on the line.
Peter never asked for anything for himself, even when Tony had given him free rein for such things, hoping to figure out which type of birthday present Peter would actually like without having to prick and prod. Peter calling him to pick him up from here today was perhaps the most personal request he had ever made him.
“You okay?” Tony asked softly, his eyes unwavering as he searched Peter’s face.
Peter bobbed his head in a nod, his nose scrunched up into a faint sniff, and his hand shot to his right to reach for his backpack beside him. Fiddling with the zipper between his thumb and index finger, Peter looked at him just briefly before looking away again. “I’m sorry I pulled you out for this…”
“None of that, Pete,” Tony shook his head. “I’m here now. And for all it’s worth, I’m glad that you called me; okay?” Honestly, it came with a relief that Peter hadn’t cowered from calling for help when he needed it, whether it was his or anyone else’s. What kind of person would it make him if he didn’t listen? Especially when Tony himself knew that kind of pain so well. Except, Peter was so much younger than he had been… Tony waited a moment as Peter stored his belongings into his backpack and zipped it shut back again. “Hey, look at me, kid. Do you want to talk about it?”
Peter shrugged his shoulders.
Tony scuffed his bottom lip with his teeth, watching him for a moment, waiting. He didn’t want to rush him, he didn’t want to make him feel forced into it, either. “You know, it’s okay if you don’t,” Tony said eventually. “But it’s also okay if you do, and… in that case, I’m here, kid. You can tell me whatever you want.”
Peter’s sniff sounded an awful lot more like a sniffle, and then he nodded again.
“Doesn’t have to be right away…” Tony continued, lowering his voice. Lowering his knees to the ground, Tony maneuvered himself to sit sideways beside Peter with a huff. Peter pulled his knees up to his chest, squishing his backpack against himself, to give Tony space, and making himself so much smaller in the process.
There had been many instances when Rhodey – eventually followed by Pepper, too – had lingered behind to keep him company. More accurately, to make sure he didn’t end up causing himself – and them – trouble. Tony never had a particularly stellar grieving process. But he had to admit that, from the instances that he actually remembered, that it had felt nice to have someone there. No great gestures, just being there in the same room as him had made him feel a lot less lonely. Tony didn’t think he had ever thanked them enough just for that, or even if he could.
But sitting at the cemetery’s entrance with Peter wrapping his arms around his knees right in front of him, he couldn’t help wondering if they had ever felt as useless as he did in that moment.
“This Saturday is the anniversary of Uncle Ben’s death,” Peter began after a while, his eyes still cast downwards. “It’s the first one since he… I also haven’t been back here since the funeral. I didn’t even come to… I mean, I don’t remember a lot about my parents, you know. I was six. And then, Ben… it was still too fresh, and… huh… And May has work Saturday, and she wanted to come here tomorrow. But I have the Decathlon thing, so I just thought…” Peter trailed off.
“Yeah,” Tony breathed out.
Peter opened his mouth to speak again. But nothing more than a strained sob came out, and he closed it again, ducking his head forward to his knees. Tony’s heart broke for the kid; only sixteen and already carrying the pain of the world on his shoulders.
Tony reached forward with one hand, his fingers gently squeezed the back of Peter’s neck, and, as if flipping a switch, it was enough to have Peter leaning toward him. He slotted his head against his chest, his fingers crumpling the thick fabric of his jacket, almost like begging, and Tony couldn’t do anything else but to hold Peter firmly in his arms.
That wonderful, bright kid whose only fault had been to imprint on Tony for some wild notion, a kid that Tony cared more about than life itself – his kid, – who carried the worst kind of unspeakable pains in his heart. The first time Peter had mentioned Ben and how he had watched him die in front of him at fourteen years old, Tony had been horrified – there was no other word for it. That kid was now clinging to him like his last lifeline.
So, he let him. As long as he needed it, he let him hold onto him and cry.
It takes him a few minutes; his eyes training on the letters of the names as if glancing through broken lines of code – searching for the pattern instead of reading the words – to locate the pillar where the P’s started, then the R’s… KER.
Peter Parker.
The name stands out from all others that are carved into the stone as soon as he spots it. Tony had lowered himself into a squat as he followed the patterns on the names down the list, his index and middle fingers brush against the small indentation of each letter on the stone ever so lightly. His name is engraved like all others, but to the touch, it feels like canyons had been carved from the inside out, every groove so profound it shatters the rock, the Earth beneath his feet, from within.
A couple of lines over, he finds May – a small mercy.
His breathing thickens, for a moment he fears he would have toppled to the ground again if he wasn’t practically on his knees already. His knees failing to keep himself upright, his arms failing to support Peter’s weight when he all but crashed into and held onto him with every bit of strength he had left, as if Tony could make it better, as if he could stop it; a weight that in a moment had them both sinking into the ground and in the next… vanished completely from his arms, leaving only flecks of dust floating in the air and the tears he had caught with his thumb when he had cradled the kid’s head on his hand in a last attempt to comfort him in his panic.
Oh God, why him…
It’s infinitely unfair. Peter had his whole life ahead of him. There was still so much for him to experience, so much to give and receive. Peter, who was so kind and so caring, who never cowered from lending a helping hand to anyone that needed it. Peter, who was so infinitely more deserving that Tony had even been, and yet… Peter had been the one whose life had been cut at the stem.
“I wish…”
When he looked into Pepper’s eyes, her unfaltering love and patience radiating out of her very essence, he had known it was the single most terrible thing to say out loud, especially then that they had so much to expect, so much to live for, their little Morgan safely tucked in in her mother’s belly just waiting to come into the world, but he couldn’t deny it. Every small memento, from the smallest insignificant thing in the world like cheese and mustard to the most precious contents in the box that had been designated as ‘Peter’s box’ that contained everything he had ever left behind in the Compound, were enough to throw him through a blender of emotions.
“I wish it had been me,” he confessed to her. “If he could have lived, if he could be here instead, I… I know that’s not something you would ever want to hear, and it’s definitely not something that I should ever say considering… but…”
“I know,” Pepper’s eyes shone with unshed tears, her fingers coming to wipe his from his cheekbone.
He hated himself for admitting it, even more so when he felt her protruding abdomen under the palm of his hand. Morgan wouldn’t have been anything more than a stray thought spoken in the park once, their marriage only one more strike in the list of promises he couldn’t keep. Pepper would have been alone, which Tony knew terrified her as much as losing her terrified him. Tony knew it was unfair to the both of them to admit it, but when it came it, he couldn’t live with himself if it meant trading the life of one kid for the other.
“Sometimes you forget, Tony,” Pepper said quietly, a small smile on her face despite the storm behind her eyes, “I know you better than you know yourself.”
Morgan came into the world kicking and screaming three weeks ago. The first time Tony held her in his arms, eyes swimming with tears, his heart burst with love for the tiny being Pepper and he had created – Pepper had given him twelve percent of the credit (I will never live that down). It should have been the best day of his life; and even though it was, even though the moment he looked down at their baby girl, so small she could fit in one hand, so beautiful and perfect, everything else faded away from view, there was still a heaviness in his heart.
It was a heaviness of the same sort that had caught him in a vice-like grip when he had stood in the altar. He had looked down at the small crowd of people they had invited to the merely symbolic ceremony, the empty seats standing out more pronouncedly than ever. Pepper had lost her sister, Rhodey had lost his mother, both of them had lost nieces and nephews; all of whom should have been there. Peter should have been there, May too. With how much Tony’s life had intertwined with the Parkers in the few years he had known them, there had never been a doubt in his mind when he included them in the invitations list. The tears in Pepper’s eyes hadn’t been of unbridled joy as he proclaimed his vows, and neither had been his.
Their wedding, the birth of their baby girl had been tainted with the ashes that stuck to his fingers and soiled everything he touched.
“You would have loved her,” his voice cracks. Back pressed against the cold and hard stone, the back of his head leaning backwards as his teary eyes look upward to the sky above him, the blue brightening as the sun rises on the horizon. Somewhere out there, billowing with the breeze on an alien planet… Tony blinks, a breath catching.
In another life, Tony would have stepped down from the Avengers, he would have continued to mentor Peter as long as he wanted him to, all the way to college and perhaps even after, he would have given Pepper the wedding ceremony she deserved, Morgan would have been born into a larger family, would have her cousins, would have Peter…
The kid would have been the best big brother she could possibly have.
“She would have loved you, too, kid.”