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spideyspeaches · 5 years ago

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Pretty lies (ugly truths)

A/N: This was something I wrote as soon as I heard Clean also that was 2019 and @peterspideysstuff made me do it smh. I’m proud of it so don’t let this flop 🙂

WC: 3.3k+

Warnings: Please read these before going ahead- mentions of CSA (Skip Wescott), brief description of dissociation.

Pairing: Peter Parker x Stark!Reader

Masterlist || Taglist

It was the little things that you noticed in Peter. He was your closest friend ever, the best person to have ever entered your life next to Tony Stark, the man who had adopted you the moment he laid his eyes on you.

You always noticed when it came to Peter, the way he jumped around when he was in a happy mood, or when he scored a hundred in chemistry and he would flail his hands in the air and hug you as tightly as he could without crushing your bones with his super strength. You had met him when you were both eight- he had come with his uncle Ben to tour Stark Industries, and you both had snuck out to eat some pizza while the adults talked.

You would never forget that day, because it was the day the two of you became inseparable. He would often visit you since then, in Pepper’s penthouse, and you always cherished those visits. He shared everything in his life with you, he was an open book to you, a dog eared page that you could open with a flick of your fingers.

Coming back from the dead post blip was the final straw. No one could separate you two, and when May and Peter had finally agreed to live in the Lake House (only during the weekends though, since it was far from his school), it was the life of a party for You.

"And you three, don't wreck the house and if I found out that the kitchen is on fire-" Pepper said, fixing Peter's shirt and Morgan's hair at the same time, giving you a stern look.

May was out and it was only the three of you- You, Morgan and Peter, while Tony and Pepper went out for a vacation for the weekend.

They had trusted you to babysit Morgan, well You more than Peter.

“We will be fine Pep! Don’t worry I won’t let them burn down the kitchen, or let Gerald eat the goji berries. Now shoo!” You snickered, pushing Pepper with your hands on her shoulder, before she gave you one more look over her shoulder.

“Oh and if you need anything, Kyle will be here soon, you can ask him anything okay?” She said, making you stop in your tracks.

“Kyle? Who’s that?” Peter asked, shuffling to adjust Morgan, who was perched on his shoulder with her head buried in his neck, her soft snores barely audible.

“He’s Morgan’s babysitter, we can trust him honey, he’s been babysitting her since she was one.” Pepper said calmly, her eyes stiff as she wearily looked at Peter, her eyes flitting to You for a moment. They had all been weary of introducing you to change when you first came back, afraid what the change around you would cause you to break further. It ultimately lead to a heart to heart with Doctor Tumnus and You and Peter, one breakdown from each of you, and lots of cuddles.

“I thought he was in college?” You smiled, lifting your brows.

“You know about him?” He asked, his voice small. You didn’t answer him, choosing to nod your head instead.

Looking at Peter, you felt him stiffen, his shoulders tensing like the way they would whenever he was stressed or overthinking, his grip on Morgan tightening as if to protect her from whatever danger was about to come their way. Your heart sped at his look of frustration, his lip forming a thin line as he pursed them, your own confusion growing.

“Wh-why do we need him? I mean, Y/n/n and I can look after each other right?” He gulped, not meeting Pepper’s or your eyes. Morgan took that moment to wake up sniffing under her breath as she lifted her small head from his shoulder.

“Mommy is Kyle coming over?” She asked innocently, not noticing Peter as he gulped. You gripped his biceps, silently asking why he was acting the way he was.

Peter had always been shy when it came to strangers, choosing to stay in the circle of his own people. Heck he had taken almost months to warm up to you.

“Yes honey, he will be here soon, now, be nice for Peter and Y/N okay?” She cooed, kissing Morgan’s forehead and smiling at the little girl, grimacing as your dad honked from behind, shouting to make it fast.

“Okay mommy, have fun!” Morgan smiled sleepily, going back to her position on Peter’s neck, lifting her thumb to suck on. Holding her small hand, Peter softly brought it down to stop her from sucking on her finger. You smiled at how gentle he was with her, momentarily forgetting his ambiguous behavior at the mention of Morgan’s babysitter.

“So, wanna wreck the house?” You joked in an effort to dissipate the growing tension, watching the retreating figure of Pepper as she waved from the car. You waved back, smiling as you leant against the door jamb.

“Sure.” He said absentmindedly, holding his palm against Morgan’s head, tucking her in more firmly.

“Are you okay Pete?” You asked, scrunching your brows when he clenched his teeth, looking at you with seething eyes. You understood at that moment, why criminals feared him as your own heart clenched. He may be a doe eyed shy boy, but he could be angry when he wanted to.

“Can everyone stop fucking asking me that!?” He bellowed, looking at Morgan to make sure she hadn’t woken up. Walking to her bedroom, he tucked her in before keeping the door to her bedroom ajar, turning towards you,

“What’s crawled and died up your ass Parker?” You clenched, folding your hands as if in defence. You were getting worried, his behavior was not him. He was a naturally cheerful and chatty person, talking the ears off of the person who happened to be in his vicinity, now he was just, closed off.

“It’s nothing okay, it’s- it’s nothing. None of your business.” He said, walking away, leaving you with your jaw dropped and hands up in the air.

“Damn straight it’s my business! Why have you been acting weird ever since Pepper mentioned Morgan’s babysitter?” You snarled, shoulders sagging when you saw him tense up once more.

“Just, leave it alright?” He said, cursing your observation and not meeting your eyes before he turned the kitchen lights off, strutting to his bedroom. It was late at night and Pepper had wanted to have an early start, so they had decided to lodge at the tower before leaving for the trip.

“Alright, you don’t wanna talk am I right? See if I care next time!” You shouted pettily, huffing and moving to your bedroom, shuffling inside the covers, tears of frustration brimming your eyes as you tried to wash away the look Peter had given you from your brain.

***

Sleep didn’t come easy to Peter.

It wasn’t anything new for him, Ben had always said that his mind was like a whirlpool of thoughts- they churned at a very high speed and impared him from sleeping. But his insomnia had been causing problems as of late. Ever since he was little and his parents died, he had been prone to nightmares. Back then, Uncle Ben and Aunt May would do everything in their power to soothe him each time he had a bad dream.

Back then, when he was just a little boy, his uncle and aunt would snuggle up on either side of him and hold him until he fell asleep. Ben would sing with his gruff, slightly out of pitch but soothing voice, while aunt May would scratch the back of his ears, a sweet spot. It was the little gestures that reminded him of his childhood. The good parts of his childhood.

He tossed around in the bed, rolling his eyes to do a once over of his bedroom- the one that Pepper had designed when he had- when he had blipped along with You and three and a half million others. The word felt foreign on his tongue- why was such a catastrophic event named something as insignificant and fickle as “the blip”?

Scrunching his eyes shut, he groaned, tossing and turning around his bed. Heaving a frustrated sigh, he pulled at the bedsheets, kicking the covers off his feet as if he were five.

Peter was raised a city boy, living in the heart of New York, where nothing was really silent. Even before he gained his spidey powers, New York was never silent for him- the nightly noises of sirens and noisy neighbours was a constant in his life, so the sudden silence of living in the woods- where the only source of noise was Morgan and Tony in the morning and crickets chirping in the night was alarming.

Finally giving up, he decided to heave himself off the bed, shuffling his foot until he found the bunny slippers you had given him as a gag gift. Hovering his hands on the doorknob, he twisted it as slightly as he could, wincing when he heard the screeching noise of it twisting, as if it wanted to be as loud as it could just to piss him off.

Walking into the kitchen, he looked at the digital clock on his way, the red numbers glaring that it was well past three am into his retinas.

The room was dark, only illuminated by the small LED light in the garden. Picking up a glass, he looked over his shoulder to see if he had woken You or Morgan. Sighing when he heard your and Morgan’s minuscule snores (perks of having enhanced hearing), he opened the tap, filling the water in the glass before chugging it all up in one go.

“Fuck.” He muttered, slamming the glass down and wished the helpless feeling would go away. Ever since he heard the words come out of Pepper’s mouth, he couldn't think straight, all his thoughts strayed to him. He who had hurt Peter, he who was out of his life.

But who was he kidding? It was as if the universe was laughing at him by tossing another fuckery at his face, the ghost of his past lingering in his brain enough to cover the memories in a thin sheen of dust.

"Pete?" Your voice startled him, making him nearly drop the glass in his hand had it not been for his reflexes, "is that you?"

Your voice was heavy with sleep, fatigue evident as you appeared in his line of sight. Looking at him with squinting eyes as you flicked the light switch on.

"Yeah, just uh… thirsty. Wanted water."

“You have a water bottle on your bedside.”

He stayed silent, clenching his jaw as he looked at you. Biting his lips, he suppressed a chuckle as you failed to suppress a yawn, scrunching your eyes. You had a bad case of bed head, the strands of your hair all over your face. You were wearing your infamous strawberry pajamas, the shirt hanging off your shoulders. His eyes softened, you looked so young, all he wanted to do was smother you in a blanket and protect you from everything.

His gut twisted at the thought of protecting. He was supposed to be protecting Peter too.

“I can hear you thinking.” You said, your hands folded under your chest.

“So this Kyle guy, you know him?”

“Peter, you haven’t even met him, why do you hate him so much?” You sighed, rolling your eyes and wrapping your hands around his waist, laying your head against his shoulder blades.

“I- I don’t hate him! I just want to make sure-”

“Make sure what Peter?” You asked softly.

He gasped as memories flashed in front of him- that night when He had introduced himself to little Peter when He had come to babysit him.

Eight year old Peter had just wanted a friend. And Skip Wescott was a friend to him. He was cool and played games with Peter, showed him cool new science tricks and watched cartoons.

Aunt May and Uncle Ben were not home, they were late for work. Skip had been sending him small smiles the whole time.

“You want to see the big boy stuff now Einstein? I know you’re old enough.” Skip said, shifting uncomfortably close to Peter.

Peter’s smile fell off as he saw Skip’s eyes flash dangerously. And at that moment, he didn’t want Skip. He didn’t want to be friends with him any more and he wanted Aunt May.

“Nothing, go back to sleep.” He said, a lump forming in his throat, clutching the glass hard enough for cracks to appear on it. You left him be that night.

***

He didn’t notice when he fell asleep after that, the fear creeping up his spine in spite of knowing that Skip won’t be able to hurt him anymore- he was in jail, Ben had made sure of it. Yet he kept flashing back to his lowest points, when he had cried so loud, yet no one heard a thing.

In the end, he had won the case, yet the scars had remained fresh. His win felt futile, a defeat in spite of winning.

The smell of blueberry waffles invaded his senses first, his eyelids cracking open against the force of sleep. Scrunching his eyes, he let the world slowly come into motion, the walls coming into focus one by one.

He was startled into complete wakefulness by the sudden flurry of mass that had jumped on him, panic settling before noticing that it was just Morgan, her excited rambling bringing him back.

“H-hey Momo! You seem excited huh? Good morning to you too.” He laughed, inhaling as she jumped on his stomach.

“Petey you have to brush your teeth! Come down fast because I have a surprise for you.” She giggled, snuggling into his chest and getting up just as fast, pulling him with her tiny hand.

“I see you have a handy alarm clock.” You said from the doorway, smirking when you saw him

“A very cute alarm clock.” Peter cooed, pinching Morgan’s cheeks and leaving a big sloppy kiss on her cheek, making the little girl giggle, “Wait if you’re both here then who’s in the kitchen? Did May come back? Or is it Happy?”

“No May will be in Cali for a little longer, Happy visited her there so they’re having an impromptu vacation.” You smirked, knowing how much it irked Peter whenever you told him about May and Happy’s escapades. He rolled his eyes, scrunching his nose in disgust, just as you had expected him to.

“I didn’t need to know that, but whatever, who is it though?”

“Kyle’s here! He’s cooking waffles cause I told him Petey likes them very much! It was supposed to be a surprise but Y/n/n ruined it.” The little girl pouted, glaring at you with her adorable brown eyes. She looked exactly like Tony when she did that.

He felt a pang in his chest, an unearthed nervousness taking residence as he felt his stomach drop. He pulled Morgan closer, feeling your eyes on him as you tried to gauge his expression.

“Yeah.” You said simply, urging Morgan to come to you as he got up from the bed.

Walking downstairs after cleaning up, he stiffly sat on the table, watching as a short but lean Blond man cooked waffles.

“Hey kiddo! You must be Peter, Morgan and Y/N talk about you all the time!” The guy- Kyle probably, said chirpily. Peter clenched his fists under the table, noticing the look you were giving him.

“Hi.” He said shyly, ducking his head so he won’t have to see him.

“Well they told me you’re shy too.” He said, a smile evident in his voice.

“Y-Yeah.”

“Aw Pete don’t be rude! At least look at his face.” You joked, hitting him slightly in the ribs.

“Sorry I just, that smells delicious.” He smiled, finally looking up to blue eyes staring at him. He shifted nervously, sitting up straight.

“Thank you.”

He felt uneasy under his gaze, bringing the glass of water to his lips to avoid making eye contact.

“How long is he gonna stay here?” Peter whispered to you, avoiding to look inside the kitchen where he was cooking lunch with Morgan- the girl was perched on the countertop with her legs dangling and swinging.

You and Peter had retreated to the AV room after breakfast, opting to watch a movie instead of doing homework. Well it was You who had dragged Peter, because you knew he had already done it before coming.

“He’ll make dinner and go, again, why?” You asked him, fisting some popcorn and throwing them in your mouth.

“It’s nothing.”

You let it go again.

Dinner was an awkward affair. He couldn’t help but let his gaze linger onto him, how he interacted with Morgan. She seemed genuinely happy, jumping around the house till she was tired, enjoying as he lifted her up and played airplane with her.

He really didn’t want to think about it, but his spidey sense kept buzzing a headache in the bottom of his skull. He tried to distract himself, opening his chemistry text book to read ahead of class, but the worlds kept floating around as he saw you and Morgan laugh at something Kyle had said.

“Come on Einstein! It won’t hurt for you to keep that textbook and play with us eh?” Kyle said, winking at him as Morgan laughed, making grabby hands at him so he would come.

You want to see the big boy stuff now Einstein?

No, this wasn’t Skip. This was Kyle, Morgan’s babysitter.

He knew the comment was noncommittal, but he felt his heart race, the world zooming in and out of focus as it got harder to breathe, his book swimming in his hands. He felt floaty, the tingling in his hands intensifying as he felt someone’s hands on his back, dizzily startling him into reality.

“Hey, hey take a breath kid, it’s alright. Deep breaths.” A soothing voice said, cold sweat breaking as he dropped his textbooks. Tears ran down his face without meaning to as he pursed his lips. Instead of saying anything, he sat up and ran into his room.

He could hear you running after him, Kyle asking “Is he okay” as you reassured him. Tears were running freely now as he slammed the door, flopping on the bed and burying himself in the pillows, wishing that the bed would swallow him whole.

He didn’t know why he was reacting the way he did, Kyle was a good person, he saw the way he interacted with Morgan. He was gentle and loving, then why is it that he kept seeing him.

He heard the door creek, your footsteps echoing in his ears, drums rattling against his brain.

“Are you ready to talk now?” You asked softly, wafting your hands through his hair as he felt the bed dip with your weight.

“I had a babysitter, when I was eight. His name was Skip.” He croaked, breathing through his nose. He felt you stiffen as you seemed to connect the dots. Nudging him to move so you could insert yourself in the space.

“Did he hurt you Pete?” You whispered, rubbing his back.

“He did bad things to me, I just, I don’t want anyone to go through it again. Please. He may be in jail but- but sometimes I still feel like he’s here and I hate how I feel! I want him gone. I just want him gone and I want the memories to be erased.”

You remained silent, rubbing his back through his sweatshirt, unbidding tears appearing in your eyes. Someone had hurt Peter. You felt anger boiling inside you, swirling in a dangerous tornado at the thought of someone hurting the best person in your life,

You promised yourself that day that You would protect him at all costs. You couldn't do it in the past, but you would in the future.

“I’m glad you told me about this Pete.” You said, clenching your teeth as he met your eyes.

#peter parker x stark!reader #peter parker x reader #peter x reader #peter parker x stark reader #stark!reader #spiderman x stark!reader #peter parker x avenger!reader #avenger!reader #peter parker x reader angst #peter parker x reader fluff #peter parker smut #spideygirl writes

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harderbetterfasterstarker · 4 years ago

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endless

oops my hand slipped and i wrote a very sad drabble that’s just tony missing peter, reflecting on it during the Blip, set pre-as if even now. read it on ao3 here, and if you haven’t, read as if even now (if only to get to their happy ending, i wrote an absurdly fluffy epilogue drabble for them damnit). preemptive tw that this fic reflects on a time where tony was suicidal, and thoughts and attempts are referenced.

The kid had gotten under his skin, into every breath he took, inside his lungs and running through his veins and pumping through his heart, in ways he hadn’t realized until he’d clutched his body as it crumbled to dust. All he’d known was that he’d felt empty in ways he hadn’t since before he’d become Iron Man, back to Earth and spending his days and nights looking for ways to fill the aching chasm that was always threatening to swallow him whole.

Tony has always been, if anything, at least self-aware when it comes to his many and myriad faults. And the truth is that he is a greedy man, never satisfied with what he has, always reaching for the next thing and the next and the next, always wanting what he can’t have, even when (especially when) it’s not good for him. And he knows that this is the truth, even though Pep always just pats him on the shoulder and gives him one of her softer smiles and says that he deserves to be a little greedy, after all he’s done, after all he’s been through. He hasn’t quite figured out how to argue with that one, even though he knows in his gut that he should. At least he hasn’t figured out how to argue without revealing cards he’d rather keep hidden, even from (especially from) Pep.

Because he’d nearly died, had thought he was going to die, and was ready to die. Another of those things he hasn’t quite worked up the courage to tell Pep yet. Her favored narrative, for him and for the press, is that he held on, fought for life, fought to stay with them for her, for Morgan. Morgan—Christ. So how is he supposed to tell Pep that he’d been lying there, fighting for consciousness through the pain clawing its way across his entire right side, and in what he’d been certain were his dying moments he’d looked at the kid, really looked at him, remembered the way his hair had smelled of cheap shampoo and sweat and dirt when he’d hugged him tight, here, real, undeniably alive, and thought, Oh. Oh.

And that had been enough.

Tony scrubbed his hands across his face, harsh and hard, as if he could erase the memory of that moment, before he’d felt whatever oddball magic Strange had begun working. What he needed to erase were the memories of the five years before that—or, hell, maybe back further. As if Tony would ever—could ever—try to excise Peter from his mind. He wasn’t even sure that he could, now. The kid had gotten under his skin, into every breath he took, inside his lungs and running through his veins and pumping through his heart, in ways he hadn’t realized until he’d clutched his body as it crumbled to dust. All he’d known was that he’d felt empty in ways he hadn’t since before he’d become Iron Man, back to Earth and spending his days and nights looking for ways to fill the aching chasm that was always threatening to swallow him whole.

After Pep had gotten pregnant with Morgan, he’d once, in a drunken spat of extreme bitterness, accused her of convincing him to retire and have a kid as a replacement for Peter. She’d been so mad at him for that one that she’d just left the house and called Rhodey, told them to call her when Tony was sober again. He regretted what he said, but he noticed that she didn’t deny it.

At least, in her eyes, he’d stopped trying to kill himself by the time Morgan was born, so she could reasonably assume that maybe her plan had worked. Shamefully, not even the idea of leaving his baby girl alone in the world without a father was enough to keep him away from that particular ledge—in fact, what he hadn’t admitted to Pepper was that it made him want to run away more, because if Peter was superhuman and brilliant and good, the best of them, and Tony hadn’t been able to protect him, what could Tony hope to do for this little girl? No, it was Nat who got the credit for ending his run of attempts. Most of his attempts had been thwarted by past Tony, who had dreamed up what felt like a thousand and one protocols and alerts for just this scenario, but the last one it had been Nat to walk into his workshop at just the right (wrong) moment, in what if it had been anyone other than the Black Widow he’d have called a coincidence.

“You’ve gotta talk to someone, Tony,” she’d said once they were settled on the couch in the corner of the lab he slept on most nights.

“You don’t think I do? I’ve seen every shrink this side of the Mississippi and several on the other, I’ve gone to those stupid fucking support groups, and it’s—none of it works, Nat.” He’d been drunk—he was always at least slightly drunk, then—and it made him more open. “It’s all wrong.”

Whenever his therapists asked him to talk about what happened on Titan, he clammed up, spoke in the vaguest of terms. He told himself he was protecting Peter’s identity (even in apparent death) but he knew that wasn’t right. He’d considered that he was trying to avoid admitting just how culpable he really was, for dragging a teenager into this fight, for dragging the best mind of a new generation, the sweetest boy he’d ever known, brash and a bit impulsive but with a heart of fucking gold, and let him die on a godforsaken desert planet with a bunch of aliens, Strange, and a man who thought Footloose was a great movie—because he’d had plenty of experience avoiding admitting truths to himself, and this wasn’t his first therapy rodeo—but deep down he knew that wasn’t right either.

“Have you gone to the right ones?” Natasha had asked softly, looking at him carefully, and he had the unsettling feeling she, as always, saw more than he wanted her to see.

“I’ve been to the general ones, the ones for everyone who lost people in the Blip, to family loss, to the ones for first responders and others who felt helpless, I’ve even been to the groups for parents who lost kids.”

He had—at Pep’s insistence, he’d gone. And it was—better, than the others. The scope of his grief felt… more accepted, there. Less out of touch with the experiences of others. But it still wasn’t—enough. When they talked about the future they’d been robbed of with their children, it was a future they got to watch, moments in their lives that were gone—graduations, weddings, grandchildren. And Tony felt that, all of it, deeply—that he should’ve been there to see Pete graduate, valedictorian, go to college wherever he wanted (MIT, it would’ve been MIT), invent something that floored Tony with his brilliance—but that wasn’t quite it. More than all of that, he missed the time he should’ve spent with the kid and didn’t, missed the idea of years of weekends in the lab spilling out ahead of them, hearing him laugh and seeing him smile. He wished he’d just hugged the kid that time in the car, instead of making everything some joke.

“He was just… you know what he said to me, when I first met him and asked him why he was doing what he did? A broke fourteen year old kid, suddenly has superpowers and instead of being captain of the football team and stealing enough to set them up for life, he’s chasing down muggers in a onesie? He said, when you can do what I do, and you don’t do anything, and then bad things happen, they happen because of you. I mean, Christ, Nat. He was the best of us and I—I lost him, and I—and it feels like I can’t breathe.” He realized that his hand had gone, unbidden, to the shell of where the arc reactor had been, clutching at it desperately. Ripping his heart out would’ve maybe been less painful. Natasha had given him another penetrating look and then, whip sharp and faster than certainly his inebriated brain could keep up with, she’d grabbed him by the chin and turned him to look her in the eye.

“I actually like you, Tony, which is why I will say this. You loved Peter, you really truly did. And when you love someone, and they die, it fucking hurts and it never goes away. I like Pepper, I do, but the house in the country and hanging up the suit and the baby? Those won’t make it stop hurting. That pain lives inside you now, because so did Peter. So the only question is whether you can choose to live with it. Like I said, I like you, so I hope the answer is yes, and I think that’s the answer the kid would want for you. But if the answer is no, you call me. I’ll make it quick, and painless, and tidy, and Pep and the baby would never ever know what it really was.”

For once in life, he’d been speechless, left to stare at the spot on the couch she’d vacated as he considered her words, considered that Natasha had had a life, in Russia, before the Red Room had stolen it from her. Considered whether he’d want Pep to think he’d just… had a heart attack. Gotten old, put too much stress on himself. Considered the kid, wondered if there really was a place you went when you died, what he’d say to Peter.

He’d called Natasha once after that, at 3 in the morning a few months after Morgan was born, when he hadn’t been getting enough sleep and when the silence around the house had felt oppressive.

“Tony,” she’d said, quiet and gentle, the kind of tone she took when she was lulling the Hulk back to peace. “Is this the call we talked about?”

“No,” he’d gasped, scrabbling around the kitchen for the picture of Peter and him together, their fake internship picture. “No, I just… Thanks. Thank you.”

“You already had your heart-to-heart, Stark. Don’t think this is a regular thing,” she’d said, sounding more like herself. He’d snorted, clinging to the sense of normalcy.

“Yeah, yeah, I got it. Won’t put you on the list for talking about our feelings.”

“Atta boy. And Stark… you’re welcome.”

#starker #fanfic #tony stark x peter parker

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monaisme · 4 years ago

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One Week Later - Chapter 5

This is the sequel to my one-shot, “The Battle”

Mrs. Stark was seated on the couch, her back to Peter as she spoke affectionately to someone on her phone. She was obviously preoccupied and missed his quietly entering the room, as she continued talking. “I know you want to see me, sweetheart, and I miss you, too—so desperately, but things are a little crazy right now.” A pause. “I know that I promised you a special date just the two of us, but I can’t get away from the city until things are settled and you know this.” Another pause. “Morgan, please—“

In his haze, Peter registered the name, Morgan, and almost wondered who he was? The lethargy that had washed over him weighted him where he stood and he almost felt like he was supposed to react to Mrs. Stark’s words, be curious at least? But he could barely...

FRIDAY interrupted the moment. “Apologies for the interruption, Mrs. Boss, but Boss is on his way up.”

Mrs. Stark called out a quick, “Thank you, FRIDAY,” then came back to her call. She muttered a tender, “I’ve gotta go. I love you, baby,” and hung up the phone. She stood up from the couch and gasped, her hand flying to her chest as she noticed Peter for the first time. “Oh! Peter! How long have you been standing there?” Her cheeks flushed pink as she hid her phone behind her guiltily.

He heard her question, shrugged in reply, and looked down at the floor as he tried to process that he couldn’t process what was happening in that moment. The almost indifference was giving way to discomfort as his brain tried to filter out the garbage bogging him down. “Um, I’m sorry. I didn’t want to interrupt... it seemed important?”

She looked uncomfortable, at least to Peter, but he really wasn’t sure of anything in that moment. “Peter, I should explain—“ She gestured to her phone she’d brought forward, but her words were cut off when the elevator doors in the penthouse foyer opened and footsteps echoed on the marble floor.

Mr. Stark entered the living room and grinned big. “Ah, my beautiful family! Exactly the people I wanted to see!” he announced. “I have news from the med bay!”

That tweaked something more in Peter, and his attention was diverted away from Mrs. Stark and the mystery Morgan to his mentor. “I can see May?” he asked quietly.

Mr. Stark nodded emphatically. “You bet you can, kid.” He laughed at something to himself then continued. “She was asleep when I got there so I had a chance to talk to the doc in person for an update. He was just getting around to telling me that we couldn’t come around today when May woke up.” Mr. Stark laughed a little harder. “Needless to say, you are definitely seeing her today.”

Peter felt what must have been the first spark of a real smile in ages. “Really?”

Mr. Stark took a step closer to the boy, then put a firm hand on his shoulder. “Of course, buddy. We’re just gonna give the nurses a chance to help her put on her game face and as soon as she’s ready, they’ll call, but for now...”

Peter’s shoulders sagged under the weight of Mr. Stark’s hand as he realized, “Now we wait.”

Mr. Stark gave an oddly grounding squeeze and pulled Peter into a firm hug. “Yeah, bud. Now we wait... but she’s as eager as you, so it won’t be too long, I’m sure of it.”

Peter shivered as he pressed further into Mr. Stark’s chest. The haze of the last little while was lifting and he felt a little unsteady so he closed his eyes and breathed in as he clung to the one thing in his life that seemed to have changed the least.

“Hey, sweetheart, not going to hassle you, but did the shower help?” Mr. Stark whispered into his hair. “Are you feeling a little better now?”

He nodded a yes, choosing to ignore whatever it was that was going on with Mrs. Stark in order to address his previous outburst. “I’m so sorry about that, Mr. Stark. I’ll fix the wall. I promise.” He pulled back and shifted to peek around Mr. Stark to Mrs. Stark but refusing to let go. “And I’m sorry if I scared you earlier, Mrs. Stark. It won’t happen again. I swear... I don’t even...” He tried to explain that he wasn’t like that, that he didn’t know where the anger had come from—well, he did, but that didn’t mean he was allowed to show it— He huffed in frustration as he struggled to find the right words.

Mrs. Stark stepped closer, smiled softly, and stopped Peter’s apology before he could completely short circuit. “I know, Peter, and it really is alright. I know that you’d never hurt me, I was just surprised, is all. Thank you for the apology, though. I appreciate it... and don’t worry about the wall, please. It should be fixed by the end of the day.”

Peter felt his cheeks pink with embarrassment and he ducked back into the safety of Mr. Stark’s arms. “Thank you... and I’m still sorry.”

Mr. Stark gave him an extra squeeze in acknowledgement then said nothing more.

It was a few seconds later when Peter could sense movement behind Mr. Stark—then his humming and shaking his head in response to whatever it was that Mrs. Stark was apparently silently communicating to him.

“Pete?” Mrs. Stark spoke up. “We need to talk to you about—”

“Boss, Mrs. Parker is requesting Mr. Parker’s presence in the med bay.” FRIDAY alerted the room. “She has asked me to play back her request directly. She says, ‘Tony, if you make me wait a second longer than I have to to see my kid, I’m gonna tell Pepper about that time you—‘” FRIDAY cut off the recording. “Apologies for the disruption in playback, while you can gauge the seriousness of her request, per your ’Admit Nothing’ protocol, I have determined it is not in your best interest to play the entire recording, sir.”

Mr. Stark snort laughed, “Thanks, FRI, you’re a gem,” he replied and hugged Peter tight one last time before letting him go. “Well, kid. You heard the AI! Aunt May is waiting!” Mr. Stark led him to the elevator.

Peter didn’t hesitate to follow and made it half way across the room when—

“Peter, can you wait a moment, please!” Mrs. Stark called out.

Peter cringed at the delay, but turned around to face her. “Um, okay?”

“Peter, I... we,” she glanced toward Mr. Stark, “We still need to talk to you about a couple of things—“

Peter was fighting down the impatience, and Mr. Stark must have seen it. He cut her off. “Pep. We can talk about this later on, can’t we? He’s been waiting a week and May will kill me literally dead if he’s not there soon.”

She looked flustered, and Peter almost cared, but she’d been hiding something earlier, now that Peter’s brain was firing back up he was sure of it—and he couldn’t make himself worry about it anymore, especially when he needed to get to May.

She paused, seemed to consider, and then, “Fine. But can we please make the time to talk about things later? Maybe over lunch?”

Peter was making no plans beyond the med bay, but he knew that wouldn’t fly so he agreed. “Yeah, sure. Lunch.” He looked between the two. “Can I go now?”

Mrs. Stark looked at her husband, who stared back goofily at her. She smiled, then he smiled, and like that, Mr. Stark was on the move with him again.

And then Peter wasn’t so sure he wanted the company anymore. “Mr. Stark, would it be okay if I went alone?”

“Are you sure you’re up for that? I mean, I know you’d be okay if you do go alone, but there could be a lot going on in that room that you may have questions about and I don’t want you to get overwhelmed.” Mr. Stark was concerned and had no issue with voicing it. “I don’t have to stay for long, just until I know you’re comfortable, and—“

“And I appreciate that. I do. It’s just...” Peter wasn’t sure he could find the words to convey how badly he needed it to be just them. “Please?”

Peter could see Mr. Stark struggling with it. There was no good reason that Peter could think of for Mr. Stark to let him go alone except that he wanted it. And the man was right. He was already anxious and he hadn’t even made it to the elevator yet. Peter was about to give up on the request altogether when Mr. Stark broke into his thoughts.

“Fine, you can go alone, but you have FRI call me if you change your mind, okay? I’ll be there in two minutes. No questions. No judgement.”

“Really?” Peter asked.

“Yes, and we expect to see you back here for lunch when she gets tired of you, alright?” Mr. Stark teased.

“Yessir.”

Mr. Stark glared.

“Yes, Mr. Stark.”

“Alright then, you heathen, begone.” Mr. Stark pointed toward the elevator with a wink. “Don’t make me regret this. And you’d better tell Aunt Hottie that you’re kiss and grounding were both delivered as requested, got it? I told her but I don’t think she believes me.”

“I will.” Peter promised and then waited only a few seconds for the elevator doors to open and finally make his way down to the med bay. He focussed on the next while and how this reunion would go. Aunt May was going to be so happy to see him, he thought. It had been the two of them for so long, and he wished that she hadn’t had to go through all these years without him. But he was back now and things would get better. They had to, right? As the elevator descended, though, his thoughts started to twist. What if it wasn’t better? He knew logically that things were different now-- for him it had been a week and five years and forever and no time at all and all Peter knew was that he didn’t need to say a word to her; only wanted to curl up beside his favourite Aunt and never leave her again.

And she was sick.

The elevator doors opened and Peter froze.

Maybe he’d made a mistake?

“Mr. Parker, we have arrived at the med bay floor.” FRIDAY said.

Peter didn’t move, but he could feel himself getting worked up.

And so could FRIDAY. “Mr. Parker. While still within normal parameters, your breathing, pulse, and heart rate are elevating rapidly. Might I suggest a few deep breaths in order to regulate them?”

Peter still didn’t move... couldn’t move.

“Very well, initiating ‘Meltdown Management Mode’ now.”

The elevator doors closed and for a second Peter thought that the AI would return him to the penthouse and he’d lose his chance to see Aunt May, and his breathing picked up more. He gasped out a “no!”

The elevator stayed where it was, but its lights softened and the canned muzak that had played in the background was replaced by soothing ocean sounds. “Don’t be alarmed, Mr. Parker. Please try to match your breaths to the count, Mr. Parker.” FRIDAY instructed softly. “Breathe in, 2, 3, 4, and out 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6.”

It took a couple of cycles, but eventually Peter picked up the rhythm and within a few minutes, Peter was feeling a little more like himself. “Um, thanks, FRIDAY,” Peter called out to the AI. “That was... unexpected.” And he didn’t know if he was talking about the freak out or the assist.

“Yes,” FRIDAY interrupted. “Due to the random nature of anxiety and panic attacks, Boss has found the protocol to be quite useful over the last five years. He will be glad to know that it has been of use to someone else.”

The thought of Mr. Stark knowing he’d freaked out AGAIN was not okay. That he couldn’t manage to make his way down a few floors without breaking down? “Yeah, um, FRIDAY, do you think you could not tell Mr. Stark about this? I mean, I’m fine, right?”

The elevator fell silent for a brief moment then, “When this protocol was first initiated, Boss required that Mrs. Boss was notified each time it was initiated. There is no specific protocol requirement for you, Mr. Parker. You’re vitals are indicating that you are still experiencing some stress, but they are steady and within normal parameters. I see no reason to report this at this time, but if Boss asks, I will be required to inform him.”

Peter could have slumped with relief... or exhaustion. The constant ups and downs were messing him up big time, and he hated it, but at least he’d remembered his manners. “Thank you, FRIDAY.

“You are welcome, Mr. Parker. Are you ready for me to open the elevator doors now?”

Peter steeled himself and then answered, “Please?”

“Of course,” the AI replied. “Enjoy your visit with Mrs. Parker.”

The doors slid open and Peter stepped out into the waiting room of what was his second home—well, third. First was May’s, then the penthouse with Mr. Stark, and then...

“Peter?”

He turned towards the familiar voice, smiling as he saw one of his favourite nurses walking towards him, “Lydie?” Her hair was cut shorter than he’d remembered it and was dyed a vibrant red. Definitely different, but still definitely her, thank goodness.

“Peter, you haven’t aged a day! Get over here!” She enveloped him in one of those awesome hugs she’d give him when he’d wake up from a nightmare in the middle of the night after he’d finally convinced May or Mr. Stark to finally go and get some sleep in their own beds. “I missed you so much!”

And Peter had exactly zero idea of what to say back. ‘You, too,’ wasn’t true. In his reality, he’d seen her two weeks ago when a he’d been triple-teamed by a trio of wanna-be ninja muggers with zero throwing star skills and just enough luck to land a star smack in the back at his shoulder blade. He mumbled a “Thanks,” and pulled away.

He’d hoped she’d realize his discomfort, but Lydie was always one to talk and it seemed like this time was no different. She pointed down a hallway Peter didn’t think he’d ever been down before and started walking. “I know you’re here to see May so let me catch you up while I take you to her—so...”

Apparently it only took the length of a long hallway to find out about the life and times of all those who had been left behind. Peter tried to focus, but the moment Lydie had mentioned May again, his stomach had knotted and he did everything he could to use FRIDAY’s breathing techniques without being too obvious.

“...and here we go.” Lydie stopped walking and pointed into the closed door to the left. “Before you go in, though, we’re just gonna gown you up, okay?”

“What?”

She brought Peter over to a station stocked with gloves, gowns, caps, and masks. “Yeah, we want to be sure that we don’t bring any uninvited germs into the room with us while she’s already fighting this infection—or carry any out, for that matter.”

Peter almost recoiled. “I could make her more sick?” He hadn’t even thought about that and suddenly worried that his shower hadn’t been enough.

“Don’t be silly, Peter.” She chided him. “We’re only doing this as a precaution and I know how anxious May is to see you, so let’s go. Chop, chop.”

Peter got to it right away and tried not to feel ridiculous in his new oversized get up even as Lydie looked almost identical.

Lydie’s eyes smiled at him encouragingly. “Alright, are you ready?”

He didn’t answer, but she wasn’t waiting for him to as she pushed the door open and grabbed his arm to drag him inside with her.

“May, I hope you’re decent. You’ve got a gentleman caller here!” Lydie sang out softly as she peeked through the curtains surrounding her bed.

Peter heard the rustling of sheets and a groggy, “Wha—Lydie?”

Lydie glanced back at him, gestured for him to wait and ducked behind the curtain. “May?” Lydie whispered, quiet enough that it was only because of Peter’s enhanced hearing that he could make out the words. “May, can you wake up a little more? You dozed off on me.”

“Oh?” The sheets rustled some more. “Oh, no,” she gasped. “I didn’t mean to— is he gone? Did I miss him?“

A monitor beeped in warning.

“Shh, shh, shh. May, it’s okay. Take a deep breath. It’s fine. He’s waiting for the all clear before he comes in. I know he’s fallen asleep on you plenty of times so don’t sweat it.” Lydie really was the best.

Another beep, this one a press of something on a machine.

And then the sound of stifling tears.

“May, honey, oh. No-no-no, don’t do that, May. He’s back now.” Lydie comforted her, not bothering to lower her voice. “Peter’s just on the other side of the curtain and he thinks he’s hiding it, but he’s nervous, too.” Peter heard Lydie pull a tissue from a box and pass it to May.

May sniffed, then blew her nose and squeaked out, “Peter’s really here?”

“You know I wouldn’t lie to you, May, and he’s probably wondering what’s taking you so long.”

“Yeah.” May took a deep breath and then another. Peter could hear her and Lydie doing a last minute straighten up. “Okay.” May whispered. “How do I look?”

“Like a million bucks.” Lydie reassured her. “Now, can I open these curtains before he loses his mind?”

May must have nodded because the curtain was slowly dragged back to reveal the most important person in Peter’s universe, propped up in the bed and fussing with the long braid trailing down the front of her hospital gown.

And Peter stood there frozen, mere feet away from her bed, his mouth opening and closing like a fish behind the mask. “May?” The woman in front of him looked like a weak imitation of the woman he’d left only a week ago to head to school and that stupid MOMA field trip. The yellowed, swollen face and hands screamed sickness, punctuated by the heavy scent of medicated creams, antiseptic, and blood. They’d at least made an effort to disguise the various machines surrounding her, but the curtains and draped blankets couldn’t camouflage the nasal cannula—and the delicately flowered robe she wore over the medbay gown did little to hide the tubing still connected to her IV or the dialysis machine Peter guessed she’d been hooked up to since that call in Wakanda that morning. His stomach turned at the sight of it all so he concentrated again on her face. There, he could see the flush of fever in her cheeks and a glassiness in her eyes. She looked exhausted.

He didn’t know what to do.

She looked just as stunned as Peter, though for completely different reasons. “Peter?” May stared at the boy and then scowled at Lydie. “I swear, Lydie, on the soul of my dead mother. If you don’t get all that shit off my kid so I can see him for real, I will make sure that you never find that stupid blush nail polish you swear by again—and I know people so I can make it happen.”

Lydie threw her hands up in apology. “May, you know that I can’t. Dr. Bonwick has orders—“

“I don’t care, Lydie.” she huffed. “I’ve waited too long to see that face.” May turned her attention back to Peter. “You heard me,” she pointed to his medical gear with a look of distaste. “All of that garbage off, now.”

He wanted to listen to her, honest, but she was sick and the reality of it had smacked him in the face. There was no way he’d risk—

“Peter.” Peter recognized the tone anywhere. It was the same tone that made sure his homework got done before patrol, that his bedroom was cleaned before heading to Ned’s, and that got wet towels off the bathroom floor and an apple in his hand before he ran out the door to school. Yeah. Peter knew better than to dawdle. The fabric gown and its accessories were in a laundry bin in the corner of the room in half a minute and he stood ready for inspection.

May beamed with joy as she gazed upon him. “There’s my Peter,” she exclaimed. “Now get your ass over here and give me a hug before I lose my mind, you goofball.”

Peter rushed up to the bed, hesitating when he reached the railing of the bed. “Uh... what should I—“

Lydie, who’d tucked herself inconspicuously away to work in the corner of the room, came forward to help. “C’mon, Peter, you know as well as anyone how these beds work.” She teased as she did her nurse magic, lowering the railing.

“I know how the bed works,” he insisted as he tried to ignore the fear that one wrong move would hurt her. “I’m trying to be careful, is all.”

May was having none of that. “You couldn’t hurt me if you tried, sweetheart.” She leaned forward and opened her arms, now seriously. “Please?”

Peter was in her arms in a blink, fighting back tears as May finally gave in to hers. Neither of them said a word as they revelled in their reunion. Only a week and five years- five years- She’d waited for him for so long.

Peter whispered, “I didn’t mean to go, May, I swear,” as he burrowed into her.

She buried her face in his hair and tried to breathe in the scent of him, like she'd done his whole life. "I know, baby. I know." May reassured him. She shifted slightly, started pushing the pillows supporting her aside.

Peter panicked. "Oh! I'm hurting you! I'm so sorry!" He pulled back and away, "I'm gonna—"

May grabbed his hand. "No, Peter. You're not hurting me at all. I just need to move- these- damn- pillows." She ground out the words while she tried to readjust.

"I can do it!" Peter declared, jostling the pillows about. “I’ll just—“ He shifted the pillows Aunt May, just a little, but the ones behind her seemed determined to keep her from completely relaxing, if he was reading her body language right. “Maybe if I—“ He slipped off the bed and started looking for the controls to set the bed at a better angle.

Lydie stepped in again, “Peter, here. Let me help—“

“No!” He replied loudly, surprising everyone in the room. He pressed on, moving May’s blankets in his hunt. “I’ve got this. I’m just gonna adjust the bed and make sure that May’s comfortable.”

“I know, Peter, but if I help—“

“Look, Lydie, I’ve got this, okay?” Not finding the controls, he moved around to the other side of the bed. “It’s the least I can do after all this time, right?” He tried to laugh at the little dig but sounded more like he was choking. They had to think he was losing his mind.

“Peter.” May called to him. “Come on. You’re fuss-farting around for a bed controller.” She patted the empty space beside her. “Let’s do a snuggle party like when you were little instead.” She held out her arms in welcome again and that was all Peter needed.

He clamoured up onto the bed again and tried to squeeze in beside her as she shifted to give him room, just like she’d asked.

Lydie watched the exchange sadly and smiled, “I’m going to give you two some time,” and exited the room. Peter was sure she hadn’t gone far.

“I remember you being smaller, buster.” She teased.

Peter rolled his eyes and chuckled. “Are moms obligated to say cheesy stuff like that? Like, is it in the secret mom rulebook?”

“Now, Peter,” she grinned slyly as she looked down at him. “You know if I told you, I’d have to kill you—now, c’mon.” She eased herself a little further to one side of the bed and sighed in brief relief as she settled. “Get closer.”

He did try. Oh, how he wanted to be held in her arms and have her tell him everything was going to be okay, but gentle teasing couldn’t hide the limitations of the IV tube he’d interrupt if he laid this way—or the access site on her other side if he shifted that way.

May giggled through a new round of tears as they struggled to find a hold that wouldn’t cause her harm. “Wow, if we ever thought we could ignore the elephant in the room, huh?”

Peter stopped his wiggling. “May, don’t... I... I... ” He couldn’t speak so he sat himself up, twisting and turning away from her. He buried his face in his hands and started to tremble.

He was going to lose her.

He could feel her pulling herself up, trying to get closer to him. Peter jumped off the bed. “No! You need to lie down, May. Please.” He pressed her gently back into her pillow pile. “I’m gonna grab a chair, okay?”

“Peter, stop it. Get back up here,” she ordered, watching him work his way up to another freak out.

But he couldn’t... he just couldn’t.

Instead, Peter grabbed the straight backed chair rested against the wall and, in a flash, seated himself at her bedside. “Nah, I need you comfortable, May...” He grinned big and insincere, “And you know I’m a bed hog. Really! This is probably way better for you.” He focussed on his hands as they twisted at her blankets. “Just until you feel a little better, please?”

She didn’t bother to hide as her frustration shifted to concern. “Peter, please. I know this is strange,” She reached out to grab his hands, stopping him. “But we’re gonna get through this. Okay?”

Peter slid his hands out from under hers, then gently laid his on hers, but could say nothing. A part of him had thought that maybe... just maybe Mr. Stark had been overstating things so that Peter would find relief at things not being so bad. But Mr. Stark would never have done something like that. Peter had just been wrong. His vacillating between hope and impending doom stopped exactly then.

He knew all about Parker Luck, after all.

He gave May’s hands a squeeze, kissed them, then pulled away. He could feel the greasiness of lotion against his lips, and forced himself to ignore it. “You should lie down, May. I don’t want you to get more tired because of me.”

“Peter. I’ll worry about me, alright?” May lightly scolded. “But I’m also gonna worry about you, got it.” She cupped his cheek and tried to catch his eye. “We’ll need to talk about this eventually, sweetheart.”

He closed his eyes and prayed for strength, “I know...” he choked out. “But can it not be now?”

May didn’t say anything for a moment before agreeing. “Alright... but soon? Hiding your head in the sand does nothing but leave your butt exposed for that big kick in the pants you’re trying to avoid, and you know it.”

Peter nodded. He didn’t have a choice.

The last two Parkers clasped hands again and sat silent for a moment; May savoured his presence while Peter mourned hers.

Five damned years. Peter’s thoughts turned to Titan and failed attempts and how if he’d only gotten the gauntlet.

A series of beeps sounded from one of the hidden machine, startling the two from their thoughts.

“Holy crap!” Peter jumped as he threw his hand to his chest, knocking over his chair in the process. “What’s wrong?” He scanned his aunt, not seeing why the alarm was suddenly going off. “Did I do something?”

“Calm down, Peter. That means my dialysis is done for today.” She reached for his hand. “It alerts whoever’s on shift that they can unhook me.”

Lydie entered the room again without a word and pulled a blanket off the machine closest to the bed.

Peter looked away.

“I’ll be quick, folks, then a quick check up and I’ll be out of your hair.” Lydie promised as she pressed a button to silence the alarm.

May didn’t pretend to be anything other than irritated. “Lydie, can we just do it later? Peter’s here and I don’t want to—“

Lydie raised her hand her hand to stop her. “Nuh-uh. I’ve already broken one rule for you today. If you think I’m not following another protocol, you’ve got another thing coming to you.” She glanced over to the young superhero. “Sorry, Peter.”

He just shrugged and moved his chair back towards the wall. “No worries. I’ll just stay out of the way.” Yeah, even he knew better to fight with the nurses in Avengers Tower.

Lydie chuckled, “I wish you were that cooperative when you were a patient here, Peter.”

May outright cracked up at that. “You tell him, Lydie.”

“Yeah, yeah, yuk it up. I am a stellar patient.” Peter pouted, “You’re both so mean to me.”

The laughter died down as Lydie disconnected things and went about doing what should have been a cursory check. The cuff of the blood pressure monitor has inflated, May had flinched at its tightness, and Peter had sympathized. Lydie had pulled the stethoscope from around her neck, preparing for the next check when the alarm went off.

“May?” Lydie questioned suspiciously. “What’s going on?”

May looked from Lydie to Peter, then back to Lydie. “Nothing. You know that the machine is too sensitive. Let the cuff do its torture again,” she pressed. “It’s probably because I was laughing is all.”

Lydie wasn’t buying it, “Peter, would you be a dear and step into the hallway, please.”

Yeah, Peter knew that tone, too. It was the old ‘the medical professionals need to discuss things that aren’t any of your business’ tone. He was out of the chair and into the hallway in a shot.

It wasn’t like he’d be missing anything, anyways.

“Okay, May, ‘fess up. What’s going on?” Lydie whispered.

Had they really forgotten that it didn’t work?

Peter could hear a button being pressed, maybe an aural thermometer, then May’s reply. “My pain medication,” she whispered back. “I should have thought to say something before he got here, but then I fell asleep and I couldn’t let Peter know—“

“How bad?”

May exhaled slowly, “Bad enough that it set off that stupid machine.”

A quiet beep sounded.

“Aw, shit. May!” Lydie hissed. “You’re fever’s up, too! You know better than to not say something about that!”

Peter could hear Lydie’s movements around the room, a drawer opening, vials being shuffled about—“I’m going to get your pain meds and some fever reducers on board, then I’ll call Dr. Bonwick.”

“No.” May blurted out, desperate. “You know it’ll put me to sleep. Just wait until Peter’s visit is over, an hour? Please? Can I have just an hour with him?”

“No negotiations, May.” They were done with trying to be secretive. “We’re already pushing our luck because of the delay with the dialysis... and Peter’s a smart kid. You know he’ll understand.”

Peter could hear the quiver in her voice again. “I don’t want him to understand! I want him here!” May moaned, giving in to her pain and exhaustion. “I want five years with him, and I want stepping on legos, and sleepovers with his friends, and... and I wanted him to be a man before he had to deal with—oh.” May couldn’t speak, and so she wept.

And Peter’s heart broke again—how many more times would he feel it splinter before it finally stopped.

Lydie tried to comfort May, even as she went about her job with a haste that made Peter realize his coming had been a mistake. She’d been hurting. She suffered because of him—for five years, she had suffered because of him.

It took a few minutes, but May’s cried eventually softened, then levelled to a nice even breathing. She’d fallen asleep. Lydie popped out of the room, took one look at him, and knew. “You heard?”

Peter nodded.

She stepped into the hallway completely, approaching him like a wild animal. “I gave her something to calm her, but with the fever and all...”

“She’s asleep, I know.”

“Good.” She looked over her shoulder into the room, and then addressed Peter. “She’ll sleep for a while now, which is good.” Lydie assured him. “I’m going to call Dr. Bonwick and get her started on her new meds. If everything goes as well as we hope, she’ll be ready for visitors tomorrow, okay?”

“Okay.”

Lydie stared at him for a second and forever. “May mentioned that Mr. Stark had filled you in on some things. Do you have any questions for me? May’s given me permission to give you the basics.”

Peter stuffed his hands in his pockets, hunching his shoulders as he fought the urge to ask one of the so many questions he didn’t want answers to. “No. I’m good.”

The look on her face told Peter that she didn’t believe him.

“Are you alright?” She asked, sympathy pouring off of her. “That visit had to be hard for you, too.”

Peter shook his head in the negative, “I’ll be fine.” Peter assured her. He always was, after all. “You just worry about Aunt May... please.” He tried to be casual about it, but the tears welling up were a dead giveaway.

Lydie stepped closer. “Peter, you’re allowed to be upset, too. I’m sure that Mr. Stark can find someone that can—“

An alarm blared in May’s room, loud and urgent. Lydie stopped talking and rushed back into the room, turning the alarm off and double checking what she thought was the culprit. “A-ha!” She called out as she reattached the oximeter to May’s finger. She watched the numbers jump back up from 0% to a not amazing but could be worse percentage. “There you go, May.” She squeezed the sleeping woman’s hand in support then went back into the hallway. “I’m so sorry about that, Peter, she shifted and knocked... off... her... Peter?” She looked down the empty corridor then rushed down it towards the elevator. She noted the floor numbers descending on the display. “Oh, shit.”

* * * * * *

“Mr. Parker, would you like me to initiate ‘Meltdown Management Mode’ again?” FRIDAY inquired.

May was dying, if she wasn’t already dead. He’d pushed her too much. She was too weak and in pain and then the alarm had gone off and he knew—

Peter said nothing, just stared at the numbers on the panel as the elevator descended. He couldn’t be there anymore. He couldn’t be there when she wasn’t—

May was dead, and Peter was alone.

“Mr. Parker, you are again displaying signs of distress, and failure to respond will require me to contact Boss and update him on your condition.”

Peter blinked as he registered the unintended threat. “I’m fine, thank you. I just need some air,” he rasped out.

“Yes, fresh air and exercise are both optimal solutions for mental distress. Boss has programmed me to provide him positive reinforcement when he takes the initiative on his own to remedy his anxiety. Would you like me to tell you ‘good job,’ Mr. Parker?”

“No, thanks.”

Peter felt a slight shift in speed, then the elevator came to a halt.

“It is currently an overcast 58°F, Mr. Parker. Enjoy the fresh air.” The elevator doors opened, revealing the Avengers Tower lobby bustling with activity. “Mr. Parker, should Boss inquire, what time will you be returning home?”

Home? May was dead and Peter was alone.

Peter chuckled darkly. “I don’t have a home anymore, FRIDAY,” he replied, and pushed his way through the masses of people, out the front doors of the tower, and into the chaos of a world struggling with unexpected rebirth.

#fanfiction #IronDad and SpiderSon #Avengers: Endgame #non-compliant #ao3fic #AO3 fanfic #OBlossom

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imanativeofswlondondahling · 5 years ago

Text

Becoming A Stark? (28)- Peter Parker x Stark!femReader

Word Count: 3395

Warnings: swearing, IW emotional trauma, the usual.

Author Note: There is some dialog from Infinity War used in this chapter. I don’t own it, but also there’s new stuff after it so don’t skip it. This is the final chapter. There will be a sequel that I’m not sure when will be posted but it will be coming. If you want to be tagged when it’s posted, let me know! Thank you for reading all of this and giving me so much love on my fist PP story. Let me know what you think of the finale.

Chapter One || Previous Chapter || Master List

“Mom have you seen my jacket?” You ask as you walk from the living room back into the kitchen. You’re already dressed in ripped jeans, galaxy converse, and a grey AC/DC shirt.

“Which jacket?” Pepper asks as she stirs the eggs she’s cooking for you.

“My denim one? I wore it yesterday? Or maybe it was the day before?”

“Have you checked your room?”

“I looked there when I was getting ready. I didn’t see it.” Instead of being dressed for the office, Pepper is wearing running gear. “Are you going into the office today?”

“In a little bit. Your dad wants to go to the park for a run first.”

“Dad running? Since when?”

“I think your birthday is making him feel O-L-D.” Pepper teases as Tony walks down the stairs.

“I can still spell even if I’m getting old.” Tony responds. In his hand he’s holding your Rolling Stones jacket. “You left this on the stairs kiddo.”

“Oh, right! I meant to take it up last night.” You shrug it over your shoulders before sitting down at the food that Pepper made for you.

“What’s with the pep in your step today?”

“Field trip. I don’t have to be at school today.”

“Field trip?” Your dad asks as he sits down next to you. “Where to?”

“MoMA. My art class is going.”

“Ah so you and the young Parker are getting out of school to go look at art. How sweet.” Your dad says with a teasing tone remembering how Peter ended up in your art class after switching in in the second six weeks. “With how much it cost for you to go to that school, I would think you would spend more time at school than on field trips.”

“It’s educational. I promise.”

“Sure it is.”

“What your dad is trying to say is have fun.” Pepper says with a laugh. “He and I are going to go so can you lock up when you leave with Happy?” You nod. “Perfect. Have fun, love you, see you after school.”

“Love you kiddo.” Your dad kisses the top of your head. Pepper places a kiss behind him. You munch on your toast as they walk towards the door. Today should be a fairly normal day, apart from the field trip.

“Slow down, slow down. I’ll spell it out for you.” Tony tries to get Pepper to listen as he tries to explain his dream from last night while they walk through the park together.

“You’re totally rambling.”

“No I’m not.” Tony throws back in his own defense.

“You lost me.”

“Look, you know how you’re having a dream, and in the dream you gotta pee.” Tony ties his jacket around his shoulders as he says this.

“Yeah.”

“Okay. And then you’re like ‘Oh my God. There’s no bathrooms. What am I gonna do? Oh, someone’s watching.’”

“Right.”

“‘Oh, I’m gonna go in my pants.’”

“And then you wake up and in real life you actually have to pee.” Pepper catches his drift.

“Yes.” Tony’s hand waves in agreement.

“Yeah. Everybody has that.”

“Right that’s the point I’m trying to make. Apropos of that, last night I dreamt we had a kid.”

“We have a kid. Y/N.” Pepper points out with a smile.

“No like a baby.” Tony explains. “It was so real. We named him after your eccentric uncle. Uh what was his name? Morgan! Morgan.”

“Right. So when you woke up…”

“Naturally.”

“...and thought we were…”

“Expecting.”

“Yeah.”

“Yes?”

“No.” Pepper smiles at him as she says it.

“I had a dream about it. It was so real.”

“If you wanted to have another kid, you wouldn’t have done that.” Pepper unties the sweater and taps on the nanoparticle home.

“I’m glad you brought this up, ‘cause it’s nothing. It’s just a housing unit for nanoparticles.”

“You’re not helping your case, okay?”

“No, this is detachable. It’s not a…”

“You don’t need that. Y/N didn’t need you to get that. I didn’t need you to get that. Your family needs you to put them first sometimes ok?”

“I know. I had the surgery. I’m just trying to protect us and future usses and that’s it. Just in case there’s a monster in the closet. Instead of, you know…”

“Shirts.”

“You know me so well.”

“God.”

“You finish all my sentences.”

“You should have shirts in your closet.”

“Yeah, you know what there should be? No more surprises. We’re going to have a nice dinner tonight. Hear all about Y/N’s field trip. Show off this Harry Winston. Right?” Pepper chuckles at his antics. “And we should have no more surprises. Ever. I should promise you.”

“Yes.”

“I will.” Tony leans in to kiss Pepper. “Thank you.”

“Tony Stark?” Pepper pulls away at the sound of someone calling Tony’s name. Tony on the other hand can only roll his eyes because this was exactly the kind of thing he was talking about. “I’m Doctor Stephen Strange. I need you to come with me.” Pepper grabs Tony’s hand at this. “Oh and uh congratulations on the wedding, by the way.”

“I’m sorry, are you giving out tickets to something?”

“We need your help. It’s not overselling it to say that the fate of the universe is at stake.”

“And who’s we?”

“Hey Tony.” Bruce appears by Stephen’s side, shocking both Tony and Pepper after so much time without him.

“Bruce.”

“Pepper.”

“Hi.”

“Oh.”

“Are you ok?” Tony asks as Bruce falls into hugging him. What has happened while he was away?

“Ready for this field trip?” Peter asks as he sits down next to you on the bus.

“I’m always ready. Getting out of school for the day? Hell yeah.” You nudge your boyfriend’s shoulder. “Are you ready to see MoMA?”

“I guess so. I haven’t been since Ben died so…” Peter trails off.

“Babe, you haven’t been to MoMA since then? Why?”

“Ben really liked seeing the new exhibits and he would take me with him when he went. It just felt wrong to go without him.” Peter explains as the bus takes off from MSST and heads towards MoMA. “But there’s a first time to do stuff since you lose people I guess.”

“It’s going to be fine. I’ll be with you the whole time.” You say as you take his hand in yours. Peter leans forward on the seat in front of you so he can look in your direction.

“Well that will make everything better.” Suddenly the hairs on Peter’s arm stand straight up.

“What?”

“Something’s wrong.” Peter mumbles. “Spidey senses are off the wall.” His voice is no louder than a whisper.

“Something like a giant donut spaceship floating over NYC seem off enough?” You say pointing towards the window beside him. He turns to look and the recognition on his face tells you all you need to know. Looks like Peter may not be on the field trip after all.

“Can you and Ned create a distraction?”

“Of course. But you’ll be safe?”

“Always am.” He kisses you on the lips really quick before you tap Ned on the shoulder. Ned spins around to look at you.

“Guy in the chair needs to distract everyone with me.” You say quickly, but as Ned turns he sees the ship out the window.

“Holy shit.” He then turns towards the back of the bus and yells, “We’re all gonna die! There’s a spaceship!” You follow him towards the back of the bus as people start calling out asking what’s going on. But your eyes catch Peter’s one more time before he opens the emergency exit window with his web shooter. While everyone else is watching the spaceship, your eyes are trailing out the back of the bus as Peter jumps off the bridge. You know he’ll web himself to safety, but it makes your stomach fall to your toes every time.

Peter swings into the park where he sees a big angry alien… if he had to guess, swinging a sword/ax at Tony. So he does the one thing he knows how to do, he grabs it. “Hey man. What’s up Mr. Stark?”

“Kid where did you come from?”

“Field trip, to MoMA.” Peter screams as he’s thrown in the other direction. “Uh what is this guy’s problem Mr. Stark?”

“Uh he’s from space. He came here to steal a necklace from a wizard.” As the alien throws cars around and Tony tries to laser him, Peter webs the car and swings it back at the alien. Which might just make him more angry, but that’s half the fun. Right as the alien swings his ax down again, a red object zooms by. “Kid that’s the wizard, get on it.”

“On it!” Swinging across New York, he finally grabs the wizard when a blue light grabs the wizard and pulls them both up towards the sky. “Uh, Mr. Stark, I’m being beamed up.”

“Hang on kid!” Wong traps the alien in an icy tundra, slicing off the hand that reaches up towards them. “Wong you’re invited to my wedding.” Tony shouts before jetting off to rescue his daughter’s boyfriend, who happens to be climbing up the side of the alien spaceship. “Give me a little juice FRIDAY. Unlock 17:A.” His boots morph together to form one big foot thruster. “Pete you gotta let go. I’m gonna catch you.” He says over the comms to Peter.

“But you said save the wizard.” Peter pulls his mask off as he says, “I can’t breathe.”

“We’re too high up. You’re running out of air.” If your boyfriend dies in space, you might kill your dad, so he’s going to do everything he can to save the kid.

“Yeah, that makes sense.” Peter’s hands slip from the ship as he runs out of air. But the Iron Spider suit Tony had been working on arrives just in time to grab hold of Peter and save him from falling back to Earth. Instead he just hits the ship a time or two before having air to breathe again. Peter grabs a hold of the ship and stands back up. “Mr. Stark, it smells like a new car in here!”

“Happy trails, kid. FRIDAY send him home.”

“Yep.” A parachute deploys and pulls Peter off the ship.

“Oh come on!” As Tony cuts into the side of the ship, FRIDAY alerts him of something else.

“Boss incoming call from Miss Potts.”

“Tony are you alright? What’s going on?”

“Yeah I’m fine. I just think we might have to push our 8:30 res.”

“Why?”

“Just ‘cause I’ll probably not make it back for a while.”

“Tell me you’re not on that ship.”

“Yeah.”

“God, no, please tell me you’re not on the ship.”

“Honey, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I don’t know what to say.”

“Come back here Tony. I swear to God. I will take Y/N and I will leave for good. No more surprises. You promised.”

“Pep.”

“Come back here right now.” Static starts to crackle. “Come back.”

“Boss we’re losing her.”

“I’m going too…” Pepper’s voice breaks off as the call drops. While Tony is dealing with this call, Peter is climbing up his webs, back onto the ship he had been told not to be on.

All he can mutter is “I should have stayed on the bus,” as the doors shut on the ship.

The ship is no longer in the sky. You watched it fly away. But you don’t know if that’s a good thing or not, because now you can’t get a hold of your dad or Peter. So you call the one person who has always had to be in the same position as you- you call your mom.

“Y/N? Are you ok?”

“Mom tell me Dad didn’t do something stupid and get on that ship.” Your school group is starting to walk into the first exhibit hall, but you need reassurance right now, not art pieces. Pepper doesn’t say anything for a moment, trying to figure out how to tell you that your dad is on that ship. “He’s on that ship isn’t he?”

“Yeah.”

“Why? Why would he be stupid enough to get on an alien space ship?”

“Because he’s stupid enough to think that saving the world falls on his shoulders and his alone.”

“I think Peter might have been stupid enough to think that too.” You say as soon as you know your class is out of hearing range.

“What?”

“I’ve tried calling him and he’s not picking up.”

“I thought he was on the field trip with you?”

“He was until he saw an alien ship in the sky. Then he decided that he needed to be a superhero. And now he won’t pick up the phone and he always picks up the phone, even when he’s in his suit.” You voice the concerns you’re having. “And my calls to Dad aren’t going through either which makes me think that Peter is with him.”

“He wouldn’t be stupid enough to take a fifteen year old with him on a space ship.” Pepper tries to reassure you.

“But just because he doesn’t take Peter doesn’t mean that Peter isn’t stupid enough to follow him.”

“Sounds like we both need to date smarter men.”

“They’re book smart. I’m just not sure if they’re life smart.”

“I think I’d agree with that.”

“But we also love them too much to let them go.”

“That’s also true.” Pepper doesn’t comment on the fact that you just admitted that you love Peter. “But I also know that your dad will do anything to keep Peter safe if he’s with him. So you just focus on your school trip and at the end of the day, they’ll all come home safe.” Pepper’s promise doesn’t hold much truth to it, but you know your mom is trying to calm you more than anything. “I’m going to send Happy to pick you up from the museum and bring you to SI.”

“Right now?”

“No, but he’ll be there to pick you up when everyone heads back to school.”

“That’s not necessary. I’ll just head back to school and then he can pick me up from school. But Mom, if you hear from Dad, can you tell him I love him?”

“He knows you love him.”

“But I didn’t say it to him this morning and if something happens to him…” You feel the tears welling in your eyes.

“Nothing is going to happen to him. He knows you love him.”

“You don’t know that. Every time he walks out the door to play Avenger, he could leave and not come back. He could die out there today. And I couldn’t take the two seconds it would have taken to tell him I loved him this morning.” The tears drizzle down your face as you mutter the words you feel in your soul. Out of the corner of your eye you see Ned waiting by the door leading to the next exhibit area. You wipe the tears from your cheeks. “So just if you hear from him tell him ok, Mom?”

“I will. Now just for now, don’t think about all of this. Just focus on the field trip and I’ll see you after it ok? Everything is going to be ok.”

“Mom? I love you.”

“I love you too Y/N. So much.” You hang up the phone and Ned walks over.

“Everything alright?”

“No, but the universe doesn’t usually ask me before it makes it’s decisions.”

“Have you heard from Peter?” You shake your head.

“I can’t get a hold of him or my dad. My mom said my dad is on that donut that flew out of the sky, which makes me think if I can’t get a hold of Peter…”

“He’s on it too.” Ned finishes your thought. “Peter’s in space with Iron Man. That’s so cool.” Ned mumbles but then sees your face. “Ok, not the point right now. What’s our plan?”

“We don’t have one. We’re not Avengers. We just wait around until the rest of them hopefully show up.” And you do what you hope is the next best step, you text your aunt- SOS.

N:Don’t worry. Avengers are on it. Focus on school.

Why does everyone think you’ll be able to focus on anything when your dad and boyfriend disappeared on an alien spaceship?

Y:you all think i’m going to be able to focus on learning when my dad and boyfriend have just gone missing? that’s the stupidest thing i’ve ever heard of coming from two of the smartest women i know.

N:I’m not saying it’s going to be easy, but this isn’t on your shoulders. The Avengers will take care of this fight. I promise you, we’ll get them back. Anyway we have to.

“Anything?” Ned asks quietly, as your tour guide goes on pointing out different pieces of art. You shake your head.

“Apparently it’s an Avenger problem, not a me problem, according to Aunt Nat.”

“It’s still cool that you can just text Avengers.”

“Ned, my dad is literally an Avenger. It loses the coolness factor when your dad leaves on missions and you don’t know if he’ll come back alive or not.”

“That’s true I guess.” He looks at the art piece next to you. “But still you get to text the Black Widow! Isn’t that cool?”

“She’s just my Aunt Nat. I’ve hung out with her watching horror movies and talking about crushes. It feels different than saying I text the Black Widow.” You glance over at the statue, trying to take it in so you can write your report when you get home.

“They could have tried to put at least one blemish on it.” MJ mutters and you nod in agreement.

“Uh, Y/N?”

“Ned?” You turn from MJ to see Ned staring at his hand. It’s turning to dust in front of his eyes. “Ned, what’s happening?”

“I think something’s wrong.” His other hand starts to turn into dust and you don’t understand.

“What is happening?”

“Something that can’t be good.” MJ says and you turn to see her hands turning to dust as well. “Y/N, something is wrong. Really wrong.” Your friends are turning to dust in front of your eyes. You can’t stop it, you can’t figure out what’s wrong. So you do the one thing you know to do when something is wrong- you call your mom.

“Y/N? Please tell me you’re not turning to dust too?”

“Mom, I don’t get what’s happening.”

“I don’t know either. But something isn’t right.” Your mom sounds stressed and worried at the same time you lift a hand to run through your hair and that’s when you see it. Your hand is disappearing before your eyes.

“Mom. Mom, I’m scared. My hand, it’s going.”

“Y/N, everything is going to be alright. It’s going to be ok.” Pepper doesn’t tell you that she has tears streaming down her cheeks. She needs to stay calm for you. You’re the one fading into nothing. She can stay calm for you in this moment.

“Mom, Mom. I don’t want to go. Please. I don’t know what’s happening. Mom, please make it stop.” Pepper closes her eyes as she listens to your pleads.

“It’s going to be alright sweetheart. Everything is going to be ok.” You watch in horror as Ned fades into nothing but a pile of dust.

“Mom, Ned’s gone. MJ’s seconds away from going. I don’t want to go too. Please make it stop.”

“Everything is going to be alright baby. Just breathe. Everything is going to be ok.” Pepper lies to you.

“Mom, I love you. Tell Dad I love him too. I don’t want to go. Tell him that. I never wanted to go. Having you two as parents was the best thing that ever happened to me.” Your eyes look in horror as MJ turns into dust too.

“We feel the same about you.”

“I love you. I love you so much Mom. I’m sorry. I don’t want to go. I love you.”

“We love you too.” Pepper knows she only has seconds left with you so she wants to make sure you know this before it’s too late.

“I love yo-”

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snarkythewoecrow · 5 years ago

Text

Can We Keep Him?

By: @snarky-drabbles gift for @whotheheckitheheck

for @friendly-neighborhood-exchange

Rating: T

Relationships: Peter & Tony, Peter & Morgan

Characters: Peter Parker, Tony Stark, Morgan Stark, May Parker, few other quick cameos

Summary: Tony didn't die in Endgame, so he introduces Peter to Morgan as her big brother.

Link to AO3 (Will be revealed soon)

Peter watched with teary eyes as Tony was carried through a portal to Wakanda. Pepper followed him. Peter fell to his knees and let out a heavy breath, dropping his head and resting his chin on his chest. The air smelled bitter, like charred flesh and smoke. He counted his breaths, trying to calm himself. A hand rested on his shoulder, and he lifted his head to look. War Machine—Rhodey—was looking down at him with sympathetic eyes.

“We won, kid. You did good, and Tony—Tony’s gonna be okay,” Rhodey said. “If there’s one thing I know about him, it's that he's damn hard to shake. This Thanos thing, it’s nowhere near enough to chase him off.”

Peter tried to smile, but he only managed to make his lips twitch. Rhodey extended a hand, and Peter took it, letting the man pull him to his feet.

“Come on, kid, let’s get you cleaned up.”

xXx

Time passed in a blur over the next few days. The world was in chaos, but Peter had May to ground him, and the knowledge that Tony was going to be okay. Happy had said he’d lost an arm, but he would survive. Rhodey was right. Thanos wasn’t enough to end Tony’s life.

His phone had been disconnected, but May had kept it and turned it back on for him. He sat on his bed, fingering the cracked screen, wondering who he should call first. Ned seemed like the obvious choice, but he really hoped to hear from Tony.

Maybe the fates were listening because no sooner than he thought of his mentor, did the phone come to life, the familiar picture of him and Tony lighting up the screen. He fumbled the phone as he tried to answer, swiping the screen to the side.

He brought the phone to his ear, sucking a breath. His heart was hammering, and his breath hitched when he heard Tony’s voice greeting him.

“Hey, kid,” Tony said, then paused. Peter held his breath. “How’re you doing?”

Peter choked on a sob, overwhelmed by the emotions bubbling up in him. It was only days ago that he’d thought he’d heard Tony’s voice for the last time.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay, kid. Don’t—you don’t need to cry. We won. We did it, Peter. Really, those better be happy tears.”

Peter swiped at his tears. “I’m not crying—it’s just … I thought I’d lost you, too. Just like I lost everyone else.” He paused to catch his breath, sniffling a little. “Are you okay? Your arm was—the stones, they hurt you.”

An acrid smell seemed to gather in his nose again, even though the battle was days ago. He could taste the air, the bitterness of burning flesh. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to focus on the present, on his room, on the way the mattress felt beneath him. He focused on the sounds of traffic and the insistent honking of a car alarm nearby. He barely registered Tony’s voice through the phone.

“Peter, you need to breathe, kid. I don’t want to even think what this must be like for you. Kids shouldn’t be part of the battlefield, and I’m sorry you got dragged into it. I’m sorry you had to see me like that, but kid, I’m okay. Yeah, I lost an arm, but it could have been so much worse. I’m still here, and so are you. That’s all that matters.”

Peter found himself nodding even though Tony could see. He used the sleeve of his shirt to wipe his face, but the tears kept coming.

“You’re really okay? Is someone with you—Ms. Potts?”

“Yeah, Pepper’s here, and so is my little Morguna. She got here last night. I’m still in Wakanda, Strange’s a pretty decent guy and brought her over.”

Peter blinked, his brow furrowing. “What are you talking about?”

Tony sighed. “Right, I forgot you didn’t know. It’s been a crazy few years, Pete. Pepper and I finally got hitched, and I had—I had a little girl. Her name’s Morgan, and she's so much like her mother, it’s scary, except for her sleep patterns. That’s all me, I’m afraid.”

Peter opened his mouth, lips moving as he tried to find the words. “You—you and Ms. Potts got married? That’s amazing, Mr. Stark. Congratulations, and wow, a daughter. I bet you’re a great dad.”

“I don’t know about that, but I’m trying. I guess you could say I got a little practice with you.”

Peter felt something warm unfurl in his chest. “Oh, yeah, I guess—I mean, yeah, you were—are—pretty good at that stuff. You always looked out for me.”

“And I always will, kid. I had a chance to look the other way. I was talking to Pepper about time travel. I’d figured it out, and I could have just stuck in a box and dropped it in the lake, but you know why I didn’t?”

“Why?”

“Because of you, Pete. I had to take the chance—the chance at having both my kids. Maybe I’m selfish. I don’t know. I just couldn’t—I couldn’t look the other way when there was a chance. I had to try, and I’m glad I did.”

Peter sat in stunned silence. He’d always hoped that he was important to Tony, but he’d doubted how much. Now there wasn’t any room for doubt. The man broke the rules to bring him back. He’d bent time and space.

“That’s—wow.”

Tony laughed. “Yeah, wow about covers it, so what are you and your aunt up to? I had an idea, that’s why I called. I wanted you to come visit, here, in Wakanda. Since saving the universe, Strange doesn’t seem to mind carting people around for me. So, what do you think, kiddo? You and your aunt up for a short jaunt through some science defying portals?”

Peter’s mouth hung open, and he blinked a few times before his brain reengaged. “Yeah—yeah, that would be good, really good. I should ask May, but I’m sure she would be up for it. When do we—when should we be ready?”

“Strange can bring you through any time. Like I said, Pep’s here, and so is Morgan. She knows all about you—the spider thing. I may have told her stories about her brother. You’re her favorite hero. I think even more so than her dad. She’s especially fond of your cat saving adventures.”

Peter swallowed the lump in his throat. “Yeah, I’m sure with you telling them they were more interesting than they really were, but I can’t blame her. Spider-man’s a pretty good guy.”

“That he is. Why don’t you go talk to your aunt, and then text me when you’re ready? I won’t tell Morgan you’re coming until it’s a sure thing.”

“Yeah, yeah, that sounds good. I’ll go do that. I’ll talk to you soon.”

Tony said his goodbyes, and then they disconnected. Clutching his phone, he went and found May in the kitchen, making quick work of an explanation, and an hour later, Peter was texting Tony that he was ready to go. May needed to stay behind, something about the hospital being overrun since everyone came back.

He had just so much as hit send when a sparkling orange circle spread out and opened in their living. On the other side of the portal, Peter could see the white walls and doors of what he assumed was the hospital.

Doctor Strange stepped through. “Peter, if you’re ready.” He gestured toward the portal.

May was looking wide-eyed at the spinning circle, she waved a finger between Doctor Strange and the orange circle. “Peter said you had a way to get him there. I didn’t realize—is it even safe to go through that?”

“It’s perfectly stable, I assure you.”

She eyed the portal, then turned to Peter, pulling him into a hug. “I know it’s ridiculous to say given all that’s happened, but you be careful, Peter. I can’t lose you again.”

Peter held her a little tighter, speaking against her hair. “You won’t. I’m not going anywhere—well, I’m going to Wakanda—but you know what I mean.”

She sniffled, drawing back, her hands on his arms. “Tell Stark I said thank you.”

“We should be going,” Strange said.

“I promise to come back.” He kissed her forehead, and she let him go.

Doctor Strange gestured to the circle, and Peter nodded, and with one last glance at May, he stepped through into a large, white room in Wakanda. Strange followed him, and then the portal closed.

“He’s through those doors,” Strange pointed at a set of doors to the right of the room.

“Yeah, I’ll just—I’ll go through there. Thank you for the portal and stuff. This was way faster than, like, taking a plane or something.”

“Or something, yes. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to meet with the king.” Strange turned with a flourish of his cape and went through a set of doors to the left.

Peter stood frozen for a moment, then made his feet move. His heart was in his throat as he paused in front of the doors. He wondered if he was supposed to knock. He raised his knuckles to the door, but a voice cut him off. He turned to see the girl from the battle, watching him.

“Peter, right? You’re the little spider from the battle. The boy with the gauntlet.”

“Yeah, that’s, uh, me, I guess. No, I mean, it is me. I’m spider-man.”

“And I am Shuri. It’s nice to meet you off the battlefield.”

Peter nodded, then looked back over his shoulder at the door. Tony was waiting on the other side. “I should probably—” He nodded toward the doors.

“He’s been waiting to see you, no need to knock.”

“Right, thank you.”

She nodded and then disappeared through the same doors Doctor Strange went through earlier. Peter turned back to Tony’s room and pushed the doors open, stepping inside. He didn’t know what to expect, though he knew Tony would be hurt. It didn’t make it any easier to see him, though.

He looked frail on the bed, against the stark white blanket and sheets. The skin of his neck was still charred and angry looking, his arm was missing, but that wasn’t what caught Peter’s eye. It was the little girl who was curled up on the bed, a mop of dark hair surrounding her head. Her feet were bare, and she was in pajamas with a cartoon rendition of the Hulk dotting them. She didn’t stir when Tony shifted, lifting his head to take in Peter. A smile spread across the man’s face, making wrinkles at the corner of his eyes.

“Hey,” Tony breathed, and Peter found himself moving toward the bed, his gaze darting between Tony and the little girl on the bed. Up close, he could see the relation. She looked so much like Tony.

“Hey, Mr. Stark, if now’s not a good time—” he gestured to the sleeping girl.

Tony shook his head with a little laugh. “Now’s just fine. She’s due to wake up soon anyway. Besides, she’d never forgive me if she missed a chance to meet her brother.”

Her brother, the words did something funny to his stomach. He looked back at Tony, and he knew tears were forming in his eyes. He couldn’t believe how close he had come to losing Tony, and now, seeing the little girl curled up the bed, he realized she could have lost her father, too. They were all lucky to still have him in their lives.

Tony shifted in the bed, nudging the little girl’s shoulder. She scrunched her face up and wiggled her toes before big brown eyes opened and latched onto Peter. A smile spread across her face, and she looked at Tony and then back to Peter. She pushed herself up.

“Are you—are you my brother?”

Peter blinked, looking at Tony and then back to the little girl. “Yeah, I guess I am. Are you Morgan?”

She nodded, looking serious for a moment. “Daddy said you were gone, but he brought you back.”

“Yeah, he did. Your daddy’s a hero.”

She considered. “Then so are you. Daddy says you saved cats.”

“Sometimes.” He started to smile a little.

She nodded her head. “You like juice pops?”

“Grape is my favorite,” Peter said, his smile growing. “What’s yours?”

“Red. I don’t like the yellow ones.”

Peter laughed. “I’ll try to remember that.”

Her mouth twisted, and her brow wrinkled in the same way Tony’s did when he was working out a problem. “If your feet are sticky, how do you get your socks off?”

Tony started shaking in laughter, and Peter just stood there, looking at the precious bean that was Morgan and wondering how he ever existed without her. He nodded a few times, keeping his face sober as he answered, “Very carefully.”

She narrowed her eyes, considering him. She picked up her book from the bed and held it out. “Can you stick to this?”

Peter smiled, reaching out and sticking his palm to it, pulling away to show it clinging to his open hand. He gave it a shake to show it wasn’t going anywhere.

Seeming satisfied, she nodded. “You should meet Gerald. You can’t ride him, though. He doesn’t like it.”

Peter looked at Tony, setting the book back on the bed. “Gerald?”

“Alpaca.” Tony shrugged, wincing a little at the motion. “What can I say? I can’t say no to my kids. Though don’t get any ideas. Gerald is enough alpaca for one family.”

“Mommy pretends she doesn’t like him, but sometimes she sneaks him apples.” Morgan tilted her head, a line between her brows. “Can you teach me to catch bad guys?”

Peter’s brows went up and looked at Tony, who was subtly shaking his head. “Um … I’m not sure that’s really a good idea. Maybe I can teach you to do a cartwheel instead?”

Her lips pursed, and then she nodded. “Okay, deal, but when I get bigger, we can catch bad guys together and rescue cats! I want to save cats like you.”

Peter laughed. “We can definitely rescue some cats, maybe a dog or two, too.”

“Okay.” Morgan looked up at Tony and then carefully laid over him. Her father wrapped his arm around her. “Daddy, is he going to disappear again?” she spoke against his chest. “I don’t want him to go.”

Tony shook his head, looking at Peter. “No one is taking either of you away—not if I can help it.”

“So, we can keep him?” she asked.

“Yeah, we can keep him.”

#irondad #tony stark #peter parker #morgan stark #friendly neighborhood exchange #snark writes

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enchantedlokii · 5 years ago

Text

Tired

Rating: PG-13

Warnings: mild language

Alternate Universe: endgame fix-it

Characters: Peter Parker, May Parker, Tony Stark, Pepper Potts, Morgan Stark

Mentioned: Thanos, Happy Hogan

Prompt Credit: @tadie1234 || insomnia

Saying that Peter was tired was an understatement. Peter was beyond exhausted. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to sleep, he just couldn’t. Know matter how hard he tried, he could not fall asleep. He couldn’t remember the last time he got more than two hours of sleep in the night was. Honestly, he wasn’t sure that he had gotten more than that since the Blip, which had been over two weeks ago now.

At first, he had assumed it was his worry over Tony. He spent several days in the hospital after the battle, and it had been touch and go at first. But he was better now. Not healed completely, but well enough to go home. Peter thought that he would be able to finally be at peace now, knowing he would be okay, but he still wasn’t sleeping.

Peter refused to tell May what was wrong. Whenever she asked him, he would snap at her. He would feel guilty later, but he was afraid to apology. He knew that if he wasn’t careful, he would break down and tell her everything. He didn’t know why that felt like such a bad thing to him, but he didn’t plan on her finding out any time soon. Still, May knew something was up. It wasn’t like him to be so irritable.

For a few weeks, she put up with it. The boy had been through a lot. She knew that what had happened with Thanos hadn’t been easy on him, and she had an idea that was part of the problem. She had hoped he would come around soon and open up to her, but she still had no luck. Eventually, just over a month after the Blip, she broke down and called Tony. She hated to bother him, but she was lost at what to do. She couldn’t watch her nephew obviously suffer for any longer.

Tony wasn’t expecting the call from May. It was later in the evening; he had just got back downstairs after putting Morgan to bed when he heard the ringing noise. When he read the Caller ID, he struggled not to panic. He couldn’t think of why she would be calling him so late unless Peter was hurt. “Hello?”

“Hey, Tony, it’s May,” she started. He could hear the hints of worry in her tone, but he assumed by the fact she wasn’t panicking that Peter wasn’t terribly hurt. “I’m really sorry to bother you so late. I was just wondering if you had time to talk.”

Pepper raised an eyebrow at Tony and he mouthed to her that it was May before replying. “It’s no trouble, May,” he promised her, moving farther away from the stairs so he wouldn’t disturb Morgan. “Is everything okay?”

May sighed on the other end. “I’m not sure,” she admitted. “That’s why I was calling. Something is up with Peter. He’s seemed so tired lately and he’s really irritable. Whenever I try to ask what’s wrong, he snaps at me and you know as well as I do that’s not like him. And I hate to bother you with it, but I don’t know what to do. I don’t know if I’ve done something wrong or if he just doesn’t want to talk about whatever is going on.”

“Hey, it’s okay,” Tony told her. He couldn’t help but feel a pang of sadness for the boy. “I was actually planning on seeing if he wanted to come spend the weekend with us sometime soon. If he wants to, you can bring him by Friday after school and he can stay until Sunday evening. Pep and I can see if we can figure anything out, and it might help him having Morgan around for a bit.”

“Are you sure?” May asked uncertainly.

“Positive,” Tony told her. “I would have asked sooner, but. . . Well, you know.” He glanced around the mechanical arm he was still getting used to. He had become irritable himself as he struggled to adjust, but he was grateful that Pepper had been there the whole time. Morgan helped too, and had been more understanding than he expected a five year old to be when they explained that Daddy couldn’t play too much for awhile. “It would be hypocritical of me to not invite him over, really.”

He knew that Pepper had told May the truth of why he risked everything. That it was for Peter more than anything. Because he knew that he couldn’t live with the guilt knowing that he could’ve done something if he decided not to. All because of what Peter had told him the first day they met. “When you can do the things that I can do, but you don’t. . . And then the bad things happen. . . They happen because of you.” He felt like he would be letting Peter down if he didn’t at least try to fix everything.

“I’ll talk to him about it tomorrow,” May decided, pulling Tony from his thoughts. “Thank you. . . Not just for this. For everything. I don’t think I can ever thank you enough for bringing us home.”

“Hey, it wasn’t all me,” he said, chuckling a bit. He had grown used to the thanks that people kept handing out. And while he did do something, he didn’t do it alone. “If it wasn’t for that boy of yours. . . Well, let’s just say things wouldn’t have turned out the way they did.”

Peter plastered on a tired smile as he carried his bag up the porch steps, turning to wave at May before she drove away. They had come to the lakehouse a few times before, but it still amazed him how beautiful it was. He never imagined Tony to be one to want to live anywhere but the city, but he could understand why he loved it here. It was quiet and peaceful, and far away from paparazzi and politics.

“Peter!” Peter’s enhanced hearing picked up the sound of footsteps and Morgan’s squeal long before she made it to the door.

“Morgan!” He bent down to pick her up as she came through the door. His smile grew a bit more genuine as he let her sit on his hip while he went inside. “I missed you, M.”

“I missed you too, Petey,” Morgan said quietly, pressing her head into the crook of his neck as he put his bag down. She hummed with contentment when Peter sat down on the couch and hugged her tight. ��Spidey hugs?”

“Big Spidey hugs,” he murmured, squeezing her a bit. He heard footsteps as another figure entered the room. He didn’t have to look up to know who it was. “Hey, Tony.”

Peter jumped as his hair was ruffled, shooting a playful glare at the man. “Hey, Kiddo. May not want to come in?”

“She has an early shift tomorrow,” Peter explained, releasing his grip on Morgan as she started to wiggle away, moving towards her dad. “Thanks for asking me to come. I really appreciate it.”

“Of course, Pete,” he replied, picking up Morgan and placing her on his lap. “You’re always welcome here. If May can’t bring you, one of can pick you up or I can call Happy. He’s here at least once a week anyway.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Peter promised. “Thank you.”

Even at the lakehouse, Peter struggled to sleep. It was close to six in the morning when he finally drifted off, and he was woke at eight to an excited child bouncing on his bed, ready to play. “Morgan. . .”

“Wake up!” Morgan squeaked. “I wanna play!”

“Give me a few minutes,” Peter whined, tugging at the blanket. He let out a small growl when the girl pulled it back. He did his best to stay level-headed, not wanting to snap at her despite his annoyance. “Stop, Morgan. I’m trying to sleep.”

“But it’s morning!” Morgan protested, tugging at the blanket again. “Come on, Petey! Play with me!”

Peter was silent for a few moments, trying to fall asleep again when Morgan stood up and started bouncing. That was the last straw; Peter swung at her before he realized what he was doing. He didn’t even know what had happened until he heard her start crying and realized he had hit her. “Morgan!”

Morgan pulled away as he reached out to her, jumping off the bed and running out of the room sobbing. Peter immediately felt guilty. He hadn’t meant to hurt her. He could feel tears gathering in his eyes but he refused to let them spill as he stood up and started to pack up his things. He was sure that he would be forced to leave now. No matter how much Tony and Pepper cared about him, he had just hurt their child. He deserved whatever punishment came to him.

“Are you serious, Peter?” Peter flinched at the harsh words. He turned slightly to face Tony, but couldn’t manage to look him in the eyes. “You can’t do sh*t like that. She’s five!”

“I’m sorry,” Peter mumbled, looking down.

“Sorry doesn’t cut it this time,” he replied. His anger reminded Peter of the ferry incident, and he knew that he was serious. “You could have seriously hurt her.” Peter was silent, not daring to look up as he heard the man sigh. “I was looking forward to having you over, Peter. Straighten up your act or I’m calling May to come pick you up.”

Peter broke the second that Tony left, sobs wracking his body as he kneeled on the floor. He wasn’t sure how long he was there before he heard footsteps and someone kneeled beside him, rubbing his back. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, shaking his head. “I’m sorry.”

“Shh,” Peter was surprised with how gentle Pepper was with him, pulling him close as he cried. “It’s okay, Kid. It’s okay.”

“No it’s not,” he protested. “I hurt Morgan. I-I swear I didn’t mean to. I-I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

Peter heard another set of footsteps and didn’t dare look up. He could tell from their heaviness that it had to be Tony. “I’m sorry,” he repeated. “I-I’ll go home. I-I won’t bother you guys anymore, I promise. I’m so sorry.”

“Hey, Pete. . . Look at me.” Peter hesitated. He felt tricked by the sudden softness of Tony’s voice. It wasn’t until he felt a finger on his chin that he finally looked up. “You want to tell us what’s going on?”

“I just— I-I’m so tired,” Peter cried, his sobs growing louder. “I can’t sleep. I-I can’t sleep a-at all and it’s m-making me so. . . So, terrible. A-and I— I got mad a-and I didn’t know wh-what I was doing and i-it just happened, I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. I-I messed up.”

Peter was surprised when Tony pulled him close, running a hand through his messy hair. “Breathe, Pete,” he murmured. “I’m sorry I yelled. I won’t say that what you did was okay, but mistakes happen and I should have heard you out before I got mad.”

“I deserved it,” Peter mumbled. He didn’t pull away, just letting the man hug him. “Sh-she probably hates me now.”

“She’ll be okay in a day or two if not sooner,” Pepper told him. “She’s young and forgiving. Just let her know that you’re sorry and she’ll forgive you. She loves you, Peter. We all do.”

Peter sighed but didn’t protest. “I-if I need to go home, I understand,” he said quietly after a beat of silence, finally pulling away. “Yo-you guys should be worrying about her, not me.”

Tony exchanged a glance with Pepper before looking back at Peter. “You’re our kid too, Pete,” he said softly, putting a hand on the boy’s knee. “We’re allowed to worry about you just as much as we worry about Morgan. When you’re hurting, it hurts us too. Let us help.”

Peter glanced down, not sure. As much as he wanted the help; he wanted sleep, he didn’t want to take away from Morgan. Because even if they saw him that way, he wasn’t really their kid and he was sixteen. He should be able to help himself. But the more he thought, the more tired he felt. More tears threatened to spill, and he shook his head, taking a shaky breath as he felt two sets of arms around him. He wasn’t sure how long they stayed like that, but he eventually heard quiet footsteps and then felt a tug on his sweater.

As the three pulled apart, Peter glanced over to see Morgan looking at him shyly, holding something behind her back. She seemed unsure of herself at first, but she finally lifted her eyes to look at him. “I’m sorry for making you upset,” she said quietly. She pulled a plushie out from behind her back and handed it to Peter. He noticed that it was a chubby Iron Man bear. She held another bear in her hand, hers dressed in a Spider-Man outfit. “When I’m sad, I cuddle Spidey Bear ‘cause you’re my favorite. You said Daddy’s your favorite, so you can borrow Iron Bear until you’re happy again.”

Peter smiled softly and held out an arm. He was a bit surprised when she moved closer, letting him pull her into a side hug. “Thanks, M,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry I hit you.”

“It’s okay,” she replied. “It doesn’t hurt that much now. Mommy kissed it to make it better.”

“Good,” he murmured, his voice wavering a bit. “It won’t happen again, okay? I promise.”

“I know,” Morgan told him. “I love you, Petey.”

Peter almost choked on his words as he replied. “Love you too, Morgan.”

#marvel #mcu #avengers #irondad #spiderson #whump #peter parker #tony stark #may parker #pepper potts #morgan stark #spider man #iron man #post endgame #infinity saga

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imgoingtocrash · 5 years ago

Text

knowing (of everything she doesn’t)

Chapters: 1/1

Rating: G

Word Count: 9,097

Relationships: Michelle Jones/Peter Parker, Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Morgan Stark, Peter Parker & Pepper Potts & Morgan Stark & Tony Stark, Michelle Jones & Pepper Potts & Tony Stark, Happy Hogan & Michelle Jones, Happy Hogan & Peter Parker

Summary:

“Mister Stark means a lot to me, M,” Peter says firmly, effectively ending the discussion.

“I know,” she answers, squeezing his hand where it rests over the cupholder between them.

Looking out the window, what she thinks to herself is: do you mean that much to him?

Maybe it’s overprotective or presumptuous of her—she’s only known Peter well for a couple of years and has been dating him for less than one.

It’s just—in all that time, in all of the stories of his alter-ego’s exploits that he’s finally shared…she just can’t see how the universe-saving multibillionaire fits into all of this.

MJ joins Peter for a Thanksgiving visit to the Starks' lake house. It turns out that even after years of quiet observation and a few months of dating, there are still things about Peter Parker and his life that manage to surprise her.

Read on AO3

My gift for @peter-stank for @friendly-neighborhood-exchange!!! Happy belated Birthday, Beedee, and thank you so much for your amazing contributions to the fandom. Hopefully you enjoy this fic as much as I enjoyed writing it. <3 (Fic also under the cut, as requested by the exchange/until reveal.)

They’re an hour into a two and a half hour drive when Michelle decides to drop the question.

“Isn’t it weird?” MJ asks. “Casually being invited to your boss’s house for Thanksgiving?”

Peter shrugs, but she can see the way his shoulders tense underneath his hoodie when he answers, “Maybe. Before.”

Before doesn’t need to be clarified. The Blip.

“Besides, he makes a mean turkey stuffing. I promise, that’s worth it,” Peter attempts to deflect, the barest hint of a smile directed her way.

But Michelle has never been good at leaving well enough alone. She asks too many questions, sometimes makes people uncomfortable. It’s how she got good at academic decathlon and how she (mostly) figured out Peter was Spider-Man.

“What changed?”

“Hm?”

“The Blip was traumatic for everyone in one way or another. Why did it change things with Tony?” She never refers to him as Mister Stark despite Peter rarely ever calling his mentor anything else.

“It just…did.” Peter shrugs again, eyes determinately focused on the road ahead and far away from her. “He lost me, I almost lost him, it sucked. That’s all.”

“Okay, but—“ It just doesn’t make sense to her that he was an intern at SI or a superhero colleague or whatever, and somehow it added up to…whatever this is. Schlepping up to the Catskills in Peter’s hand-me-down Toyota for a few days at the Starks’ cabin. Like, that’s just a thing that Peter has been invited to do, and he doesn’t think anything of it.

“Mister Stark means a lot to me, M,” Peter says firmly, effectively ending the discussion.

“I know,” she answers, squeezing his hand where it rests over the cupholder between them.

Looking out the window, what she thinks to herself is: do you mean that much to him?

Maybe it’s overprotective or presumptuous of her—she’s only known Peter well for a couple of years and has been dating him for less than one.

It’s just—in all that time, in all of the stories of his alter-ego’s exploits that he’s finally shared…she just can’t see how the universe-saving multibillionaire fits into all of this.

They arrive at the lake house just as the sun’s setting, the orange hues reflecting across the water.

A loud thwack breaks the relative silence that’s formed by the car’s engine turning off.

“Petey!” shrieks the high pitched little voice that accompanies a little blur of movement out of the house.

Peter’s already unbuckling his seatbelt, a smile blown wide across his face. He kicks the door open—used to the way it sometimes sticks—and just barely misses hitting the brown-haired little girl that can only be Morgan Stark in her precious little head.

“Morgie!” Peter shouts in a parrot of her tone, not bothering to shut the door behind him before he picks up the five-year-old girl, spinning them both around in circles while she screams with laughter.

“’S so good to see you,” Peter says, pressing sloppy kisses to Morgan’s cheeks. “Did you miss me?”

“Yeah! Daddy said you were coming for a whole week this time, and I have a whole list of movies that you have to watch with me, and—“

Morgan trails on, but MJ is watching Peter—his attention is zeroed in on the girl in his arms, his megawatt grin on full display. He’s comfortable with her. She called him Petey—a nickname she knows is usually reserved only for May. She knew Peter was close with Morgan, but she’d always assumed it was in that way she sees her younger cousins every holiday and they think she’s the coolest person in the world for exactly eight hours, and then they don’t see or speak to each other again until the next family event, rinse and repeat.

The girl stops herself, moving her eyes directly to MJ and locking on. She’s always kind of hated that about little kids—they look into your soul and just kind of know things.

“Who’s that?” Morgan asks, more firmly wrapping her arms around Peter, as if to protect him.

(The only danger Peter’s been in from MJ in the last three hours was during their argument about road trip playlists. Particularly, Peter’s memetic gag of repeating What’s New Pussycat? on the same playlist multiple times and thinking she wouldn’t stop it before the first It’s Not Unusual.)

Michelle decides to get out of the car and introduce herself instead of awkwardly staring through the open door. It’s a bit of a chore—the passenger door’s handle is finicky—but she gets out without landing her ass in the mud and considers it a win. She still wipes her hands on her pants as she rounds the car, trying to remove any weird, nervous sweat. She’s not worried about it. She’s fine.

“I’m, um. Michelle,” she states, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. “Hi. Nice to meet you.”

Morgan’s head quirks to the side, looking Michelle up and down before she screams, “Daddy, Petey brought some weird stranger to Thanksgiving!” directly into Peter’s ear.

“Ow,” he hisses, rubbing at his earlobe. “Morgan, that’s not cool, MJ is—“

Morgan doesn’t let Peter finish, sticking out her tongue and wriggling out of Peter’s arms, running off towards the house as fast as she came out of it.

Tony Stark himself opens the screen door of the cabin next, chuckling as his daughter weaves between his legs. The effects from the battle with Thanos are clear—though it’s less intense than she imagines it was a year ago. White scar tissue spindles through the right side of Tony’s face, following down under his t-shirt and transitioning into to the metal arm painted the iconic Iron Man color scheme of red and gold.

Peter showed her the specs of that arm shortly after they got together—apparently Tony finished his rehab just after their trip to Europe, and it was supposed to be a gift from Peter. Seeing it on the man himself is…daunting, to say the least.

“Sorry about her,” Tony says, easing himself down the stairs as he approaches. There’s no kind of limp, but he seems to take his time with it all the same. “She gets a little territorial with us sometimes. Pep says we need to get her around more kids her own age, but the idea of sending her off to preschool…”

He shakes his head like he’s clearing cobwebs. She has to admit, he seems more human like this, surrounded by nature, talking about his daughter, the sun showing the lighter, grey strands of his hair more clearly.

“Hey, Pete,” Tony says, pulling Peter into a hug. It’s not just a one-armed casual sort of hug either, but a full one that goes on for a minute, dramatically rocking them back and forth. “Ugh, I missed you.”

“It’s only been a few days, Mister Stark!” Peter’s laughing reply is muffled into Tony’s shoulder. When they come apart, the smile from earlier has returned. Tony’s hands—robotic and human—have moved to Peter’s shoulders.

“A week. A whole week! I can’t spend that much time away from you anymore. It aggravates my angina.”

“Now you’re just trying to be embarrassing,” Peter grumbles, reluctant when the other man runs his hand through Peter’s gelled hair and musses it up just so.

“Absolutely,” Tony admits. He turns to Michelle. “You must be the famous scary girlfriend.”

“You’re just as bad as Morgan!” Peter whines. MJ isn’t sure she’s ever heard him sound so childish in his life despite the fact that he acts like a giant, overexcited goofball ninety percent of the time.

“My reputation precedes me,” Michelle ends up replying, shaking Tony’s hand when it’s offered. For some reason she was more nervous to meet Morgan than her father. Maybe it’s just her instinct to not be intimidated by rich tycoon types. Then again…she and the rest of the world know that he’s much more than that. Still. Old habits die hard.

“Now see, she can take a joke. I like her,” Tony says, nodding at Peter. Peter’s face goes a soft red, just edging on a full blush. She doesn’t really care if Tony likes her, but Peter clearly does.

Tony hooks an arm around both of their shoulders, leading them up to the house.

“Seriously, it’s good to have you guys. I’ve kind of been dreaming about the holidays—it got me through a lot of my physical therapy sessions,” he admits. It seems to be a more vulnerable comment than he lets on—Peter leans his head onto Tony’s shoulder. He’s almost too tall for it, but it’s…weirdly sweet. Peter’s big on physical comfort, as she now knows. Apparently even Tony has gotten used to it.

“Christmas is going to be a goddamn blow out, trust me,” Tony continues, breaking their grouping to lead them into the house. “Wall to wall Avengers, a mountain of presents. I’m slowly but surely convincing Pepper to let me build a fully functioning Santa’s sleigh to put on the roof.”

“No, he’s not,” comes a voice from deeper in the house. Pepper Potts steps in from what must be the kitchen, wiping flour off on the apron around her waist. “I will accept the light-up ones that are meant to be decoration and nothing else.”

Pepper presses a finger into her husband’s chest firmly, spreading a puff of flour and accenting her point with a quick peck to his lips. It’s a surprisingly domestic scene. She looks at Peter, and he’s looking at her already, soft doe eyes and a mind probably full of gross, sweet things that are way, way in their future.

Dork, she mouths. His returning smile is predictably un-cowed.

“You kids are just adorable,” Tony comments. Pepper nudges him with an elbow on her way to Peter.

“Hi, sweetie,” she says, pressing a kiss to his head and holding her hands up. “I’d hug you but—“

“All good,” Peter replies. “Anything I can do to help?”

“No, no. You unpack, relax. I’ve got it, just—semi-literally have my fingers in a lot of pies, right now.”

“That’s code for please, god, don’t let a Parker near my cooking,” Tony whispers to her.

“Enhanced. Hearing.” Peter’s look at his mentor is the closest to peeved that he really gets. (She has to admit, though—there’s a reason they mostly go out or order in on dates. Cooking isn’t really either of their fortes.)

“Boys,” Pepper hums. It sounds like this is a common occurrence in the Stark household. “It’s nice to meet you, Michelle. Peter talks about you all the time. Again, I’d shake your hand, but—“ She holds up her palms, shrugging.

“No it’s—super awesome to meet you. Thank you for having me.” It’s actually beyond awesome. Despite her beef with Stark Industries and their ilk, she has to admit Pepper Potts is pretty high on her list of inspirational female powerhouses. She became CEO at 40 with only a Bachelor’s in Business and a Fine Arts minor, and Stark Industries entered a historic era of technology production and philanthropy under her guidance.

“Oh my god, you’re totally starstruck right now, aren’t you?” Peter questions in her ear, quieter than Tony so that only she hears.

“Shut up,” she says between her teeth, swatting at his arm without breaking her smile at Pepper.

Pepper smiles, giving Tony a look that Michelle can’t decipher. It might be flirtatious? Are she and Peter reminding Pepper of Tony and herself when they were younger? Her life is so weird, right now.

“I’ll go get our stuff,” Peter offers, out the screen door before she can argue that she doesn’t need his help. Like, it’s nice that her boyfriend can lift an entire car’s worth of stuff in one go, but she doesn’t always need him to. It feels a little…exploitative of his powers, somehow.

“I have a five-year-old to console,” Tony says, then quirks his head. “Chide? Eh, I’ll feel it out in the moment. Maybe a little of both. Make yourself comfortable, Michelle.”

Pepper watches Tony ascend the stairs, a what can you do? sort of look on her face towards MJ.

“Seriously, you and Peter have the afternoon to yourselves. If you need anything, just ask FRIDAY.” Pepper points up to the ceiling, as if that’s where the AI lives—which, maybe it does—before she turns around and attends to the beeping timer coming from the kitchen.

Michelle’s had a little experience with Peter’s AI, Karen, but the whole house being run by a super AI is something totally out of the norm. Honestly, she’ll probably just ask Peter any questions to avoid conversing with it.

She takes the chance alone to really observe her surroundings. From the outside the house looked like a pretty rustic cabin, but inside it’s a mostly-open floor plan mix of modern design and homey decor.

In particular, she notices the walls and surfaces are covered in pictures. The entryway features what can only be a shot of Tony and Pepper’s wedding day. The lake is featured behind them—Tony in a suit, Pepper in a white maternity dress that accentuates her pregnant belly.

Further into the living area there’s a larger variety of shots: Baby Morgan in Tony’s arms at the hospital, a few older shots with faces Michelle recognizes—Bruce Banner, James Rhodes, and even a group shot of the Avengers, smiling and receiving Medals of Honor from the Mayor of New York.

Nestled in a few shots of Morgan at a few different ages is a familiar face. Peter is pictured with Tony—it’s a selfie that was clearly printed, Peter making a goofy face combating Tony’s unamused expression. Next to it is a more recent picture. It appears to be from the spring shortly after the battle. Morgan is sitting in Peter’s lap, her hands covered in sticky popsicle juice while Peter is taking a lick from the offered desert over her shoulder. Clearly a candid moment.

Finally, nestled in-between a shot of the Starks teaching a younger Morgan how to swim and a press picture of Tony and Pepper from a gala she can’t identify is one of Peter and Tony on the very couch next to her, both of them asleep and pajama-clad, like they’d fallen asleep like that the night before and someone caught it the morning after.

“Ugh, that one’s so bad,” Peter says, suddenly behind her. He has a talent for sneaking up on her, one that would probably be more useful if he wasn’t always running his mouth and announcing his presence, particularly to bad guys. “Of course you found it.”

“I didn’t realize—“ she starts, but frowns, unsure of exactly what she’s thinking. It’s so…homey, here, and Peter’s clearly welcome. She knew he visited a lot, but this… “You’re all over the place.”

Peter clearly doesn’t think anything of it, shrugging. “I, um. We didn’t have anywhere to go after, you know?”

He’s never comfortable talking about the Blip or the battle against Thanos. A lot of people aren’t, but Peter in particular always stumbles through it. In the months of their dating, he’s only brought it up if she’s asked, never on his own.

“We lived here for a while. Our old apartment belonged to someone else, but May wouldn’t take any charity, wouldn’t accept the Starks’ penthouse in the city. She and Pepper looked for a place in Queens for months, but there were suddenly all of those people looking for housing…”

He loses himself for a moment. He does this sometimes too, drifting off like he’s disconnected, unable to keep himself in the here and now.

She takes his hand, and with a squeeze he comes back. There aren’t any tears, but there’s a weight in his eyes that she recognizes: guilt. For having a home when others still don’t months later. For failing at stopping Thanos the first time. For any number of other things he’s yet to reveal to her.

“Peter…” she tries, but what can she say? It’s times like this that she wishes she was…more. That she was better equipped to handle this superhero life that he’s so dedicated to. He takes the weight of the world on his shoulders, and she hasn’t figured out exactly how to give him a break, to take some of the weight as her own, or if she ever can.

“It’s fine, I’m—anyway, it was just…kind of nice, after everything that happened. Tony was recovering from here, Pepper was working from home a lot, Morgan was scared, I was…” He clears his throat, not finishing the sentence. “It was good to have everyone under one roof for a while, that’s all.”

She tucks herself into his side in a hug, unsure how else to respond. He would accept platitudes but he wouldn’t believe them. She rarely knows the right thing to say, anyway. Maybe this is the best she can do.

He pats her shoulder, breaking the quiet. “Come on, I’ll show you upstairs.”

Peter keeps his arm around her as they walk, squeezing them both up the stairs with their backpacks in hand.

“We’re staying in my room.” He stops walking, stiffening in a way that makes her feel—well, her age. They haven’t even really discussed sex, but any discussions past their first few chaste kisses have turned out a little awkward, stumbling forward because neither of them have dated before this.

“I mean, as long as that’s okay with you, I can take the couch, or—“

“No, no, that’s fine. We’ve shared before,” she mumbles, knowing there have been a few times May must have seen them asleep on Peter’s bed and let them be. She assumes his aunt’s open door policy will stay in place, likely why the Starks are okay with them sharing. Not like she has much desire to do anything in the Starks’ house, and especially with a five-year-old only a few rooms away.

“Your room?” she asks, moving them along. She assumed he and May just shared a guest bed or something that he just took over whenever he visited, not that he had a room of his own.

“It, ah—Mister Stark insisted,” Peter laughs, but mixed in with the slight embarrassment is something warm too, shown by how Peter’s gaze turns to the door clearly labeled Morgan’s Room in a pretty cursive font, likely Pepper’s work. She can hear the soft murmurs of Tony’s voice in the room, meaning that Peter can probably hear the entire conversation.

There’s a bathroom in the hall that’s a mix of Morgan’s colorful bath toys and what she knows is Peter’s deodorant sitting on the sink counter. Next to Morgan’s room is another bedroom, likely Tony and Pepper’s. At the end of the hall is where they stop, the unmarked door holding a room that is different from Peter’s in New York, but funnily enough, almost more expressive of him.

Peter hasn’t made it a secret that he doesn’t love his new apartment—it’s smaller than their old place, and devoid of the memories from his Uncle Ben’s presence. He seems to think there’s not much point in decorating it with the future expectation of college dorms ahead of them, and has apparently spilled most of his personal effects across this room instead.

The A New Hope poster on the wall is one of the nicer reproductions, framed and—signed by Mark Hamill, of course, probably a gift from Tony. A hologram is up on the desk, the Spider-Man symbol lazily floating around like a desktop screensaver. There are a few Lego sets unfinished in the corner—Peter rarely finishes them without Ned to keep them on task.

It’s Peter spilling out of every crumpled sheet of loose-leaf paper, every sneaker missing its mate.

Peter immediately takes to cleaning up the array of dirty clothes on the floor, mumbling apologies. She spies a faded hoodie with the cracked screen-printing of MIT’s logo among the mess before he scoops it up too.

“I was in a hurry last time I was here, sorry. Pepper says she won’t clean up after me because it sets a bad example for Morgan—which I totally get! But also, I mean, you’ve met me.”

It’s as self-explanatory as he makes it sound—he has a busy life. Sometimes, when stuff is crazy, a few dirty socks on the floor don’t really matter so much.

However, she also senses that some part of him likes the mess. His room in the city is a cramped box, and the charging case for the Iron Spider takes up an entire corner on its own. Here, he’s free to spread himself across the floors and up the walls as much as he likes.

“Yeah, Parker, you are kind of a mess,” she teases, only smiling more at his response of wrinkling his nose up at her.

“Anyway,” he continues with a grunt, flinging a sock into a hamper that’s overfull like he’s some kind of basketball star and frowning when it bounces into the floor instead. “Since Pepper’s kicked us out of the kitchen and Mo is being a grouch, we can do whatever. FRIDAY has any movie or show you could want—comedies, romcoms, that sad documentary about polar bears you like…“

“It’s not sad, it’s realistic.”

“What’s real is that you watched me cry about the ice caps melting for like thirty minutes, M.”

He brings her close, wrapping his arms around her waist and swaying them in place like it’s some kind of grand romantic moment, the two of them bickering in the middle of his messy bedroom at Tony Stark’s house. For some reason she has the impression that he’ll spurt into a tall and lanky mess in a few years, but for now she’s still looking down at him just a smidge, meaning he’s looking up at her all…mushy and enamored.

“As we all should,” she replies, failing to sound serious because she’s suddenly distracted by the hint of Peter’s teeth peeking out of his smile. Her boyfriend is so cute, which, yes, she knew that, but it’s just—he’s so much, Peter Parker, and she’s barely even scratched the surface after quietly watching him for years and thinking she had him all figured out. It’s intimidating, to see the open emotion on his face and know there’s even more that she’d never considered underneath.

“I—“ She takes a breath, trying to recover from the flustered blush that’s creeped up her cheeks without her permission. “Nap. I could go for a nap. That sounds good, right?”

Peter’s smile grows—he’s always so entertained when he breaks her brain like this, so smug that he’s one of the only people that can.

At her warning look, he lets her awkward stumbling drop, holding up his hands. “Yeah, MJ, that’s—sounds good.”

“That’s what I thought.”

If she picked that activity for an excuse to hold Peter close for a few hours alone after the barrage of meeting so many new people, well, no one has to know.

“Pete.” A voice she only vaguely recognizes is within the edge of her consciousness. It’s not her step-father, so she chooses to ignore it, snuggling into the warmth under her head further. “Spiiiider-baby. Kiddo, c’mon, wake up.”

Her eyes open just a slit—watery vision turned milky by the overpowering beam of light that leaks in. In the darkness of the room, she finds Peter’s face, still firmly buried in his pillow. Behind him, partially obscured by the curve of his shoulder and the powerful light from the hallway, is Tony.

He smiles when he catches her eyes. “Not the one I planned on, but hey, one out of two’s not bad.”

“Peeetey,” Tony tries Peter again, this time accompanying his calls with a touch to Peter’s head, he’s—running his hand through Peter’s hair? Is she dreaming? “Buddy, it’s time to get up. It’s dinnertime.”

“Hm?” finally comes Peter’s groggy response, slurred as he turns into Tony’s hand.

“Magic words,” Tony jokes to her, stroking Peter’s curls again, fully mussing what’s already been ruined by their nap.

“Feels nice,” Peter sighs. He squeezes the arm he has around MJ, as if for emphasis. “M’comfy.”

“Aw, they’re so cute when they’re sleepy,” Tony full-on coos, and that seems to do it, eliciting a groan from Peter’s chest against her ear.

“You’re so embarrassing, Mister Stark.” Peter bats Tony’s hand away this time, rubbing at his eyes and flitting them over to the holographic clock on the desk—6:30 PM.

“We slept a while.”

“I’ll say. I had Morgan all primed for an apology and you two were totally passed out.”

MJ removes herself from Peter’s hold, running a hand through her loosened ponytail and catching a few matted curls with a frown.

Tony turns up the lights slowly, sliding the switch to half-power.

“I negotiated that you two would watch Mulan with her after dinner, by the way. She tests people with how they react to Disney movies. Don’t ask me why.”

Peter nods solemnly, stretching his arms with a few quick pops.

“I got Tangled. Ned and I went to see it with Ned’s little sister as kids, but I still got all choked up at the whole hair-cutting scene. Cemented me with her for life.”

Peter literally rolls off of the bed, landing on his feet as if he’d simply sat up and stood like a normal person.

She and Tony are similarly unimpressed.

“The fact that you also act like her personal spidery-jungle-gym probably doesn’t hurt either,” he comments.

“You’re just mad that she doesn’t play Iron Man as much anymore.”

Tony sniffs, but doesn’t deny it. “Pizza’s getting cold. Pepper was too tired to cook anything else tonight, and I instantly agreed.”

“But have you ever had pizza for Thanksgiving?” Peter inquires, tapping his skull with his pointer finger like this idea holds the secrets of the universe. “You order the night before and eat it reheated the next day. No cooking required.”

“Just say May burned a turkey the year before and you were scared,” Tony replies. “It’s so much faster that way.”

“I’ll have you know it was Uncle Ben who was scared—“

By the time they’ve moved on to weighing the importance of tradition versus creating new traditions, Michelle has managed to brush her hair back into a more controlled ponytail and has splashed a little water on her face in the bathroom.

They’re still in Peter’s room going at it when she returns.

“You guys talk a lot,” she interrupts.

They both go silent, look at each other, then shrug. It’s like looking into a mirror, in a weird way, and she’s concerned that she’s dating half of that mirror when the other half is Tony Stark, who spent years flying around in a suit of armor and almost died on multiple occasions.

“Daddy!” Morgan thumps her way up the stairs, sliding into Tony’s legs on socked feet. “Mommy said you’re taking too long.”

Tony easily brings his daughter into his arms, bouncing her on his hip and leading them down the stairs that way.

“Oh she did, did she?” he asks, voice taking on a playful quality. “That doesn’t sound like Mommy. She usually just tells me to hurry the fu—“

“Mister Stark!” Peter interjects, slapping his hands over Morgan’s ears and awkwardly hovering over Tony’s shoulder on the stairway to do it. Honestly, it would probably be more comfortable for him to just get on the ceiling at this point.

“Oh, I’m kidding! I wasn’t actually gonna say it!”

Tony pulls Morgan out of Peter’s loose grip, moving all of them forward and almost sending Peter toppling down the stairs. MJ grabs the back of Peter’s shirt even though she suspects his feet are doing the steadying for him.

“You guys are like some kind of messed up comedy troupe,” Michelle comments, watching Peter pout and dust off his clothes as if it will rid him of any embarrassment.

Pepper shakes her head at all of them as they enter the kitchen, probably having heard at least some of that. “More like a circus,” she grumbles.

“We do have an alpaca,” Tony adds, placing Morgan onto her feet.

“I think that’d be more of a petting zoo,” Peter argues.

“Michelle, I’m sorry about them,” Pepper says. “Get whatever you want, we always order plenty for Mister-Mega-Metabolism over here.”

Pepper points to Peter, who has already unceremoniously shoved half of a slice of pepperoni pizza in his mouth and has a trail of grease slipping down his chin.

“You guys are so mean,” he sulks without bothering to swallow, meaning the words are a garbled, spitting mess. “Mister Stark’s the one that keeps nagging me about my blood sugar!”

“You’re attracted to this,” Tony says to Michelle, pointing at Peter. “This? Really?”

“He’s alright,” she answers, dragging both a slice of vegetarian and a slice of cheese onto her own plate without bothering to look at Peter’s fake-hurt expression.

“MJ, you’re supposed to be on my side, this is—I can’t even—“

In his distraction, Morgan decides to be sneaky. Only MJ seems to catch her subtle movements toward Peter, using her short height to her advantage and the element of surprise to steal what’s left of the piece of pizza from Peter’s hand. She giggles to herself triumphantly, biting into it herself.

“Morgan, sweetie, that’s—“ Pepper tries, but seems to lose the end of the admonishment that was probably about germs.

Peter only smiles, crouching as if preparing for a fight.

“Here they go,” Tony hums, expectant in a way Michelle certainly isn’t.

“You better watch out, you little—!” In a fit of laughter, Morgan sprints out of the kitchen, Peter hot on her heels. They run a lap around the living room furniture.

“Peter, leave your sister alone, she needs to eat her—aaaaand they’re already in the yard,” Tony sighs. He and Pepper seem to give up, bringing their own plates and the so far unused plates of Peter and Morgan to the table. MJ follows suit, placing herself an empty chair between the two table heads.

“I swear to god, they’re normal, like, ninety percent of the time.” Tony pauses. “Eighty-five. Solid eighty percent.”

“Did you…?” MJ feels awkward asking about it, but maybe it’s something Peter hasn’t told her yet, something she wasn’t supposed to know that just slipped out. Tony said—he called Morgan Peter’s sister. “Is there something I should know?”

Both Tony and Pepper look at Michelle like she’s not making any sense.

“What you said—that Morgan is Peter’s sister, it’s just—I can keep a secret! I just didn’t know he was, you know. Yours.“

“He wishes,” Pepper snorts into her ice water.

Tony’s responding smile is far too wide.

“I keep asking May for partial custody, but she just won’t budge!” He snaps his fingers in a very exaggerated, aw, shucks way. Pepper and Tony both laugh.

“Ah,” she lets out, embarrassed to have even had the thought that Peter might be Tony’s secret child or something, picking at her pizza toppings to avoid looking at the Starks.

“Don’t worry about it, sweetie.” Pepper pats her arm comfortingly. “Before the Blip there were articles with pretty similar lines of questioning. All shut down because they photographed a minor, of course.”

Pepper seems pretty proud of that, and MJ supposes she should be. People definitely would have made the Spider-Man connection sooner if Peter and Tony were in the paper together all the time.

More seriously, Tony says, “I’ve looked at the kid’s blood…more than I wish I had, honestly, but he gets injured, it happens. Anyway, yeah, no. FRIDAY would have figured that one out pretty quickly. DNA scanners and all.”

She nods, and the awkward silence thankfully only has to sit for a few more seconds before Peter bursts back into the house, Morgan wriggling around and squealing in his arms.

“I caught a wild Morguna!” Peter cheers.

“Is that the name of an actual Pokémon?” Tony asks, switching his gaze between Pepper and Michelle for an answer. “Did I accidentally nickname my kid after a battling monster thing? I only know like three of them, help me out here.”

Peter rolls his eyes, placing Morgan down with a quick tickle to her ribs that sends her flying towards the table.

“Come eat, Little Miss,” Tony commands, patting his hand on the chair to his right. Peter sits automatically to his left. “Michelle won’t want to watch a movie with you if you misbehave.”

“Do you like Disney movies?” Morgan probes, kicking her feet under the table and creating a light vibration.

Michelle shrugs. “Depends on which movie.”

Morgan squints, accessing. She nods.

“Good answer.”

Next to her under the table, Peter gives her a thumbs up, another piece of pizza already in his other hand.

The answer of where he got the food is clear as Tony shoves his other piece over to Morgan.

Pepper rolls her eyes and stands to presumably help re-fill his plate from the boxes on the counter.

Mulan was as good as MJ remembered it being when she was a kid.

Morgan seemed pretty pleased when she started mouthing along the words to I’ll Make A Man Out Of You, but less so when that prompted Peter to turn it into a dance number including the jumping kicks that almost resulted in a broken glass coffee table.

Despite their earlier nap, Michelle and Peter both find it fairly easy to fall asleep that night.

Still, it may be because of the nap that she doesn’t sleep as hard. She feels a disturbance, physically—Peter’s warmth leaves the bed, the steady pressure of his spine against her own is no longer there.

At first Michelle thinks it’s just a quick bathroom trip. Then she finds that she’s not as comfortable as she was those five minutes before without Peter because he keeps the room warm and he’s cool under the sheets (possibly because of the spider-man thing, she’s never asked).

So she waits.

She thinks about the English paper that will be her final for this semester that she only has half an idea for, and what drills AcaDec should be running for their first practice after the break, and…still no Peter.

She thinks about the pictures she spotted of Peter and Tony in the kitchen—the one of them from his internship next to one of Tony in a hospital gown, Peter on the hospital bed, his body covering Tony’s lost arm, both of them smiling with wet eyes and what it all means.

He still isn’t back yet.

She scoots over to Peter’s side of the bed and peeks her head out of the open door. There’s not even a light on in the bathroom.

Well, now she definitely has to investigate.

The cabin probably isn’t old enough for any squeaky floorboards, but she watches her step just the same, aware of every little noise in the half-dark of the night. She makes it to the stairs before she finally sees the dim glow of lights on downstairs accompanying the sound of someone talking.

“…it’s just so—messy.“

“Then explain it to me.”

She goes to her tiptoes, moving just a few steps down. On the couch she identifies the owners of the voices—the backs of Peter and Tony’s heads are silhouetted in the light of the fireplace in front of them.

“Tony…” Peter says, clearly hesitant, curling further into the couch.

“I can handle it, Pete. It’s worse for me when I don’t know what you’re going through, trust me,” Tony replies.

“I don’t even know what I’m going through,” Peter jokes, but his voice is weak, and Tony doesn’t laugh.

Peter sighs. “It was just—one thing to another. Like, I was under that building, and I felt like I couldn’t breathe, and then it was Titan, and I couldn’t breathe and I could feel myself—I could feel it happening and I was reaching out to you, but then you were—“

She can’t see Peter’s face, but his arm moves over his eyes, and the sleeve comes away tear-stained. He’s crying. Peter’s crying, broken, and her heart strains to do something about it, but this is—all of this is so much and she’s just overhearing it, what is she even doing?

“You were dying and I couldn’t…I heard when your heart—when you—” Peter’s words hitch into sobs, quiet and purposefully muted, like he’s scared to release them.

“Oh, buddy, no, no,” Tony brings Peter closer, his arm bundling Peter against his chest. Earlier she’d thought of what Peter might look like years from now, but now he looks smaller, younger.

The things Peter’s seen…he fought aliens in space, he was dusted and remembers it, his hero, his mentor, this man taking on Peter’s tears and pain with his whole body, his heart—another father—almost died right in front of Peter’s eyes. God, Mysterio almost put a bullet through Peter’s head for revenge—they’re still children, how can Peter handle this, how could anyone?

“Shh, I’m right here. I’m here, I’ve got you,” Tony soothes easily, like Peter is Morgan, just another one of his children seeking comfort.

“It’s okay, Pete. Everyone is okay. Just let it out, you’re okay.” Tony presses a kiss to Peter’s head, rubbing Peter’s back, so gentle, so soft, so unlike anything the world has ever shown her about Tony Stark, something precious and kind.

Something saved only for Peter, for his family.

Michelle sits at the top of the stairs for too long.

Too long thinking of every epic story Peter’s ever told about Spider-Man—the bruises he brushes off, the cuts and scrapes that he can hide away within a day, all of the times that he wins, the failures glided over as footnotes to a success story.

There’s so much she doesn’t know.

She knew he carried guilt, responsibility, but never this. This is a raw, deep wound of loss. It’s a fear scraping at him in the dark that he hides in the light. That he hides from everyone. From her.

Peter is curling into Tony for that comfort instead, burying his fears and worries into the man who brought him into all of this. If there’s anyone that could understand, of course it would be Tony.

She doesn’t know what do to with this knowing of everything she doesn’t. These are things she’s scared to know, things she wants to know anyway because they’re a part of Peter, and she wants more of him despite the sensical parts of her brain that scream for her to run off to California for college and leave dating a literal superhero that regularly risks his own life behind.

As Peter’s tears start to taper off, she stands from her place on the stairs, tip-toeing her way back up to Peter’s bedroom just as quietly as she came, leaving Tony's final whisper of, “I love you, it’s okay,” behind her.

She lies down, bringing the covers that smell of Peter's body wash up to her neck, the familiar scent comforting.

She only falls back asleep as the first dregs of sunshine begin to peek through Peter’s blinds.

Peter doesn’t come back to bed.

Unlike the day before, Thanksgiving morning is a quiet affair. A fog seems to have fallen overnight, leaving the outside of the cabin wet and hazy, matching her mood after the night before.

MJ wakes lightly a few times: the scent of coffee hits her nose, a high-pitched giggle echoes from Morgan in the hall, the sounds of doors opening and closing downstairs break the spell on and off.

If Peter enters the room to get dressed, he doesn’t wake her. She’s not sure if she wants him to or not.

There’s this—knot, buried right in the middle of her chest. Guilt for watching a private moment. Disappointed that she hadn’t thought about it sooner, that she’d let herself accept his constant assurances that he was fine, that there was nothing for her to worry about beyond the norm.

It’s Happy that ends up waking her.

“Knock, knock,” he announces, pulling open the already cracked door. Michelle doesn’t think she’s ever seen him out of a suit before now—usually he’s playing driver for them after school or hovering around Peter and May’s place, something Peter’s only become minimally more comfortable with since May and Happy's dating-ish-thing started. He’s picked a dress shirt and dark jeans instead. Not far from casually formal, but still…weird.

“Morning,” she announces from her blanket bundle, sulky and comfortable.

His eyebrow raises, wrinkling his balding hairline. “Do I wanna know?”

She shrugs.

“Okay, well, Tony and the other kids are making breakfast. Doesn’t seem like your thing, missing out on good food.”

“Are you fat-shaming a growing teenage girl?” She raises an eyebrow, her face dead serious and her tone purposefully instigating.

“Of course not, why would you—“ he catches on quickly, used to her tricks by now, her jokes that aren’t jokes. His lips hint at a smile under his goatee. “Very funny, kid.”

“I thought so.” She smiles.

“Food in ten,” Happy reiterates, turning around to shut the door.

“Happy—wait,” MJ calls, hesitant. He looks back at her expectantly, but she isn’t sure what to say without saying everything, her emotions caught in her throat.

“You—Peter’s worked with you for a while, right?”

She sits up from under the covers, ignoring the borrowed t-shirt of Peter’s hanging off of her frame and the messy wrap containing her curls. This is Peter’s family, in a way, and Happy saw her unhinged and wielding a mace back in Europe. Surely they’re at the point of being able to ignore things like appropriate dress, or whatever.

Her hands end up wringing themselves together. She’s unsure where to look—the whole room is a reminder of Peter, a collage of all the different parts—the hero, the boy, the growing man.

Happy’s facial expression questions the non-sequitur, but he redirects to Peter’s bed anyway, situating himself comfortably, probably realizing this isn’t just about what she’s asking.

“Working with, not so much. Looking after his scrawny ass…” He nudges her with his shoulder, but she doesn’t brighten up much, so he sobers.

“In the beginning, I spent a lot of time ignoring him when he needed me the most. Tony and I both did, and we both regretted it. After the Vulture, things changed. I listened to every asinine voicemail, Tony instituted lab time every other weekend…”

Happy clears his throat, his eyes honest. “Don’t tell him this, but after we lost him, I spent so much time wishing I hadn’t missed a minute of it. I kept wishing I could get him back, listen to him babble about his nerdy crap in the back of the car for just one more hour. Stupid stuff.”

“But then he came back,” she supplies.

He nods. “Then he came back. Tony was out of commission, and I promised myself that I wasn’t ever going to miss another call, even if it was just the kid rattling my ear off about free churros or a dress that he thought looked nice on you at school that day.” At the ending comment, he bumps a hand at her leg, emphasizing.

“Ugh,” she groans, but puts a hand over her mouth to hide a smile. Happy doesn’t appear fooled.

“What’s this about, Michelle?” he asks, meeting her eyes.

She sighs, crossing her arms and leaning back against the bed’s headboard.

“It’s just—after everything that’s happened, after everything you’ve seen him go through…do you think—is Peter okay?”

Something dawns on Happy’s face, followed by a somber kind of smile.

“If you ask me, the people that choose to do this kind of thing—these hero types…none of ‘em are anything close to okay. I mean, you’ve seen the kind of stuff they’re up against first hand. Weird tech, magic, aliens…it doesn’t exactly scream mental stability if you’re going towards that kind of danger.”

It’s not meant to be comforting, and he doesn’t say it as such. It’s just a fact: normal people don’t put on suits and fight bad guys and come out on the other side unscathed. That’s why so few ever do it, powers aside.

“But it does speak to a lot of heart. People didn’t understand that about Tony, when he started: you have to care about people a whole hell of a lot to want to keep saving their ungrateful asses over and over again.”

“I know that Peter cares—and I love that about him!” She blushes at the heated admission, but Happy seems content to let it go with only a kind smile. “It’s just—I didn’t realize how hard it must be on him. He doesn’t tell me how hard it is. I don’t know what to do.”

“Talk to him?” Happy suggests with dry condescension.

She frowns at him, because very clearly she’s not there yet, which is why she’s talking to him.

“I had to try,” he sighs. “Look, I know it’s hard to see someone like him going through all of this. It’s even harder when they don’t admit things are tough. Sometimes it’s just—there’s not much that you can do. We sit on the sidelines, we pitch in where we can, and when they do need us…”

He trails off, looking out Peter’s window. The lake ripples with a light rain.

“When they do need us, we show up. We show up and tell them how stupid they are for acting tough. We’re there when it matters, even when they’re being stubborn and telling us to go.”

Happy shrugs. “Well, that’s always been my tactic, anyway.”

MJ shrugs back, biting her lip. “It’s not the worst advice I’ve ever heard.”

“Tony?” he questions.

“Captain America. Those pre-recorded seminars make you want a big bag of weed more than any college stoner alive.”

Happy actually does laugh at that, patting her knee over Peter’s comforter.

“You two are good together. And I’m not just saying that cause I’m romantic or something—though I did know Pepper and Tony would be perfect together before anyone else, and you can quote me on that.” He points his finger at her, dead serious. Clearly that’s a regular argument at the Stark family get-togethers.

“He’s not going to get lost in this alone. He has too many people on his side for that. But if you need him to be more honest, you’re probably going to have to ask for it. Multiple times. Explicitly. These geniuses have concrete skulls protecting all of that brain matter.” He taps against his own head for effect.

“Yeah, I—thanks, Happy.”

“No problem,” he replies. Then he groans as he lifts himself from the bed, standing. “Now get up, or Morgan’s going to hog all of the syrup. Tony’s not above stealing from her syrup pool, but I personally think it’s an abomination.”

Despite the quiet morning, downstairs is filled with activity once she arrives, her floral dress toned down by one of her favorite grandpa sweaters, grey and a little garish.

Happy arrived with James Rhodes, apparently, as the Colonel is currently swinging Morgan around the living room like it’s a playground. Pepper and Happy are involved in something at the stove, crowded together and bickering about whatever they’re attempting not to burn. Tony is absent at the moment (out feeding their alpaca, maybe,) but Peter’s gaze finds her from his place at the counter where he’s seemingly just stealing bits of fruit out of a bowl instead of contributing.

His smile makes her feel floaty, like the department store dress and thrift store sweater are something more elegant, something he’s revering from across the room. She has value outside of his opinion, yes, but she likes his stuttering compliments, the bloom of pink on his cheeks, the tentative hand he links into her own.

Michelle likes him, might even love him one day, and she wants to get past all of this business where she’s torn up about his other life as a superhero and get back to his eager attempts to get her to full-belly laugh, holding his hand in the hallway, sneaking chaste kisses as rewards for acing flash cards.

“Hey,” Peter says, but he looks just as pensive as she feels. Maybe he knows how she’s feeling, senses it with his weird tingle-thing.

“Hey.”

They end up breaking the following silence at the same time.

“Peter, I—“

“Can we—“

She tilts her head to the porch, smiling. They’re both kind of ridiculous. “Outside?”

Peter situates himself on the porch’s bannister, swinging his legs from his perch. She chooses to lean on the wood next to him.

She’s trying to prepare exactly what she wants to say when Peter says, “I know that you were there last night. I know you heard…well, everything.”

Michelle’s eyes go wide, turning to him apologetically. Of course, his super senses. He probably heard her heartbeat.

“I really didn’t mean to pry, you just didn’t come back to bed and when I overheard you were clearly so upset and—“

“It’s okay, MJ.”

“Is it, though?” she asks curtly. “Because it didn’t seem like that was the first time something like that’s happened.”

He looks away. “It’s not.”

She nudges his side with her own, swaying him on his ledge a little.

“I’m sorry. It’s my fault, bringing everything up like I did.”

“M, no, that’s not—“

She holds up a hand, asking for his silence.

“I just feel like I kept…pushing. You don’t really talk about all of this—Tony, the battle with Thanos, everything that made you want to become Spider-Man. And I realized I never really asked, either.”

She knows that she doesn’t have to take this burden on for him, but she wants him to know she’s listening, that she cares.

“I mean—Tony Stark is kind of your dad, dude! And I had no idea.”

Peter laughs, rubbing the back of his neck as if embarrassed. He also doesn’t deny it.

“It just…it made me feel like a crappy girlfriend, ‘cause I never thought about how all of that felt for you. That’s all.”

“You’re not a crappy girlfriend,” he replies, bringing her hand to his lips for a quick kiss. “Just ask Mister Stark—for all that I like talking, telling people about my problems…” He shakes his head in distaste. “I hate it. It feels like I’m just complaining.”

“Well, I personally love complaining, and would love to hear you do it more,” she says.

He lets out a breath of a laugh through his nose, but he sobers again, keeping hold of her hand and squeezing.

“The stuff with Tony…it can be hard to talk about him without mentioning everything that got us here. It’s easier to let people think what they want to.”

MJ nods, understanding. Tony has been a public figure for his entire life. It makes sense that he’s pretty insular about the people that he considers family. Anyone important can be a liability—at least, she knows that Peter also tends to see it that way.

“It’s cute that you care about my relationship with him so much, though. I didn’t realize you were so protective,” Peter teases, hopping off of the ledge and onto the porch next to her.

“Oh, shut up,” she grumbles, swaying their still-attached hands between them.

“Yeah, yeah,” he hums, smile wide across his face. He’s used to the parts of her that go hot and cold, and takes them in stride.

It feels good to have this out in the open, a previously closed door now tentatively cracked and inviting her in. It's a step closer, she thinks. A step closer to him and his world, this family he's made for himself.

A familiar look overtakes his face, and she feels a rush of warmth in her veins.

When they kiss—really kiss—it’s always tentative, a silent game of question and answer.

Peter inches closer, slow enough that she could turn away if she wanted. (She never does.)

Michelle tilts her head, reaffirming his desire. Are you sure? (He always is, his confidence always so much easier than hers.)

Together they take the final step, their movements more confident now as they’re slowly gaining practice. The slight difference of height between them often means she catches his top lip and his hands have a way of snaking around her waist, pulling them closer.

A wolf-whistle breaks them apart abruptly.

It’s Tony, walking over from what appears to be a barn not far from the lakeside, a teasing caught-the-canary smile in place.

“Well, well, look at you two,” he says, working his way up the steps with a little more pep than the day before.

“Please don’t start,” Peter begs, shrugging off the metal hand that immediately goes to ruffle his hair.

“Hey, you’re lucky it was just me. Rhodey has a real hard-on for breaking up PDA.”

“Please never say hard-on again in my presence.”

“Say it in mine,” Michelle interrupts. “I want it on camera.”

“I mean, I’m sure it already is if you look hard enough.”

Peter groans.

“I’ve never hidden my past from you, Pete. Now, Morgan—I’m hiding as much as possible from her internet searches until she’s at least sixteen.”

“I personally love the old flip-phone one of you drunkenly dancing on a bar-top to Toxic.”

“Oh, yeah! I actually remember that. Nice girl, Miss Spears.”

“I regret introducing you two,” Peter sighs, pouting.

“Love you too, kiddo,” Tony replies, opening the door ahead of them. “Now, c’mon. Happy’s going to deep-fry the turkey and you gotta watch. It’s some real Food Network shit.”

“Mommy! Daddy said your word again!” comes Morgan’s call from the living room area.

Peter shrugs to her, a smile on his face like he’s apologizing for getting her involved in all this.

She takes his hand again, giving it a squeeze before following him back into the Starks’ lake house and shutting the door.

#irondad #spiderson #spideychelle #ironfam #peter-stank #friendly-neighborhood-exchange #marvel #my writing

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reidingandwriting · 5 years ago

Text

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Word Count: ~1700 words

Ship: Pepper x Tony Stark, Peter Parker x Reader (platonic until the end), IronFam, Stark!Reader

Warnings:Nothing but fluff!

Summary: The one where you, Peter Parker, Morgan Stark team up to help give your parents the best Valentine’s Day possible- with the help of a few other members of the family.

You and Peter had a plan. For good this time, promise. Your plans typically ended with one of you, often both, in trouble. It’s not that you went out looking for trouble, but trouble was always looking for you. You and Peter had to bring brownies for a bake sale once, and you decided that you would bake them together. Peter had planned on buying some, but he said yes to your plan. How hard could it be to bake brownies? Turns out, it was very hard for you two to bake brownies. After your second failed batch literally caught on fire, and after being yelled at by your dad, you and Peter cleaned up the kitchen and bought the brownies from a local bakery.

And when your little sister Morgan got older, she turned the duo into a trio of trouble. You and Peter were very careful when it came to the youngest Stark, but with those puppy eyes, Morgan could get what she wanted from you both. And that’s why Pepper and Tony came home to a backyard full of giant spiderwebs, formed in-between trees like trampolines. Tony swore he grew dozens of gray hairs in seconds at the scene of his youngest daughter jumping on web trampolines.

However, it was the week of Valentine’s Day, and you and Peter were planning what you could do for your parents. When you came up with the perfect plan, you recruited Morgan, Rhodey, and Happy to help you with the execution.

“Alright, team.” You grinned as you looked around the room. “Time for phase one.”

Phase one consisted of you, Peter, and Happy going into your mom and dad’s calendars and taking care of business on Monday. Peter checked on some blueprints, making sure everything was accurate. You found your parents’ notes for phone calls to be made Friday, and you made the phone calls to handle business matters while Happy rearranged your parents’ calendars to finish two hours early on Friday- plenty of time to get them ready. Phase two started Tuesday.

------

“Mr. Stark!” Peter whined as he walked into the living room. Tony looked up from the television, arching a brow at the teenager.

“What’s up, kid?” Peter stood in front of Tony, groaning.

“I need your help! I have a date on Friday, and we’re supposed to go to this really nice restaurant, so I have to look like I belong there. I have a few nice things, but I want to wear a suit, and I don’t know how to make it look good. I really want to make a good impression.” Tony chuckled as he stood up, resting a hand on Peter’s shoulder.

“Come on, I’ll help you pick out something.” Tony walked with Peter to his room, and Peter tapped his fingers against your door once they passed, signaling you. You peeked your head out of the door once you heard Peter’s bedroom door open and shut and you went to the elevator, going up to your dad’s room, meeting Rhodey inside. As Tony went through Peter’s closet, talking to him about how to pull the outfit together, Peter texted you what your dad was saying, and you picked out a suit for your dad to wear. You gave the suit to Rhodey, who took it to his room, before you texted Peter. “Phase two complete. Time to get the secret weapon for phase three.”

------

“Mommy!” Morgan barreled into her mom’s room on Wednesday, jumping onto the bed. “Mommy, guess what?”

“Hmm, was there a snow fairy outside today?” Pepper teased and Morgan shook her head, giggling.

“That would be awesome. But we’re having a mom and daughter party at school on Friday, at... seven! Can we pretty, pretty, pretty please go? We can wear matching dresses.” Morgan climbed off the bed, walking to Pepper’s closet. “This red one is pretty. And I have a red one, too!”

“FRIDAY, how is my calendar for Friday night?” Your mom asked and FRIDAY responded.

“Your Friday is free after five P.M.” Pepper looked at Morgan and smiled wide.

“Looks like we’re going to your party.” Morgan cheered and ran to Pepper, hugging her mom tight.

“So, I heard you and Morgan have a party Friday.” You spoke softly, rubbing your sleeping sister’s back. You were sitting besides your mom in the living room for your weekly girls’ night. Morgan had decided to watch a movie, but she had fallen asleep halfway through. You took the time to talk to your mom, enjoying a rare moment alone. Your dad was with Happy on a business trip and wouldn’t get back until Friday night, just in time for your plan to work.

“We do.” Your mom smiled, her arm wrapped around your shoulders. “Do you have any plans for Friday?”

“MJ and I were thinking about going to that new bookstore that opened up near her house. Maybe go get some dinner, spy on Peter on his date.” Your mother grinned, playfully swatting your shoulder.

“Do not spy on him! Poor kid is nervous enough without you and MJ there.” You feigned innocence, looking at your mom.

“We wouldn’t scare him.” Your mom rolled her eyes at your grin.

“Y/N...” You raised one of your hands in defense.

“Okay, okay, I promise, no spying on Peter. We’ll get our intel in other ways.” You lowered your voice and kept a straight face, until you and your mother broke into laughter.

------

Phase four began Thursday. You, Peter, and Rhodey spent the entire day getting everything ready for tomorrow. You bought some decor for the dinner, got gifts for your family and Peter (and for Happy and Rhodey to thank them for their help), and got everything you needed to cook dinner for your parents- with Rhodey’s supervision and DUM-E standing by with a fire extinguisher.

Before you knew it, it was Friday evening. Peter and Rhodey were finishing setting up the dining room. You just finished curling Morgan’s hair and you were now putting makeup on your mom.

“Y/N, you don’t have to put my makeup on, darling.”

“I know, Mom.” You smiled, focusing as you applied her makeup. “You deserve to be pampered, too.” You finished her makeup right as Peter texted you.

‘They’re pulling up! Is Pep ready?’

‘Yep! Coming down now’

“Okay, Mom. Let’s go downstairs, we need to get pictures of you and Morgan.” You helped your mom stand up, and Morgan took her hand. You lead the way down to the living area, you and Morgan grinning.

“Hi, Pepper! You look beautiful.” Peter spoke up, Pepper not knowing Peter was here.

“Hi, Pete- Peter, what are you doing here? I thought you had a date.” Pepper’s brows furrowed, and Peter hummed.

“There may have been a change of plans.” It was Rhodey’s turn to speak. Your mom started to speak as you heard your dad walk in with Happy.

“Happy, why am I still wearing this suit? I wanted to change on the plane, but-”

“Happy Valentine’s Day!” Everyone cheered except for your parents, who both had surprised looks on their faces.

“Rhodey, Peter, what are you doing here?” Tony looked around. “What’s with.. all of this?” Pepper and Tony took in the decorations in the living room.

“We wanted to do something for you for Valentine’s Day. You haven’t had a proper date in the longest time, so we put this together for you.” You smiled.

“What about Morgan’s party at school?” Pepper asked.

“Just an excuse to get you in a dress.” You hummed.

“What about Peter’s date?” Tony asked.

“I’ve got my dates here.” Peter picked up Morgan when she walked over and smiled at you.

“What did Happy and Rhodey have to do with this?” Pepper questioned, looking at the two men.

“I made sure your dinner was edible. Peter helped me cook, it’s staying warm in the oven now. Happy kept Tony out of the house, and we all made sure your schedule was cleared for tonight.” Rhodey admitted. “I’m pretty proud of the kids, they planned all of this themselves.” Tony’s eyes met yours, eyes full of pride.

“You three did all of this for us?” You walked to your dad, giving him a hug.

“Of course, Dad. You and Mom do so much for us, we thought it was about time we do something for you in return.” Tony hugged you tighter, pulling back when Peter walked over with Morgan.

“Do you like it, Mr. Stark?” It was Peter’s turn to get hugged, which he happily returned.

“It’s perfect, kid. Thank you, all of you.” Tony pressed a kiss to Morgan’s cheek before pulling away.

“Now, I think you’ve got a lovely dinner ahead of you. Peter, Morgan, and I are going out for dinner, we’ll be back before curfew.” You walked over to Peter, taking his hand.

“And I’ll be nearby for when the trio’s acts of kindness end and they go back to causing chaos.” You all laughed at Happy’s (probably true) statement and said your goodbyes, your parents now alone in the tower.

“We really have the best kids.” Pepper smiled as she felt Tony’s arms wrap around her waist.

“We do, don’t we?” Pepper leaned into Tony’s touch, eyes closing as Tony pressed a kiss to her head.

“Happy Valentine’s Day, Pep.” Tony’s voice was soft, hand gently circling her hip.

“Happy Valentine’s Day, Tony.” Pepper turned around, pressing a gentle kiss to her husband’s lips. “Now, since we know Rhodey cooked, let’s eat dinner.” Tony laughed and followed Pepper to the kitchen.

When you, Peter, and Morgan got home, you smiled to see your parents asleep on the couch. You walked over to the couch, draped a blanket over your parents, and went to your room with Peter and Morgan. The three of you started watching a movie, you and Morgan both falling asleep shortly after it started. You slept in the middle of the bed, with Morgan tucked into your right side and Peter on your left. Peter smiled when he saw you were asleep and pressed a kiss to your forehead.

“Happy Valentine’s Day, Y/N.”

Taglist: @daughter-of-stark @agent-barnes40 💖 Taglist is open, let me know if you’d like to be added! I absolutely loved writing this, finally giving Pepper and Tony the ending they deserved. I hope you enjoyed this one-shot and feedback is always appreciated!

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ao3feed-peterparker · 11 months ago

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As if nothing happened (life goes on)

by Why_am_i_still_here By the time he makes his way to Mr. Stark, he’s half gone, like a shitty Hammer Holo-Projection from 2011. Peter tries to hold onto his leg only to be met with some kind of weird ashes. His hands move before he can even process it, running away from the Iron Man Suit like it burns him. “Pete...”, Mr. Stark is talking to him, eyes half closed and breathing loudly like he can’t catch his breath. Peter can barely hear him over the sound of his blood rushing through his veins. “Mr. Stark, wha-” “Tell them… Tell Pep and Morgan I love them, Pete. So much... I love you guys so much…” ******************************************************************************************************************************************************** Infinity war au: Tony gets dusted instead of Peter. The world moves on. Peter refuses to let go. Words: 6250, Chapters: 1/3, Language: English Fandoms: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Iron Man (Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Categories: Gen Characters: Peter Parker, Tony Stark, Morgan Stark (Marvel Cinematic Universe), James "Rhodey" Rhodes, Pepper Potts, Happy Hogan, Friday (Marvel), Other Character Tags to Be Added, Avengers Team Members (Marvel), Steve Rogers, James "Bucky" Barnes, Natasha Romanov (Marvel), Clint Barton, Nebula (Marvel), Guardians of the Galaxy Team Members (Marvel), Stephen Strange, Harley Keener, Shuri (Marvel), Thor (Marvel), Bruce Banner, Loki (Marvel), Stark Industries Employees (Marvel), Background OCs Relationships: Peter Parker & Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Morgan Stark (Marvel Cinematic Universe), Peter Parker & James "Rhodey" Rhodes, Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, James "Rhodey" Rhodes & Tony Stark, Happy Hogan & Peter Parker, Aunt May Parker & Peter Parker, Other Relationship Tags to Be Added, Harley Keener & Peter Parker, Harley Keener & Tony Stark, Harley Keener & Peter Parker & Morgan Stark (Marvel Cinematic Universe), Harley Keener & James "Rhodey" Rhodes Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Parent Tony Stark, Tony Stark Dies, Blipped | Dusted Tony Stark, Peter Parker is not Blipped | Dusted, Blipped | Dusted Pepper Potts, Blipped | Dusted Aunt May Parker (Marvel), all deaths are temporary, Sad Peter Parker, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Peter Parker is a Mess, Peter Parker Whump, James "Rhodey" Rhodes & Tony Stark Friendship, Protective James "Rhodey" Rhodes, Uncle James "Rhodey" Rhodes, BAMF Peter Parker, BAMF James "Rhodey" Rhodes, Peter Parker-centric, Peter Parker Saves The Day, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Peter Parker Feels, Genius Peter Parker, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, Angst with a Happy Ending, Sad with a Happy Ending, Morgan was born before the infinity wars, Big Brother Peter Parker, Baby Morgan Stark - Freeform, Time Travel Fix-It, Canon Divergence - Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Canon Divergence - Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Not Beta Read, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant via https://ift.tt/ZVsp2nH

#IFTTT #peter parker #spider-man #spidrrman #the avengers #ao3 #ao3feed

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ao3feed-drstrange · 11 months ago

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As if nothing happened (life goes on)

#IFTTT #stephen strange #dr strange #marvel #sorcerer supreme #the avengers #ao3 #ao3feed

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give-me-back-my-rhodey · 5 years ago

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Hungry Hungry Peter

A fic for the @friendly-neighborhood-exchange for @foxes-and-arrows

Rating: Gen

Warnings: Starvation tw

Summary: Peter loves hanging out at the Tower, but no one seems to notice he needs more food than a normal teenage boy. Peter doesn't want to say anything because he doesn't want Tony to have to worry about yet another thing. How long can he go on before someone notices?

AO3 LINK

Peter likes it when Thor resides at the Tower. First, he's Thor. Second, Peter enjoys his humor and ye-olde stories. But one of the things that he enjoys the most is the amount of food they have at meals. Steve and Bucky eat a lot, but Thor can out-eat them all.

Before the spider bite, Peter was your average teenage boy. Aunt May had used the term “wooden leg" to describe his eating habits. He could eat a whole 2ft-long hoagie plus in one sitting. Now, with his increased metabolism, he needs to eat more. May knows about this and makes sure to order enough food. But when he’s at the tower, he feels weird asking Tony to get more food. Tony does so much for the team already – he doesn’t need to make sure he orders an extra serving for someone. Harley complains all the time that everyone asks Tony for too much.

May is taking a vacation in Barbados with a friend, and Peter is spending the week at the Tower. It’s Father’s Day, and Tony suggested having a movie night. He, Peter, Harley, Morgan, Pepper, and Rhodey settle into the theater for a Disney movie binge. Peter knows Pepper is only there because Tony asked her to be present, and Rhodey is only there so he can spend time with his goddaughter. Peter doesn’t mind because he loves Disney movies. “Tonight is about fathers,” He tells them. “I asked FRIDAY to queue up some Disney movies that have good fathers.”

Finding Nemo is first, The Lion King, and then A Goofy Movie are played sequentially. Peter gets popcorn and candy for everyone. He’s hungry, and he knows Tony won’t mind if he eats a bucket of popcorn by himself, but to draw attention away from himself, Peter fills a large bucket for each of them.

“Woah! This is a lot of popcorn!” Rhodey exclaims. “I’m not gonna eat this all. Do you wanna share, Morgan?” Pepper and Tony end up sharing a bucket, which leaves Harley and Peter each to their own.

Peter eats a bucket and a half of popcorn under the guise that he didn’t want it to go to waste, but he senses Harley watching him. It’s making him uncomfortable.

Thankfully, Harley doesn’t say anything to him, but Peter doesn’t want to get on his bad side. He knows what “Team Cap” went through when they returned to the tower. Coercing FRIDAY to help, Harley rained hell down on them via a series of pranks and inconveniences until Tony had heard enough complaints and forced him to stop. Even though everyone had kissed and made up, most of the pardoned Avengers steer clear of Harley. The others watch him with begrudged admiration. Peter wishes everyone would treat him like Harley, but the older boy disagrees. “Nah, they all love you, and they would do anything for you. Not me though. Most of them hate me but are too afraid to do anything about it.”

Peter walks down to breakfast the next morning to find Thor manning the stove. He perks up, knowing a big breakfast awaits them. Thor always cooks tons of food, and half of the Avengers don’t even eat breakfast. “Peter!” Thor exclaims. “It is good to see you. I was just about to make an omelet. How many eggs would you like?”

“Hi Thor! I’ll take five or six eggs if there’s enough.” Peter walks over to stand beside Thor.

The god moves over to make more room for Peter. “You know Tony always keeps the food well-stocked. I’ll make you seven. Would you like the works as well? I have brought some of that bacon you like so much.”

Peter wraps an arm – as far as he can – around Thor’s back for a quick side hug, then goes to the table to wait for his breakfast. Two minutes later, Harley saunters in. “Morning Thor. Whatcha making today?”

“Peter Parker omelets,” Thor announces proudly. “Peter showed me how to make them last time. Here, you cook the bacon, then potatoes. You add cheese and pour the egg over top. Add more cheese when the egg is cooked, and you have an omelet. It was quite good.”

“Sounds good. Can I have one with three eggs?”

Peter is finished eating his breakfast when Tony bustles in. “Oh, hey Thor. What time did you get in?”

“Early this morning,” Thor replies. “I told you I could be quiet if necessary. Want a Peter omelet?”

Tony is making coffee and glances up. “What? Oh no, not today. I’ve got a board meeting that I am attending to appease my darling wife. Hey Pete, want to stop by in, say, three hours? I have a job for you.”

“Sure thing, Mr. Stark! I’ll be there.” Peter grins. He loves working at SI with Tony.

Harley swipes his milk glass to take a swig and smirks when Peter notices twenty seconds later. “You know you can just call him Tony.”

“I did – had been.” Peter blushes. “But then I called him ‘dad,’ and now I’ve reverted.”

Harley simply smiles and exits the kitchen.

++++++

Three hours later, Peter and Harley are working with Tony on a new type of solar panel when his stomach starts to growl. “Hungry?” Tony asks. “I can order some food. What sounds good?”

“I’m ok. Whatever you want, I can eat.”

Tony orders three combo meals of Pad Thai, and Peter still feels famished afterwards, but he keeps quiet. They finish the panel two hours later, and Pepper and Happy meet them to go home.

Thor is not around for team dinner, and as Steve and Bucky are both present, Peter doesn’t get as much food as he would like. After a Mario Kart tournament (which Bucky wins after narrowly beating Natasha on Rainbow Road), Peter reads Morgan a bedtime story and tucks her in so that Tony and Pepper have an hour to themselves. “Good night Princess Morgan. Sleep tight and don’t let the bedbugs bite.”

“I will bite them back!” She crows, giggling.

He grins. “They’ll be too afraid to come out now.” Peter loves Morgan. She’s like his little sister, and he will do everything he can to keep her safe. She clutches her stuffed spider to her chest and closes her eyes. Peter sits with her for a few minutes, and his stomach rumbles.

Morgan’s eyes pop open, and she asks, “Hungwy?”

“Just a little. I’ll be ok.” He pats her hand. “You need to go to sleep.”

“If you’re hungwy, we can get juice pops,” Tony’s daughter bargains.

Peter smirks. This little child is the daughter of Tony Stark and Pepper Potts – of course she will try to cut a deal. She’s going to be unstoppable when she takes over. “Now, missy. I am not your dad. You may have me wrapped around your finger, but I don’t want to face your mom’s wrath when she finds you still awake with a sugar high. If Uncle Rhodey is afraid of that, then you can bet your boots that Peter is, too.”

Morgan seems to consider that for a moment, and she nods. “Ok, I sleep, but juice pops tomorrow.”

“Juice pops tomorrow sounds good. Pinkie promise.” The pinkie promise seems to satisfy the five-year-old, and she promptly closes her eyes. Peter turns out her light and turns on the fake arc reactor nightlight.

He is almost out the door when he hears her whisper, “I love you one thousand-two hundred-and twenty-six.”

“I love you one thousand-two hundred-and twenty-six, too.” He whispers back and closes the door behind him.

Peter heads out on patrol for an hour or so. Usually, this is the time he picks up some extra food, but he has no cash. He catches a few car thieves and saves a man from getting hit by a speeding car. Exhausted, he stops on a roof to catch his breath.

Tony finds him there ten minutes later. “Hey kid, you ok?”

“Yea, yea… I’m… fine. Just enjoying the view from here,” Peter gestures to the New York skyline.

“It is beautiful,” Tony’s modulated voice agrees. “Want a ride home?”

“That would be great. Thank you, Mr.… I mean, Tony.”

Iron Man picks up Spiderman and flies him to the roof of Stark Tower. They sit there watching the city lights. “Hey, I want to say thank you for putting Morgs to bed. Pep and I haven’t had a whole lot of alone time recently.”

“Hey, it’s no problem. I love her.”

“And she loves you, too. She always asks when you’ll be coming to stay for a while. I keep trying to get May to move in, but she wants you to have a safe place elsewhere as well. I commend her for that. How have you been? We haven’t had a talk in a while.”

“I – I’ve been good. School’s been fine. I’m happy. How are you?”

“So-so. I’ve been sleeping better. Morgan has been a blessing, as have you and Harley. By the way, Pete, when you called me ‘Dad,’ I reacted the way I did because I wasn’t expecting it. I want you to know that you are like a son to me, and if you want to call me dad, I am perfectly fine with it.” Tony places a gauntleted hand on Peter’s shoulder.

“Thanks. I – I’ll keep that in mind.” Peter acknowledges. “So… never mind.”

“You sure? Nothing I can help you with?” Tony asks.

Peter shakes his head. “Nah, it’s… nothing.”

“Ok, I’m going to head in. You should probably come in soon as well.” Tony stands. “Good night kid.”

++++++

The week goes by, and Peter just can’t seem to eat enough. No matter how much he eats, he has to make sure his stomach doesn’t growl at inopportune moments. And he hates how he gets so tired after a night on patrol.

Friday morning finds him waking up the sound of the Avengers alarm. The threat is low-risk – large robot geese roaming the city streets and attacking civilians. Peter joins the fight, but due to his lack of energy, tires quickly. He crouches down behind an overturned car, trying to catch his breath, when a large goose starts beating his head with a metal wing. He quickly passes out… and wakes in a bed in the hospital wing.

Harley is sitting on the chair, watching him. He’s always watching. In his head, Peter asks, “What do you want?” but it comes out as “Wha wan?”

“You know, now is probably not the best time to lecture you, but you know what? You’re stuck here for the moment so I’m going to,” Harley leans forward in his seat. “Why aren’t you eating enough? Are you starving yourself?”

Peter’s eyes widen. Is that why Harles’ has been watching me so closely? “NO!”

“That doesn’t seem suspicious at all,” The older boy scoffs. “I’m sorry. I should be showing more tact. What’s going on, Peter?”

“Can’ talk. Paper.” Peter manages out. His head is pounding, and he just feels weak.

Harley swipes a holo-keyboard over to him, but says, “If you’re too tired, we can talk later. I just am concerned for you.”

Not starving self. Just need more food, but don’t want to burden T. He’s got enuf on his plate. Peter types.

“Peter,” Harley’s voice grows soft. “When I said those things, I meant the team getting on his case about upgrading armor and weapons. They ask for the tiniest upgrades that take hours to complete when their stuff is better than what they would have been getting from SHIELD. Tony has a wife and kids now, and he doesn’t need to spend time in his lab for things that don’t need to be done. Now, you, you need food to survive. You need way more food than Tony or I do because you have the increased metabolism. All Tony needs to do with that is order another serving of food. Three extra words to an order. It takes a maximum of 2 minutes. And you’re basically his son. There’s nothing he wouldn’t do for you. The only reason he’s not here right now is because Morgan has an ear infection.”

Harley gets interrupted by a knock on the door. Tony sticks his head in. “Hey, can I come in?”

“Yea. Are you staying?” Harley moves to get up.

“Stay there. I can pull up another chair,” Tony waves his hand at Harley. “Morgan’s finally sleeping, and the pain seems to be gone. Rhodey’s sitting in with her so I could come see you. How are you feeling, Peter?”

So-so. He types out.

“Sorry I couldn’t be here sooner. Morgs had an ear infection, and Pepper’s in Japan. Harles offered to stay here with you so I could be with Morgan,” Tony explains, and Peter nods. “By the way kid, I’m also sorry that I didn’t notice you hadn’t been getting enough to eat. You’d think with a tower full of geniuses and super spies that someone would notice, but we didn’t. We’re going to order a lot more food from here out, and never be afraid to ask for more. They don’t call me a billionaire for nothing.” Tony pats the bed by Peter’s arm. “I love you, kid. I’d do anything for you.”

A tear slips down Peter’s cheek. “I love you, too, Dad.”

#irondad and spiderson #the friendly neighborhood exchange

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