Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Peter was pretty sure he was drowning.

He had to be, right? He couldn’t breathe, everything was thick and cold, and he was suffocating. He had to be drowning.

(He’d almost drowned before. This wasn’t it.)

(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)

(But it was easy to think of it that way.)

He felt like the laughing stock of the universe. Like his whole life was just entertainment for it, just a game, something to play around with and throw away when it got bored. There was no other explanation for why nothing ever went right for him.

(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)

He wasn’t able to get into May’s funeral when it happened. There were too many people that she had helped, and he wasn’t anyone special—not anymore.

(He wasn’t anyone, anymore.)

There was no spot left behind for him at the front. There was no place for him to give a speech, to talk about all she had done for him. There was no time set aside for May Parker’s nephew, the boy she had raised for the majority of his life, the boy who she had always given her all for.

(The boy who had gotten her killed.)

He’d sat outside of the funeral, of course, listening in with his enhanced hearing, but that didn’t matter. Not much.

(Just a boy hiding in a bush, muffling his sobs in his hand, unable to breathe, with no one around to remember that someone might need to be comforted.)

(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)

He saw Happy, sometimes. Peter tried to visit May’s grave every day, at first. He didn’t have anyone else, so he sat down in front of her name, carved into the stone, and talked to her for as long as he dared. His Spider-Sense—he couldn’t call it his Peter-Tingle anymore, not when it hurt too much to think about where the name came from in the first place—would flare at him when someone was approaching. It was almost always Happy. It was odd knowing that, once upon a time, Happy would never have set off the Sense. Now, though, Happy didn’t know Peter. Now, Happy could be a threat.

The Sense knew that, and it warned him in kind.

(Peter tried to ignore how much that hurt.)

Happy would talk to him, sometimes, or they’d sit in silence, both standing there, staring at May’s grave. Peter always spent too much money on the flowers that he left there.

(It was okay if he skipped meals, though. Those flowers were for May.)

One day, Happy asked him why he came there so often.

“It’s just that I’ve never seen you around with her before,” he said, and Peter’s heart pounded so loudly that he wondered if Happy could hear it. “And I don’t think she ever mentioned a Peter.”

Peter swallowed and let out a forced laugh. “She helped a lot of people. I guess I just credit a lot of the things in my life that went right to her, you know? I feel like I need to thank her for that, somehow.”

(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)

Happy nodded. Peter walked away, and never visited May’s grave again.

(If he stays away, then no one can get hurt.)

He didn’t visit the shop that MJ worked at often, either. He couldn’t. He was fine just being that one weird customer that came in, sometimes. 

(He must not have been weird enough to remember, though. She forgot his name until he told her again on his fourth visit, a month-and-a-half after everything fell apart.)

“Here you are, Peter Parker,” MJ said, and the tease in her voice wasn’t the one he was used to. It was distant, guarded. She didn’t know him. 

(He knew her.)

“Thanks,” he said, and he left the shop without looking at Ned in the corner. 

(If he did, he would start crying, and he wouldn’t be able to stop.)

Peter walked down the street with the cup of coffee, and he threw it out once it grew cold in his hands. 

(He never took a sip.)

His eyes trailed it as he dropped it into the garbage. It disappeared into the shadows. He wouldn’t be able to find it again.

(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)

It was surprisingly hard getting an apartment when you weren’t legally a person. He didn’t have a birth certificate, or a social security number. He didn’t have school records, or a scholarship, or a way to enroll anywhere. He didn’t have an ID. He didn’t exist anymore.

(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)

(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)

(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)

The apartment he did get was shitty, to put it nicely. He focused on rent first, food second. Or rather he tried to, but it was hard when less food meant that his enhanced metabolism got angry and started affecting his work as Spider-Man. 

He went out as Spider-Man. Christmas came and went and Peter was alone for it all. The ball dropped for the New Year, and for the first time in years, Peter didn’t have anyone there to hold him, to rub his back while he cried because the screams of people in the streets were so loud that they almost made his ears bleed.

The new suit was made of thin cloth. Was it spandex? He was pretty sure it was, but he didn’t really know fabrics. It was rather uncomfortable, provided little more protection than his first suit, but he couldn’t use the other suit. The nanobots didn’t recognize him anymore. Karen didn’t know who he was.

(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)

(He would never get in the original Stark suit again, anyway. The stains on it still smelled like blood.)

Eating less in order to try and pay rent became a thing he had to learn to contend with. Adrenaline was often able to push him through saving someone. 

Adrenaline didn’t help his failing healing factor. His enhanced metabolism was able to fuel his healing factor, but when he was nearly starving, the healing decided to kick the bucket in order to try and keep the rest of his body still functioning. 

(At least his asthma didn’t come back. He didn’t have an inhaler—nor could he afford one. Nor could he get one if he could afford one. He wasn’t a person, after all.)

(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)

Sitting alone in a dingy apartment, pressing his hand against a cut on his side to try and stifle the bleeding while his other hand fumbled with the bandages, Peter wished that his healing just came back, made this cut stop hurting, and let the rest of his body die on its own.

It didn’t, though. There was no Ned or MJ to pull him into a side-hug and try to give him stitches with shaky hands. There was no Aunt May to wipe away at his tears, patch his cuts, and kiss his bruises while lecturing him on being more careful.

There was no Mr. Stark to freak out when he found out Peter had a stab wound, to rush him to the medbay and then invite him to the lab to work on even more upgrades to his suit to try and ensure that nothing like that happened again.

There was no one to wipe the tears from his cheek, no one to hold his shoulder as he muffled the cries of pain that came from the rubbing alcohol being poured over the wound, no one to tell him that he would be okay, to worry and reassure all in one breath.

There was no one to hold him close and keep him safe, to pick him up when he fell, to whisper to him “you’re my kid, and nothing is allowed to hurt my kid.”

There was no one to help Peter but himself.

That had never worked out well.

(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)

Two-and-a-half months after everything fell apart, two months after first entering the apartment, he was evicted for not paying the rent. The landlord made it clear that he wouldn’t be welcomed back. Peter had two days to gather all of his things and leave.

He brought everything he owned to the rooftop of a rundown building. He knew for a fact that the top two floors of the building weren’t used. They’d been burned in a fire years ago, but the rest of the building had been fine, so no one ever bothered to get them fixed up.

It worked out for Peter, now. 

(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)

The apartment looked even more bare than when he’d first come there. Maybe that was the oppressive air that clouded his mind and muddled his thoughts. He wasn’t sure.

Peter was doing a final check before bringing the last box to his new home when he ended up in the bathroom. He checked around and grabbed a tube of toothpaste he’d left behind. He tossed it into the box sitting in the doorway behind him and turned back. His eyes landed on himself in the mirror, and he paused for a moment.

His hair was matted because he tried not to shower too much—water bills were so expensive. His cheeks were slightly sunken in—food was so expensive. His clothes were torn and patched by his own hand—new clothes were so expensive. Cuts and bruises dotted his body—medical supplies were so expensive. His eyes were dull and lifeless—happiness was so expensive.

(Maybe it was only expensive, though, when no one knew who you were.)

(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)

Tears stung at his eyes in the same way that cuts stung all over his body. They pricked at his eyes, and his gaze fell to the watch on his hand. Karen had shut herself down once realizing that she didn’t recognize him, and Peter had broken the tracker out of the watch as soon as he could so that no one would come for him for owning tech stolen from the Late, Great Tony Stark: Savior of the Universe.

The watch was the last thing that he owned from that part of his life—at least the last thing that mattered. It was one of the gifts that Mr. Stark had given to him. He took as much care of it as possible, and he never took it off. 

He looked up at himself in the mirror and pulled the wrist with the watch up to his chest. His fist was clenched, and he thought that if he focused on the watch, then he could maybe pretend that he was looking at the old version of himself.

(The unbroken, unbounded, unabashed version of him.)

(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)

Abruptly, he realized that the watch face was cracked.

Something within his chest bubbled up, hot and angry and painful, and a sob ripped from his throat as his fist flew forward before he could even think. It slammed into the mirror, and the mirror shattered. It probably would have even without his strength.

Peter stood there for a moment, frozen in time. The sound of breaking glass echoed in his ears, bounced around the room. The shards fell to the ground in slow motion. His hand was hovering in the air in front of him. Pieces of the mirror still hung to the frame, and he could see the tears pouring down his reflection’s face.

His face.

(The beaten, battered, broken version of him.)

(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)

(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)

(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)

Bright red caught his eye in the dimmed light. 

His hand was bleeding. There were fragments of glass lodged in his skin. 

His hand hurt when he moved it. The blood trickled down his arm, curling around it before falling to the floor in a steady drip-drip-drip.

Peter’s breaths were more like gasps. A moment passed, and then he sobbed.

The fingertips had the most nerves on the skin throughout the body, and he had never felt that more than he did at that moment. Pain shot up through his body, and it was hard enough to pull nearly-imperceptible bits of glass from his hand without his eyes being blurred by tears.

(One time, Peter got a handful of glass bits lodged in his flesh because of an unfortunate interaction with a window while chasing a criminal. Mr. Stark had been there within ten minutes, and he’d been in the medbay soon after that, painkillers coursing through his body and numbing the feeling as a doctor pulled the glass from his skin in one hand and Tony held his other, grounding him, letting him know that he wasn’t alone.)

(Now, Mr. Stark was dead.)

(And Peter was alone.)

(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)

The bandages that he kept in his bag were wrapped sloppily around his sluggishly-bleeding hand, and Peter slumped against the wall for a moment to catch his breath in the empty apartment. He took a deep breath, grabbed the last box, and headed downstairs. He gave the key to the man at the front desk.

“Sorry about the mirror,” Peter said. The man furrowed his eyebrows and opened his mouth to respond, but Peter was already gone.

(It wasn’t like the man could make him pay for the damages.)

(Peter Parker didn’t exist, afterall.)

(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)

(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)

(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)

Mrs. Stark was a loss that Peter hadn’t expected to feel as profoundly as he did. Out of anyone, it felt like she was one of the only people who truly understood what it felt like to lose Mr. Stark.

(That was dumb of him, he told himself. Pepper had lost her husband. Morgan had lost her father. Peter had just lost a mentor.)

Still, Pepper would ask him to visit the lake house at least once a month, and he did, even throughout the craziness of the world discovering who he was. In fact, it was almost like a haven. Spending a weekend away from everything, pretending to almost be normal, was nice.

He didn’t have that anymore.

The security system wouldn’t recognize him if he approached. Mrs. Stark would point a repulsor at him and demand to know who he was, why he was there. Morgan would look at him, and she wouldn’t see him, she would see a stranger, the kind of person she had been told time and time again to stay away from.

His things in the cabin would be gone. He didn’t know what would’ve happened to them, but they wouldn’t be there, that was for sure. He had seen MJ’s lock screen while in the coffee shop, once. It was a picture he recognized, one of him and her and Ned. Now, though, it was just MJ and Ned. Peter was nowhere to be seen. 

(Doctor Strange’s spell was nothing if not thorough.)

(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)

There were no more pictures of Peter anywhere. They were gone off of his phone, too, but at least anyone who wasn’t him remained in them. That was a solace. He could still take his phone out, look at his friends, his family.

People who were dead. People who didn’t know him. People who were gone.

(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)

(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)

(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)

Spider-Man didn’t use his right hand as much as his left hand for a week while he let the cuts heal.
Peter had never hated that radioactive spider more than he did now. If he didn’t have these powers, then it wouldn’t be his responsibility to help people. Ned and MJ wouldn’t have gotten hurt. May wouldn’t have gotten killed. 

He wouldn’t be dealing with feeling like he’s starving even after he eats because his metabolism is so fast. He wouldn’t be dealing with the bloodied hand. He wouldn’t be sleeping in a burned-out floor of an apartment building, shivering in the threadbare coat he owns because it’s winter and spiders can’t thermo-regulate.

If Peter had never gotten bit by that spider, he would never have had to tell Doctor Strange to erase him from existence. None of this would have happened.

Now, he had nothing.

(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)

There was no one who loved him.

(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)

There was no one who knew him.

(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)

There was no one who remembered him.

(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)

He was Peter Benjamin Parker, and he existed.

It seemed that was all he would ever do.

It was early morning when Peter was patrolling and abruptly had the world fall out from under him.

He let out a hiss when he fell onto the laminated floor that had appeared beneath him.

His bruised body let out screams of pain in protest, and Peter bit his tongue as he pushed himself up and reoriented himself.

“Hello there, Spider-Man.”

(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)

Peter’s head shot up, and he felt something in his chest run cold. Doctor Strange was there, staring down at him with a raised eyebrow.

Peter scrambled to his feet and cleared his throat. “Uh, hey, Mister Doctor Strange, sir.” He couldn’t call him Stephen. After everything, Peter couldn’t even think of him like that. “You need help with something?”

Doctor Strange huffed, half-amused and half-exasperated. “Always trying to help, aren’t you?” It sounded like he was talking more to himself than to Peter.

Peter puffed out his chest a bit. He wasn’t useful for anything but Spider-Man anymore. If Doctor Strange was coming to him, there had to be something wrong with the world. Saving the world? That was something Peter could do.

That was all that he could do, anymore.

(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)

“Sir?” He prompted. Doctor Strange blinked, snapping from his thoughts and focusing on Peter.

“Do you know why the multiverse almost collapsed back in November?” Doctor Strange asked.

Peter swallowed, his throat aching a bit. “What d’you mean?”

“You were there, you helped for a bit. Do you know why it happened?” Doctor Strange’s frown deepened. “No matter what I do, I can’t seem to remember. I was hoping you did.”

A moment of hesitation. Peter nodded.

“That’s what I thought.” A blink, and they were somewhere else. Peter recognized it as the room where the first memory spell had been performed.

(Almost performed.)

(Before he broke it. Ruined it.)

(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)

“This is where it all began,” Doctor Strange said. “I attempted to perform a spell here, and something went wrong, breaking the multiverse open and allowing it to seep into our world.” Doctor Strange looked up at him. “The residue of a separate, stronger version of that spell can be found all over the universe. I remember performing that spell, though I do not know what it was for.” He paused. “The only one who has not been affected by that spell is you. There is clearly a reason why it was performed, but I cannot remember.”

Peter let out a shaky breath. “You want me to tell you why.”

“I need you to tell me why,” Doctor Strange corrected.

“Why?” Peter asked, and his heart was pounding in his chest. “Can you undo it?”

Doctor Strange shook his head slowly. “No. That spell is currently the only thing keeping the multiverse from collapsing in on itself. No, I need to know because I need to do more.”

Peter almost choked. “More?” Doctor Strange nodded.

(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)

His vision tunneled. That roaring that was always in his mind increased, flooding his thoughts. His hand, still stained with blood because the cuts kept reopening before they fully healed, stung with pain. His stomach ached from being empty. The fabric of his homemade suit was itchy against his skin. His heart hurt from everything weighing down on him, from the endless loss and loss and loss.

(He missed Ned.) 

(He missed MJ.)

(He missed Happy.)

(He missed Aunt May.)

(He missed Mr. Stark.)

(He missed having people who remembered him.)

(He missed having people who cared about him.)

(He missed having people who loved him.)

(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)

“Why?” Peter breathed. Through the sounds of himself drowning, he was sure he could hear Doctor Strange ask what he meant. Peter didn’t care. He looked upward, toward the sky shining through the window at the top of the Sanctum. “Why? Wasn’t this enough? What more do you want?”

A hand landed on his shoulder, and Peter jerked away, so unused to touch from anyone but himself unless it was touch that would cause harm.

Doctor Strange frowned. “Spider-Man. What happened?”

Peter swallowed. He was Spider-Man, and Spider-Man helped people. He had to help. If Doctor Strange knowing about how badly Peter had failed meant that the world would continue to be safe, then so be it.

“I messed up,” Peter said. “Back at the beginning of November. Well, actually, I messed up back over the summer, but the main thing was in November. I asked you to help me fix it, and you were going to use a spell, but I messed that up, too. That’s when all those bad guys started coming into our world from other worlds. It was because, in other worlds, they knew me.” His throat ached. Doctor Strange stayed silent.

(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)

“We got all of them here, but we found out they would die when we sent them back. You and I fought because I wanted to help them, and I locked you in that mirror place.” Peter’s hand throbbed. “I went to help them, and I almost did, but something went wrong.” He took a breath in, his eyes stinging. “They killed my aunt, and probably a lot of other people. I got some help from two other Spider-Men who came from other universes, and we worked together to help all of the bad guys. You escaped from the mirror place and went to finish the spell, but a bomb got in the spell box and the spell broke out and opened the multiverse again.”

Peter wet his lips, though Doctor Strange couldn’t see it behind the mask. “I, uh, I almost killed the last bad guy, but another me stopped me. We cured the bad guy, and then you said that you couldn’t fix the spell anymore, because people from the other multiverses were starting to come into our world.” Peter’s breathing was shaky, and he was trying to ignore the way his voice cracked. “I—I told you to cast a new spell, instead. It wouldn’t erase the memory of who Spider-Man’s identity was, cause that's what I wanted you to fix in the first place, but instead it would erase me.”

(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)

“What—What do you mean by that?” Doctor Strange asked.

“You, uh… You didn’t want to, but I had you basically erase me from existence. No one would remember me, I wouldn’t really… be a person , but, uh… the multiverse stopped collapsing, so it worked? Except you’re here now, so I guess it didn’t, and I guess I’m just… mad about that.”

(Not even mad. Just tired.)

(So, so tired.)

“Erased you from existence,” Doctor Strange mumbled. “Documents? Photos?”

Peter shook his head. “Erased out of all of them. I don’t have a birth certificate. Or a social security number. Or school records.” He laughed, but it was weak. “It’s really hard to live when you don’t legally exist, believe it or not.”

“Gods,” Doctor Strange breathed. “I’m… sorry about that, Spider-Man. And I’m sorry about this. I’m sorry that that wasn’t a one-and-done kind of thing.”

Peter shrugged. His heart was heavy. His hand was stinging. “It’s… It’s fine. That’s what I do, right? Help people? That’s what my thing is. Everyone I loved always got hurt, anyway. No one… No one is missing me.”

(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)

Doctor Strange was silent. Peter awkwardly said, “So, what did you need help with? Was it just story-time?”

Doctor Strange shook his head. “No, no. There is more.” He paused. “As I said before, the multiverse is collapsing once more. That spell helped, but it seems what is truly causing the collapse is, well…”

His heart sank. It wasn’t really in sorrow, though, but more acceptance. He should’ve known that nothing would ever be easy.

(Fucking Parker Luck.)

“Me,” Peter said, finishing Doctor Strange’s statement for him.

(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)

(For now.)

Doctor Strange nodded. “Indeed.”

“Okay,” Peter shrugged. “So, kill me. That’ll fix it, right? If I’m not here anymore?”

“It’s not that simple,” Doctor Strange said. “The collapse is being caused by multiversal entities being drawn to your presence in this universe. Your presence is still there, even after you die. You remember how everyone came back from Thanos’s Snap, do you not?” Peter hummed in confirmation. “Their souls remain, as all souls do, in one capacity or another. The only thing that is powerful enough to release a soul is them being destroyed by the direct power of one of the Infinity Stones of any individual universe. And, well, we don’t really have access to those anymore.”

“So, even if I died, my soul being in our universe would still draw the other bad guys here?” 

Doctor Strange nodded.

“Oh.”

(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)

Peter squeezed his hands and did his best through the gloves of the suit to dig his nails into his palms, ignoring the pain that shot up his right arm as he did. “So, what do we do?” Blood was soaking through the glove’s fabric. He ignored it.

“The best solution is to send you to another universe,” Doctor Strange said. It was casual, as if he wasn’t saying that Peter needed to be removed from everything he’d ever known.

“What?”

Doctor Strange’s frown shifted a bit, turning sadder. There was a glimmer of pity in his eye. Peter hated it.

(This was his fault, wasn’t it? He didn’t deserve pity.)

“How long?” Peter asked.

“It would be permanent,” Doctor Strange replied. “Additionally, it would need to be one that does not have your presence already there.”

“What does that mean?”

“There cannot be a version of you already present,” Doctor Strange said. “Living or dead, if there is already a version of your soul in whatever universe you are sent to, then further collapse could occur.”

There was blood rushing in his ears. His heart was going to beat right out of his chest. His hand, previously stinging, was numb.

Peter didn’t have much of a response. How could he? How was he meant to react when he just learned that he was the reason that the entire multiverse was in danger of falling apart once more? 

(It was always Peter’s fault in the end. He messed up everything he touched. He hurt everyone. The only time the people he cared about weren’t hurt by him was when Mr. Stark was still around to help him protect them.)

(But Mr. Stark wasn’t around anymore.)

(And the people he cared about were hurt. Or gone.)

(Because of Peter.)

(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)

(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)

(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)

“Spider-Man?”

Peter was crying, the tears soaking the inside of the mask, but he ignored it. “Yeah?”

“I understand that this is a lot to handle. Are you willing to help?”

Peter forced down a sob. He nodded. “Of course.”

Doctor Strange’s relief was clear on his face. It became abruptly obvious how tense he had been. “ Thank you .” He brushed down the front of his tunic. “All right. I am going to need your full name. It will make it easier for me to find a universe without you in it.” He looked at Peter. “I am going to try to find the closest universe to our own without your presence within it.”

“Will it be safe?”

“As safe as I can ensure,” Doctor Strange said. “You’ve given up a lot to save the multiverse, and are now giving up even more. If anything, you deserve somewhere safe, Spider-Man.”

(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)

Peter’s hand hurt even more now. A drop of blood had seeped through the seams in the spandex and dripped onto the floor. 

Doctor Strange’s gaze flicked to it. “What is that?”

“Just a bit of blood,” Peter said. “I, uh, I accidentally ran into a mirror. Got a hand stuffed full of glass.”

“And you’re still bleeding from cuts like that? I thought your healing factor was incredible.”

Peter shifted, thoughts of his empty stomach in the forefront of his mind as he said, “My, uh, my healing calmed down when I started eating less. I think it’s trying to make sure my metabolism doesn’t have to power it and can focus on the rest of my body instead.”

Doctor Strange frowned again. He seemed to do that a lot.

“What—” Peter hesitated. “What’s gonna happen to New York without me here?”

Doctor Strange gave a vague roll of his shoulders. “I don’t know. Continue as it always did, I suppose.”

(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)

“I just— I help so many people,” Peter said. “I can’t— People will get hurt if I’m not here. If I leave, and people get hurt, then them getting hurt is my fault.”

“Spider-Man,” Doctor Strange said—it was the same tone that he once used to say Peter. “I don’t think you fully understand what I am saying here.” He paused. “If you continue to stay in this universe, the entire multiverse will collapse. It will be worse than the Chitauri, worse than Ultron, worse than Thanos. It will be worse than anything any world has ever seen before. It won’t matter if you’re stopping crime in this city, because the city won’t be standing for much longer.”

Peter’s head hurt. His heart hurt. His hand hurt. Everything hurt. “All of that because of me?”

Doctor Strange nodded, and offered no comfort. 

(He didn’t know Spider-Man. He didn’t need to offer comfort.)

(He’d known Peter, once.)

(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)

“The best thing you can do to protect this city is to leave,” Doctor Strange said.

It felt less real every time he said it.

“When do I— When is this happening?”

“As soon as I find a suitable universe,” Doctor Strange said. He paused. “You probably have a few days. There are a lot of universes to sort through.”

Peter nodded, and it felt like he was underwater.

(He was drowning.)

“My name is Peter Parker. Peter Benjamin Parker.”

(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)

Doctor Strange nodded. “All right, Peter Parker. I’m going to get to work.”

Peter nodded.

“I’ll bring you back here when it’s time,” Doctor Strange said. A portal appeared, swept over Peter, and the Sanctum was gone. He was back on the roof he had been on before he’d been taken just a little bit ago.

Now, he looked out on his city and realized it was one of the last days he would ever see it.

(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)

I’m going to try and find the closest universe to our own.

Did that mean that there would still be New York? Probably. That was consistent with Peter-Two and Peter-Three and their worlds had been very different from his own, from the sound of it.

Still, it wouldn’t be his New York. It could be the exact same, and it wouldn’t be his New York. It would be wrong in some way. The sun wouldn’t hit the streets the same way. The sandwiches at Delmar’s would be slightly different. The shade of blue for Midtown would be a bit off. 

(No one would know who Peter Parker was.)

(That would stay the same.)

(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)

A scream pierced his ears from down the street.

Peter took a breath, stuck out his left arm, and shot a web to the building across the road, ignoring the occasional drop of blood that leaked from the suit’s seam and splattered on the pavement below.

Chapter Text

Peter hissed as he disinfected the newest cut he’d gotten. He was good with conserving the rubbing alcohol he did have, because he couldn’t afford to get it often, but he also needed to make sure his cuts didn’t get infected. Still, keeping his hand from trembling and tilting too much of the alcohol out was a surprisingly difficult task.

(He used to have people who did this. People who would help him. People who would worry whenever he got hurt.)

(Now, he just had him.)

His ears were ringing, and his whole body tingled with pain, so he wasn’t really paying attention as his Spider-Sense blared in the back of his mind.

“Spider-Man?”

( I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist. )

Peter startled, nearly dropping the rubbing alcohol. If not for his powers sticking his fingers to it, he probably would have.

“Oh, hey, Mister Doctor Strange, sir,” Peter said, hoping the other didn’t notice the strain in his voice. From Doctor Strange’s slightly-furrowed brow, he did. “What’s up?”

“I’ve found it.”

(It had only been five days.)

Peter froze. He tucked the small flask of alcohol into one of the pockets he’d barely managed to sew into the beltline of the new suit. His heartbeat had to be audible by how hard it was pounding in his chest. The stinging across his body was dulled, vanished, numbed by his racing thoughts.

(Thoughts he couldn’t quantify, thoughts he couldn’t understand.)

“Oh,” Peter said. 

(He couldn’t say anything else.)

“It’s time to go,” Doctor Strange said. “We have wasted enough time as it is, waiting months for this.”

Peter let out a shaky breath. “Can I… Can I go a few places first?”

Doctor Strange paused. “I can take you there, if you tell me where they are. We can’t wait for you to swing there.”

Peter’s throat bobbed. He nodded. “Okay. Uh, I need to go to this cafe, first.” He listed off the intersection, and Doctor Strange opened a portal to it. The two of them stepped through it, and Peter walked into the coffee shop. MJ had a shift. Ned was studying in the corner.

( I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist. )

“Holy shit, Spider-Man?! Doctor Strange?! What are two Avengers doing here?!” Ned exclaimed, his eyes shining. He hopped up, his textbook discarded.

“Not an Avenger,” Doctor Strange said. Peter stayed silent.

“Did you need our help again, Spider-Man?” MJ asked from behind the counter. “Cause you might need to wait until after my shift is over.”

Doctor Strange raised an eyebrow at Peter. “You’ve gotten the help of two high-schoolers before?”

( I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist. )

Peter ignored him. “Can I, uh… Can I just get a coffee? Please?”

MJ eyed him for a moment before shrugging. “Sure. Don’t expect a superhero discount, though.”

Peter’s laugh must not have sounded very happy, because MJ looked a bit startled by it.

“Why are you two here?” Ned asked. “Just for coffee?”

“Spider-Man wanted a drink, I suppose,” Doctor Strange said.

“I, uh…” Peter’s heartbeat was angry in his chest. “I also wanted to thank you guys.” MJ came back with the coffee, placed it in front of him, and waited for him to finish before she rang him up. Peter grabbed the coffee cup, raised it, and pulled his mask up a bit to take a drink. 

“Thank us?” MJ asked. “You’ve never come to us randomly to thank us before. What’s changed?”

“Uh, the universe is falling apart,” Peter said with a breathy laugh. No one else seemed amused. He lowered the mask back over his mouth. “I, uh… Doctor Strange needs me to leave, cause the problem came from some shitty decisions I made, but I just… I wanted you to know not to, uh, wait up for me? Don’t worry about me being gone, I guess.”

(He felt bad for never telling them.)

(He couldn’t tell them now. They wouldn’t care if Peter Parker never came back to the shop unless he told them now. If he told them now, they would always dwell on it, always wonder if they could have helped him, even if there was nothing they could’ve done. They didn’t deserve that.)

(Peter Parker didn’t matter to them.) 

(They just mattered to Peter Parker.)

( I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist. )

“What?!” Ned cried. MJ’s eyes were wide. “You… You can’t just leave! ”

“The multiverse will collapse if he does not,” Doctor Strange interjected. “I have looked into it. There is no other way.” His gaze flicked from Ned to MJ and back. “He will be sent somewhere safe. He will be fine, and it will protect the multiverse as a whole. This is the best solution.”

Peter added, “I’m fine with it. Don’t worry about me.”

(He was not fine with it. This wasn’t home , but it was still home. How was he supposed to just leave it all behind? )

“Coffee’s on me, today, Spidey,” MJ said, her voice distant.
(Was that her or him?)

“Thanks,” Peter said. “I’ll pay you back sometimes.”

Her laugh was weak. “I’m gonna hold you to that.”

Peter nodded. 

(That was all he could do.)

( I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist. )

He turned to Doctor Strange. “Next place?”

Doctor Strange nodded. Peter listed another street corner, and a portal to it appeared. Peter gave a salute to his friends, hoped they could see his smile through the mask, and stepped through. He watched as it closed behind him.

(He would never see Ned or MJ again.)

(The note was still in his coat pocket, back in his little spot in the burned-out apartment building.)

(It was never going to be read, now. Not by who it was meant to be.)

( I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist. )

Happy was at May’s grave as they approached.

“Would you like me to stay behind?”

Peter glanced back at Doctor Strange, and then at Happy, who hadn’t yet noticed them. He nodded. 

Doctor Strange didn’t follow him. 

“Spider-Man?” Happy asked when Peter was standing at his side. “What are you doing here?”

Peter’s throat bobbed a bit. “Saying goodbye.”

Happy hummed. “Not gonna visit after this? Not that I’ve seen you here before, but…” He sighed. “I wish I was able to say goodbye.”

There were flowers on May’s grave.

“Did you leave those?”

Happy nodded. “There used to be this… this kid who would come and put them down, but he stopped one day. I don’t know why. I’ve been doing it since then. I don’t… I don’t want May to be disappointed if they’re not there.”

(She wouldn’t be. Never.)

“You helped her with F.E.A.S.T., right?” Happy asked after a moment. “I remember some press about that at the beginning of the summer.”

Peter nodded.

“You met her through that, then?”

Peter paused.

(This was Happy .)

There was no one else in the graveyard except for Doctor Strange, a few dozen yards away and looking in the other direction.

Peter reached up and pulled his mask off.

Happy jolted from the unexpected reveal. “You’re… You’re the flower kid?”

Peter nodded. His mouth was dry. “My name’s Peter Parker.”

( I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist. )

“ Parker? ” 

May’s last name, carved into the stone, sitting here on the family plot, stared back at them.

“I was… I’m Richard and Mary’s son.” He gestured to the headstones a little ways away. “May was my aunt. She… After my parents died, she and Uncle Ben raised me.”

Happy was silent for a moment. “She never mentioned a nephew.”

Peter’s voice was almost inaudible. “I know.”

They stood there in silence for a while longer. Finally, Peter said, “I can’t visit her anymore after today. Could you… Could you try and plant some flowers here? So that she always has them, even when no one can put them down themselves?”

Happy nodded. “I can.” A beat of silence. “Why are you saying goodbye? You moving away or something?”

Peter nodded after a moment. “Yeah. I decided to, uh, hang up the mask and try to focus on things like college, you know? Real life?”

“Yeah, I get it.”

Another few minutes passed before Happy said, “Well, I’m going to leave you alone. You deserve to have a chance to say goodbye, just you and her.”

( I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist. )

Peter mumbled his gratitude, and Happy walked away. Peter didn’t see him leave.

(Peter would never see him again.)

Peter cleared his throat and sat down in front of the grave.

“Hey, Aunt May,” he said, his voice a bit hoarse. His eyes were stinging, and he was sure it wasn’t from the cold. The cut he had been disinfecting was still dripping blood just a bit. “I, uh… I’m going away. For good.” He took in a breath. “It’s… It turns out that the multiverse is still, uh… still falling apart. The only way to fix it is to get rid of me.” He forced back a sob. A few tears, hot against his skin, streaked down his cheeks. “Don’t worry, though. Doctor Strange, the, uh, the wizard guy, he said that he’s going to put me somewhere safe, so… so I’ll be okay.”

He paused. Peter’s eyes traced her name over and over again.

( May Parker, May Parker, May Parker .)

“Uh, if Uncle Ben is there, too, can you give him a hug for me? I’m… I’m trying to do what you guys always said. ‘ With great power comes great responsibility ,’ right? I’m… I’m trying to do that.”

Peter let out a shaky sigh, a tiny whine escaping his throat as he did. “I’m just… I’m so sorry , May. I… I tried so hard , but as soon as I’m on my own, all I do is get people hurt. I just… I wish that we could go back to the way things were before Thanos, before the Snap, before all of this . Back when no one got hurt when I was Spider-Man because no one knew who I was, and Mr. Stark was there to help me, and it felt like I was finally figuring out how this whole thing worked .” He bit his lip as hard as he could before continuing. “And now everything is just… gone .”

( I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist. )

Peter buried his face in his hands and curled his fingers around his hair, pulling at the dirty strands and trying to keep from crying even harder. Finally, he released himself and stood up on shaky legs.

“Bye, May. I love you. Larb you.” He swallowed one more building sob, pulled his mask back on, and left May’s grave behind.

“You’re ready?” Doctor Strange asked when Peter returned to him.

“Uh, maybe,” Peter said. “Am I able to take anything with me?”

Doctor Strange raised an eyebrow before nodding. “Anything on your person should travel with you. At worst, it’s left behind. It won’t affect the spell.”

Peter nodded. “Okay, then I have one more place I need to go.” He listed off the address, and a portal opened. Peter stepped through onto the empty sidewalk and then scaled the side of the building next to him. He slipped through one of the blown-out windows on the top. He could hear Doctor Strange’s cloak bringing him up behind him.

Peter’s things were in the corner. There wasn’t much, thankfully. 

“I should probably be dressed in regular clothes rather than a suit the first time I go to another universe, shouldn’t I?” Peter asked. 

“I suppose so,” Doctor Strange said. “It may help confirm to the universe that you are no one who already is present there.”

“Okay, then.”

He knew that this Doctor Strange didn’t know who he was, but he’d told the man his name, so what did it really matter, anyway? Out of anyone, Doctor Strange knew that Peter had to leave.

(He knew it better than Peter did.)

( I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist. )

Peter grabbed one of his few sets of clothes and dipped into another room. He heard footsteps, but they weren’t coming in his direction. After a moment, Doctor Strange’s voice called, “Hey, Spider-Man? Parker? How… How old are you?”

Peter pulled his pants up, shoved his feet into his battered sneakers, and ducked out of the room. Doctor Strange was standing near his small pile of things in the back corner.

Their eyes locked, and he didn’t know how to describe the emotions he saw in Doctor Strange’s gaze as Peter replied, “Seventeen.”

Doctor Strange’s lips were pulled into a tight line, his eyebrows knit tightly, his jaw set. Peter’s Spider-Sense wasn’t screaming at him, though, so he moved past Doctor Strange to gather up his things. Most of what he had was able to be stuffed into the bag. 

“You’re injured,” Doctor Strange said. Peter could’ve snorted if he didn’t feel like he was about to pass out.

“Yeah,” Peter said instead. “Still haven’t fully healed, and people keep using knives for some reason.”

Doctor Strange hummed and said nothing more. Peter pulled his jacket on and checked over his things one more time.

His homemade Spider-Man suit was stuffed into the front pocket of the backpack for easy access. The main pocket had his textbook for the GED, a metal water bottle he’d managed to buy, and all the granola bars he’d gotten. His other set of clothes was folded within. His phone was in his jacket pocket. Spare vials of web fluid that he made by breaking into the science labs of different high schools at night were tucked away.

Bandages and another flask of rubbing alcohol was in the bag as well, along with all the little personal belongings that he cared for. There was the LEGO figure from Ned, some of May’s jewelry, a ‘crisis’ picture from MJ. The watch with the cracked face was tucked away in there, as well. He didn’t want to wear it while being Spider-Man.

Pictures of all the people he cared about. One of him, May, and Ben at a science fair he’d won. One of him as a baby with the parents he couldn’t remember. One of him and Mr. Stark that Mrs. Stark had given him one day while he was at the cabin. One of him, Ned, and MJ the day that they sent in their application for MIT. One of him and May at F.E.A.S.T. One of him and Happy that May had managed to take. One of him and Mr. Stark in the lab before the Snap, taken by FRIDAY, as Peter finally built his first arc reactor.

None of the pictures had Peter in them anymore. He could remember where he was in his mind, though, so it was all right.

(He just wanted to see the people he loved, anyway.)

(But it wasn’t all right.)

( I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist. )

The phone charger that he had spent far too much money on was pulled from the wall and he wrapped it up and slipped it into a side pocket. Peter pulled the backpack on, tried to ignore the steady aching in his shoulder from a stab wound he’d barely managed to stitch up two days before, and turned to Doctor Strange.

“I’ll be able to take this stuff with me?” He asked one more time. 

(Confirmation was important.)

(Don’t mess up another spell by wanting more than you can have.)

Doctor Strange shrugged. “It won’t stop the spell. I’m sorry in advance if anything gets left behind.”

Peter bit the inside of his cheek. “Thanks.”

A portal opened and Peter gave one last look at the place he’d called his own for the past few weeks and stepped through.

Peter blinked as he realized that he was standing outside. He was facing the sun, and his eyes burned from the light. He turned to Doctor Strange.

“This isn’t the Sanctum,” he said.

“Technically it is,” Doctor Strange replied. “Just the roof of it. This is where we’ll perform the spell.”

Peter furrowed his brow. “Why?”

“I thought you’d appreciate being outside for it. Seeing the city for as long as you can.”

Peter was reminded once more of what was happening. What this spell was going to do.

(What he was losing.)

( I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist. )

“ It’ll be just like here ,” Peter mumbled to himself. “ I won’t exist, and I’ll help people, and everything will be fine. ”

(This was to save the multiverse.)

(To save everyone he had ever met.)

(Everyone he had ever cared about.)

“Thank you,” Peter said.

“You have a few moments while I get prepared,” Doctor Strange said. Peter nodded and hopped up onto the edge of the rooftop, standing on the stone and looking out at the city.

It was lit up in a golden glow from the setting sun. He could see what was once Avengers Tower, what was once Stark Tower, in the distance. It had been an unusually warm day for late March, and Peter appreciated it. Leaf buds had appeared on the trees, making all the ones he could see look as if they were blooming. He couldn’t feel the pain that coursed through his body as he looked out at his home.

The sky was calm. There was no spaceship or alien invasion coming down. It was peaceful, tranquil. The clouds were lit up pink from the distant sunlight. The sky was shades of red and orange and yellow. It was so picturesque, Peter thought he could cry.

(If the burning in his eyes was anything to go off of, he was crying.)

( I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist. )

The city would be fine without him. There were other heroes. This was to help them.

(No one would miss Peter Parker.)

(People would forget about Spider-Man.)

(The world would move on.)

( I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist. )

“We’re ready.”

Peter stepped back off of the edge of the roof and turned to Doctor Strange.

“How, uh… How do I do this?” Peter asked. His throat was dry. His hands felt clammy.

He didn’t think he’d be this nervous to leave.

(There was nothing here for him anymore, right?)

(No, there wasn’t.)

“You’re going to step into the circle,” Doctor Strange said, and Peter abruptly noticed the markings on the ground, turning slowly, made out of that same bright orange magic that the portals were. “Stay there. Try to move as little as possible. Do not say anything . Your words could have an effect on the spell.”

Peter nodded shakily. “Okay.”

“Good luck, kid. Whenever you’re ready.”

( I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist. )

The early spring breeze tickled the back of his neck, making his dirty hair shift a bit around his face. Peter’s throat bobbed, he closed his eyes, and stepped into the circle.

As soon as he stood inside of them, the circle of runes began to speed up, moving faster and faster until it was impossible to tell one symbol from the next. A book floated next to Doctor Strange, opened to a random page, and Peter bit down on his tongue as the man’s hands moved quickly, purposefully. Peter would never understand how magic worked, but it was impressive to watch, nonetheless.

(He understood why Doctor Strange had been in charge of the Time Stone.)

The wind picked up, but it didn’t push Peter around, even as it ruffled his clothes, his hair, the straps of his bag. The world around them began to fall away, until just the rooftop was left. The rest of the world looked the way it had when the spell had broken the first time.

(When Peter had ruined the spell. Ruined everything .)

( I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist. )

Colors that he couldn’t even imagine swirled in his vision. Distant shapes that almost looked like they could be something of substance before falling away into nothingness. 

Finally, Doctor Strange spoke.

“The spell will activate in under a minute,” he said to Peter. “You can speak now, if you want, but make sure you do not move more than necessary. Do not leave the circle.”

Peter nodded. “Got it.”

Doctor Strange hesitated before saying, “Thank you, kid. For all of this.”

( I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist. )

“No problem, Doctor Strange.”

“You can call me Stephen, if you want,” Doctor Strange offered.

Peter shook his head, his heart aching in his chest. “I’m good. Thanks, though.”

Doctor Strange nodded. There was a ringing in his ears, and Doctor Strange seemed to notice it too.

“It’s just about time,” he said. Doctor Strange glanced around before turning to Peter. “You ready?”

“Yep.”

(He wasn’t.)

“Bye, Doctor Strange,” Peter said as the ringing increased. “Watch… Watch over the city for me, will ya?”

Doctor Strange gave him a smile and nodded. “Of course.” He paused. Doctor Strange’s shoulders slumped just a bit, and his smile turned sad. “See you around, Peter Parker.”

( I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist. )

The ringing crescendoed abruptly. Peter winced as it blared in his ears, his enhanced hearing amplifying it and making it nearly unbearable. He squeezed his eyes shut just as a burst of white flashed, he felt his stomach drop out from under him, and everything went dark.

(This was for the best.)

Chapter Text

When Peter came to, he was falling.

Not even metaphorically. No, he was literally falling.

He’d appeared right above the tree line of a forest, and apparently whatever universe Doctor Strange had sent him to still had gravity , because he was falling a split-second later.

The branches of trees slowed his fall, but definitely reopened some of his wounds. Peter hit the ground and abruptly couldn’t breathe as the wind was knocked out of him.

He lay there for a while, just trying to remember how to get air into his lungs. The dirt below was hard and cold. After a few minutes, he was able to breathe again, and he pushed himself up, using a nearby tree as support, trying to ignore the way his whole body ached with pain.

One of his only two shirts was going to be stained with blood because of this. He could feel where the stitches in his shoulder had torn open.

He looked around the woods. Okay, worry about the blood later. Step one was getting out of this forest.

( I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist. )

Peter’s head pounded as he stumbled through the trees. The cuts on his hands from the glass from over two weeks ago still hadn’t been able to heal, and they had reopened again with the fall. 

(Stupid super healing deciding to shut down and leave him suffering.)

(Why couldn’t his body understand that he would be fine with it shutting down for good if it just meant that he could stop hurting all the time .)

He wasn’t sure how long he wandered for. He kept going forward (or as forward as he could) just to ensure he wasn’t walking in circles. His Spider-Sense stayed as a constant buzz in his mind, and he started to ignore it rather quickly.

Eventually, it started to snow.

(Stupid fucking Parker Luck.)

The snow was thick, and the branches above were not. He couldn't see more than two feet in front of him, and the flashlight on his phone did little to help, just reflecting the white of the snow back at him. He focused mostly on the ground instead, trying to pad into fresh snowdrifts rather than ones he'd already trudged through.

Every snowflake that hit his skin stung. It must be winter wherever he was, though. The trees above, from what he had been able to see, were barren, leaving no canopy to hide beneath. Plus, a storm this strong didn't often happen in the late fall or early spring.

Eventually, a flash of light revealed a layer of ice beginning to wrap around small brambles and settling over stones.

(Freezing rain and snow. His favorite.)

He slowed his steps, made them more purposeful.

(It wouldn't do to trip.)

He tried to keep his phone safe from the sleet, doing his best to peer through the snowfall as it was. He was sure that spots were dancing in his eyes when he saw a faint blue light ahead. He blinked, trying to clear his vision, but it remained there.

(Maybe it was there.)

Peter moved closer, reaching a hand out to try not to bump into anything. Slowly, walls came into view, the light peeking out from a frosty window. It looked to be a shed, with some sort of device inside.

It likely wasn't abandoned, he thought as he moved toward it.

(He wasn’t sure he cared.)

( I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist. )

The shed didn’t have a lock on it. The hinges didn’t creak as he pushed the door open, using only a little extra force to get past the fact that it was starting to be frozen shut, and shined his flashlight inside.

Well, he wouldn’t call it abandoned . Rather, it looked like it was used for storage. Different gardening tools lined the walls, there were a few shelves, a table, some children’s toys, even a light switch. 

(He didn’t dare turn that on.)

It was surprisingly warm, as if it was being kept slightly heated. The blue light shined from a few feet away. A thermostat, he was sure, now that he could see it.

Peter could work with that.

He slipped inside, shrugging his backpack off and setting it down by the door. He dug through it and pulled out the one other set of clothes he had. Peter stripped out of his current outfit and did his best to hang the clothes up on a few empty hooks he spotted to dry, along with his jacket. He dug a granola bar out of his bag and chewed on it as he leaned up against one of the walls.

So far, it seemed like the spell had worked. Peter, obviously wouldn’t really know until he reached some actual civilization and figured out what was different in this reality. 

(He hoped that the spell had worked.)

(He hoped that he had gotten a little closer to fixing all the things he’d messed up.)

( I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist. )

The granola bar was gone far too soon, and Peter took a deep breath before turning his phone’s flashlight on, propping it up on one of the shelves, and digging through his backpack for some of the medical supplies he had.

He’d ended up being forced to bite down on the spare shirt he would be putting on after he’d stitched up his shoulder, because it hurt , and there was no way that there weren’t people nearby if he was in a shed that looked as lived in as this one did.

As soon as he was sure the stitches would at least hold when he moved around, Peter shifted toward the door, pushed it open a bit, and held his hand out, catching some of the rain in his palm. His skin burned from the cold. It was hard to wash the blood from his skin that way, but it was better than nothing.

(The metallic smell that clung to the air left much to be desired, though.)

He did his best to scrub the blood from the other shirt he had, as well. He didn’t want to have to only wear one shirt until he found a laundromat. Plus, he didn’t want to spend money on cleaning clothes if he could avoid it.

Once he was fully dressed in the dry clothes, blood washed away (but not washed away ), wounds patched as best he could, Peter sat on the ground, leaned his head against one of the walls again, and sighed.

( I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist. )

He wanted to try and stay here as long as possible. That would really just mean until he was found or until he ran out of supplies. He knew that if anyone found him, he would be able to outrun them. He simply didn’t want to have to. Still, the longer he stayed in one place, the longer his shoulder, hand, and other injuries would have to heal uninterrupted.

(The longer he could give them, the better.)

(Can’t help people if he starts bleeding out every time he moves his arm the wrong way.)

Peter reached to turn off the flashlight on his phone. He needed to conserve battery, especially if he planned on being here for a decent period of time. 

Abruptly, he felt like an idiot. If there was a light switch in here, as well as some sort of heating, there was a good chance there was an outlet, too. Peter flicked the phone’s flashlight back on and shined it along the bottom perimeter of the shed. 

Nothing.

(He’d look again in the morning.)

Peter turned the light off and tucked his phone away into his bag. He shoved his bag onto the bottom of a shelf, and then grabbed something that looked heavy, moving it over in front of the door.

If someone tried to come in, at least he’d have a bit of warning.

(Unless they went through the window. He hoped they didn’t. He planned for that to be his escape route, should the need arise.)

(It didn’t occur to him until later that normal people don’t enter through a window, anyway.)

There was only the corner of the shed that he was already in that actually had empty wall space.

(Not technically. There were still tools hanging up above him. Three different sizes of hedge trimmers. An axe that looked like it had never been used.)

Peter did his best to get comfortable.

(He had learned how to sleep in every position. Comfort didn’t really matter.)

( I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist. )

(But it was nice to have.)

He leaned his head a bit to the side, resting it so that his neck stayed as straight as he could get it. He tucked his knees up, his feet splayed off to the side and stripped bare to allow his socks to dry. Peter wrapped his arms around his body, his fingers gripping at the fabric of his sweatshirt as he tried to ignore how he could feel the outline of his ribs beneath it.

There was a flash of lightning outside, and Peter ducked his head down to cover his ears as a boom of thunder followed. Thunder and lightning in the winter, during a snow storm, was not very common.

(It was just his luck, then, that it would happen now.)

He wondered if he would be able to get any sleep while this storm was happening. He guessed not.

(He proved himself wrong when, eleven minutes and thirty-seven seconds later, exhaustion finally caught up with him, and Peter was asleep, even as cracks of thunder still shook the world outside.)

. . .

Peter woke to the steady drip of water onto the roof of the shed. He cracked his eyes open and glanced out of the window. It was definitely day time, if the sunlight filtering through the trees was anything to go off of. The storm had passed, but there was a light layer of ice around the branches, coated in a dusting of snow.

He took a deep breath. Despite his best efforts, Peter’s neck was still stiff. He let out a small groan as he rolled his head, hearing a few small pops as he did. His muscles (or what was left of them) were stiff. Peter’s feet were cold.

He managed to move out of the corner, grabbing his socks from where they hung on the side of a shelf. He was more relieved to find them dry than he thought he would be. Peter pulled them on and hoped that his feet would warm up soon enough. 

(His shoes were still wet.)

Peter pulled his backpack closer and sorted through it, finally grabbing another granola bar. His mouth was dry, the sour taste of sleep on his tongue, but he ignored it, chewing slowly as if that would make it so that the granola bar was bigger.

(It didn’t.)

( I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist. )

He took a single drink from his water bottle before capping it and setting it aside. Despite the aching in his head from the dehydration he was definitely suffering from, he couldn’t afford to waste the water. He needed to let himself heal as much as possible.

(Not that it would be very much, what with his healing factor choosing not to work.)

Suddenly, a door opened and he heard a woman’s voice outside and froze. It sounded like it was coming from a good distance away, but he didn’t want to be too careful. He closed his eyes and did his best to listen.

The woman swore before sighing.

“Sweetheart, could you go get the salt bucket from the shed? The blue one? You know where that is, right? ”

“Yeah, I helped when you and Daddy were putting the stuff in new places! ”

“That’s right, you did. You remember where it is? ”

“Yep! ”

“All right, go and grab it for me. Remember to be careful, it's slippery out there! ”

“Okay! ”

There was the sound of a door closing, and then little footsteps crunching through the snow outside. 

(They were coming in the direction of the shed.)

( I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist. )

Peter was grateful that he had pulled what looked almost like a cooler over in front of the door the previous night, because whoever was trying to open the door was no match for it, even after they seemed to scrape side the pile of snow in front of it.

“Why won’t you open? ” A small voice said in between breaths. It sounded like a child, a little girl, maybe around six or seven, if he had to guess.

The girl huffed. “You’re a big girl. You don’t need Mommy or Daddy to open the shed for you .”

There was more straining in her voice as she pushed again. Then, she said, as if reassuring herself, “Okay, Mommy and Daddy can help just for today .”

Fear immediately coursed through Peter’s veins. It was as if a bucket of ice water had just been poured over him. He grit his teeth and called out as loudly as he dared, “Wait! ”

The footsteps that had been moving away from the door stopped. Then, after a moment, they moved closer. “Hello? ”

Peter swallowed, and the dryness of his throat made it send a wave of pain through his body. “Please, don’t tell anyone.”

The girl was silent for a moment. “ Are you… in the shed? ”

( I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist. )

He nodded, and then realized she couldn’t see it. “Yeah, I am.”

“Why? ”

He paused. “It was snowing last night and I was lost in the woods. I needed somewhere to rest for a bit.”

“Oh. My mommy and daddy can help, I can go get them .”

“No, please, don’t do that,” Peter said desperately. He really didn’t want to deal with law enforcement at the moment.

“Why not? Mommy and Daddy always know what to do .” The girl sounded rather certain of her parents’ abilities.

“They’ll make me leave,” Peter said. “I’m not ready to leave yet. I just lost something that I really care about, and I want to rest for a few days without having to worry about finding another place to stay.”

“Oh ,” the girl said. “Okay. You wouldn’t be allowed in the shed if you were a bad person, anyway, so it’s okay. I won’t tell Mommy and Daddy. ” She gasped. “It can be like a secret! Like we’re spies! ”

Peter couldn’t help the small laugh that escaped him. “Yeah. Spies.”

( I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist. )

She hummed, and Peter could hear her hopping on the balls of her feet. “Can I come in, though? I need to get something for Mommy .”

Peter really didn’t need this child to see the blood stains on the floor of her family’s shed. 

(That was what happened when you had to stitch yourself up by the light of a phone flashlight while your hands were shaking so badly it almost looked like they were dancing.)

Instead, he said, “The thing in front of the door is really heavy. I can’t move it. I could drop what you need out the window instead?”

“Okay! ” She rattled off what she needed, and Peter scanned around before he found it, moving over to the window and cracking it, only needing to put a little force to break the layer of ice already melting from the sunlight, before hanging the bucket over the edge. A small hand brushed his, sending tingles up his arm that nearly made him flinch, and then the bucket was gone. “Thanks, Shed Guy! ”

( I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist. )

Peter didn’t know whether or not to be worried about this child. Her immediate instinct to trust him was helping him, but he knew that most people would not be as innocent with their intentions as he was.

( Could his intentions be considered innocent? There was nothing he wanted less than to hurt this girl, but, at the same time, he was mooching off of her and her family, convincing her to lie to her parents about a stranger in their shed.)

Carefully, he said, “Hey, uh, you know not to talk to strangers, right? Stranger danger and all that?”

“Yeah, I know that. Why? ”

“Well, I mean, you just… you trusted me really fast, you know?”

“You got into the shed, ” she said, as if that explained everything. “ So, sky-, uh, sky-en-tih-fih-cali- ”

“Scientifically?” Peter offered gently. He gripped his hand, scratching at the skin that the girl had touched. It was tingling, like there was a buzz of electricity in his blood.

(There wasn’t.)

(There was just radioactive DNA. Radioactive DNA that had done nothing but ruin his life since the moment it entered his body.)

“Yeah, scientifi-cali, you can’t be a stranger. It’s not possible. ”

“Okay,” Peter said, unwilling to argue with her logic that anyone on her family’s property was nice. “But you still shouldn’t talk to someone you don’t know.”

“Oh ,” the girl said. “I don’t know how to know you, though .”

“Uh…” Peter wet his lips. “We can start with this: my name is Peter.”

( I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist. )

“Whoa! ” The girl exclaimed. “My brother’s name’s Peter! ”

Peter couldn’t help the small smile that pulled at his mouth when he heard her excitement at him sharing a name with her brother. “Really? What’s he like?”

(Don’t let her ask about you.)

“I don’t know, ” the girl said. “I haven’t met him yet. ”

He furrowed his eyebrows. “Why not?”

“Mommy and Daddy said he went away to do something really important. He went away before I was born, and then they said that he was coming back, but then he didn’t. I think he might’ve got lost. ” She paused. “They don’t talk about him anymore, though. And they get sad when I do. I think they miss him a lot . Before they didn’t talk about him, Daddy said he would be the best big brother ever! ” She giggled to herself. “I’m really excited to meet him .”

Peter’s heart sank just a bit at the implication. Whoever this girl was, she’d had a brother who had been away since she was born and then died before they could meet. He was sure of it.

“I hope he’s as cool as he sounds when you meet him.”

“I hope he’s even cooler! ”

Peter let out a shaky breath as the girl’s footsteps moved away from the window and back to the front of the shed, near the door.

“My name is Morgan, ” the girl said. “So now you don’t have to worry about talking to a stranger, either .”

“Thanks, Morgan. That’s a nice name.”

“I like your name, too, ” Morgan said. “And not just ‘cause it’s also my brother’s .”

( I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist. )

“Thanks.”

“I have to go now, ” Morgan said. “You said you don’t want Mommy to know that you’re in here and she’s gonna come over here if I don’t go back first. ” She hummed. “ Mommy and Daddy have been a lot more worried about me .”

“They probably just want to make sure that you’re safe,” Peter suggested. His heart hurt.

(He wished that someone wanted to make sure that he was safe.)

“ They know that I’m safe, ” Morgan scoffed. “ No one can come into the house unless they’re allowed in the house. That’s how the house works .”

(He didn’t think she understood how houses worked.)

“All right, then. Get back to your mom before she gets more worried about you,” Peter said.

“ Okay! Bye, Not-Brother-Peter! See you later! ”

( I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist. )

He listened as her footsteps moved away from him quickly, padding through the snow. The drips from the trees began to hit the roof, the light from the sun managing to melt some of the ice on the branches.

“Morgan, there you are! What took you so long? ”

“I had to push really hard 'cause of the ice, and then I couldn’t find the head ‘cause it was dark so I had to turn the light on, but I couldn’t find the stool and I can’t reach the light so I had to look for the stool and then I had to look for the head after the light was on, ” Morgan replied to who Peter was sure was her mother.

(She was a terrifyingly good liar for sounding like she wasn’t any older than seven.)

“We really should make that light switch lower down ,” Morgan’s mother said, and it sounded like she was talking to herself. “C’mon, Mo. Let’s go get the ice off the railing and then see if we can drag Daddy out of the garage, okay? ”

“ Okay! ”

(They sounded so happy.)

(Just a family, living their lives, and here Peter was, leeching off of them like a parasite that they wouldn’t even know about until he’d already sucked all of the life out of everything they cared about.)

Peter’s head hurt, and there was a soft ringing in his ears, so he tuned out of the conversation in favor of sitting back down in the corner of the shed, leaning his head against the wall and tilting it up to stare at the ceiling.

He hadn’t even realized he had fallen asleep until he woke up to light knocking on the wood beneath the window of the shed.

“ Hello? Mister Shed-Peter? ”

( I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist. )

His neck hurt again. As he rolled his shoulders and turned his head to each side, he replied, “Yeah?”

“ ...Were you sleeping? ”

(Was he?)

“...Yeah.”

“ Sorry ,” Morgan said. “ Mommy made Daddy take a nap, though, and Mommy has to take a nap when Daddy takes a nap or he won’t, and she said that I should take a nap, too, but I already did, so I wanted to come out here instead and talk to you .”

“Oh.” Peter blinked. “I don’t… think I’m that interesting.”

(He didn’t want to tell her anything about his life.)

(Peter didn’t even want to think about his life. Or lack thereof.)

(There wasn’t much of a life to think about, afterall. Whether he was still somehow in his original universe or if Doctor Strange’s spell had worked, Peter was alone either way.)

(Peter Parker didn’t exist either way.)

“ That’s okay, ” Morgan said immediately. “ Sometimes when my uncles and aunts come over, they don’t wanna talk about big adult stuff, either, so I’ve got other things. ” There was a shuffling outside, and then Peter watched as some sort of object slipped through the crack in the window. A steady stream of cold air flowed in.

(Should he have closed that?)

Peter rocked forward on his knees to extend his arm enough to grab it. He flipped it over, and in the daylight streaming through the window, Peter could read the words on the front.

Summer of the Sea Serpent

He blinked. “Is this… a Magic Tree House book?”

“ Tech-nih-cali ,” Morgan said, “ It’s a Merlin Mission book. But, yeah, it’s a Magic Tree House book. ”

(He wondered if she was taught to sound out those words and use them, or if she heard others use them and simply latched onto them.)

“Do you want me to… read it to you?”

( I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist. )

“ Yeah! ” Morgan exclaimed, and Peter could hear the smile in her voice. He envisioned it, a beaming grin on a faceless child. “ It’s one of the best ones. ”

(A faceless child with a life. A faceless child with a happy life that he could ruin.)

(A faceless child that he had to ensure stayed faceless.)

( Don’t ruin any more lives .)

( Don’t hurt anyone else. You’ve done enough. )

“Why’s that?” Peter asked as he tried to shift into a more comfortable position.

“ ‘Cause it’s when Kathleen shows up, and I really like Kathleen, ‘cause she helps Jack and Annie with all of the magic stuff, and she’s a selkie, too, which is really cool, and she likes to have fun but can be really serious too, like my dad! ”

“She sounds great,” Peter said. The binding of the book was a bit worn-out, as if it had been flipped through many times. With the way Morgan spoke, it sounded like she reread this one a lot. 

“ You’ve gotta read it with voices .”

He faltered. “What kind of voices?”

“ You gotta make them up! Mommy and Daddy make up voices, but they aren’t very good at them. Uncle Clint’s a lot better, but he says that’s ‘cause he already has kids. ”

“So, you just want me to… go for it?”

“ Yeah! ”

What was the harm in it? 

(It wasn’t like he would ever see her again after he left this shed.)

( I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist. )

Peter read through the first chapter and was two pages into the second before he heard noise coming from what he assumed was the direction of the house.

Then-

“Maguna? Are you out here? ”

Morgan was silent for a moment. Peter could hear his heartbeat as it pounded in his chest. 

“ Yeah! ”

“ Come on in, honey, it’s time for lunch! ”

“ Okay! ”

He heard shifting, and he assumed Morgan was standing up.

(Had she just been sitting in the snow? He hoped not.)

“ Keep the book with you ,” she said. “ Then you can read to me again later .”

Peter brushed his thumb over the well-loved cover. “Are you sure?”

“ Yeah! ” She paused. “ You’re really good at the voices. Better than Uncle Clint, I think .” Before Peter could respond, she said, “ Bye, Shed-Peter! ” Her footsteps moved away, and Peter was left holding her book in his hands. He let it drop to the ground after he realized that his grip was too tight. 

(He was breaking her book.)

( I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist. )

Instead, Peter curled his left hand inward to carve crescents into the palm of his hand with his nails. His other hand did the same on his knee. 

(He had to make sure that those cuts from the glass healed. If he kept reopening them every time they scabbed over, they never would.)

Peter tossed the book onto one of the shelves, but didn’t move from where he sat in the center of the shed’s floor.

“What’s for lunch, Mommy? ”

“Mac ‘n’ cheese, just as the little princess requested .”

(What he wouldn’t do for some mac ‘n’ cheese.)

(What he wouldn’t do for food made by someone who cared about him.)

(What he wouldn’t do for someone who cared about him.)

Morgan’s laughter would have been audible even without super hearing.

He heard the door to their house close.

It wasn’t until a tear hit his arm that Peter realized he was crying.

Tears streamed down his face, and he didn’t make any effort to stop them. 

Just a few weeks before, he’d been in an apartment, with a bed to sleep on, in a universe that he was certain was his own. It hadn’t been the best, but at least he hadn’t been hiding out in someone’s shed, praying that a six-year-old girl didn’t tell her parents that there was a weird person on their property.

( I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist. )

It was odd. Even after November, when Peter had had nobody, he hadn’t felt as alone as he did here.

His eyes were stinging, and he didn’t reach up to wipe at them. He didn’t have the energy to. He let the tears fall, and reached his right hand up, the one covered in scabs and indents from the glass of the broken mirror, and covered his mouth to muffle the sobs that he could feel building up in his throat.

At least, after he had lost everything, he hadn’t lost New York . No one knew Peter Parker, but they knew Spider-Man .

( I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist. )

And, sure, Peter couldn’t confirm that the spell had worked, he couldn’t confirm that he was in another universe, but somehow…

He knew.

He knew that he was in another universe now. 

There was something within him that was certain, something that knew that he wasn’t in his world anymore.

(Could he call it his world? It was where he was from, sure, but he didn’t even exist anymore there. He didn’t exist there anymore than he existed here, in this new universe.)

(Did it matter that he came from that world if that world couldn’t even remember him?)

He had to do this for the sake of the multiverse. 

(And wasn’t that just an insane thought?)

(What he had done, everything that he had lost, leaving everything he had ever known behind, it hadn’t been just to save those he cared about. It had been for everyone .)

(Every person in every universe. More people than quantifiable.)

Peter didn’t know the limits of the multiverse, but Doctor Strange made it sound pretty damn big.

(He could take a bit of solace in knowing that he’d helped a lot of people.)

(At least, he would be able to if he didn’t know that it was his fuck-ups that had led to everything almost falling apart in the first place.)

(Did it count as saving a life when you were the one who made it so that the life needed saving in the first place?)

( I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist. )

He had to find a way to keep helping people. Once he was healed enough (or was forced to leave this shed), he would make his way to a big city. If New York didn’t exist here, then he would find another one.

(He prayed to whatever god might be listening that New York City existed in this universe.)

He would figure out what he could about this universe, and he would do what he did best.

Help people.

(That wasn’t really what he did best. He didn’t really do anything ‘best.’ Or even well.)

(At the very least, though, he would be helping people. Saving a cat from a tree, stopping a mugging, helping an old lady cross the street. Looking out for the little guy.)

(He could do that.)

Despite the shaky optimism, though, Peter still wanted to do nothing more than break down on the floor of this shed, curl up into a ball, and never get up.

(Maybe then the ringing in his ears would become loud enough that he wouldn’t be able to hear the laughter that occasionally came from the house that Morgan and her family must live in.)

(Peter wanted to laugh. He wanted to talk with people and have people know who he was and care about who he was.)

He took in a raggedy breath and bit down on his tongue to try and stop the next wave of sobs that was attempting to force its way past his lips.

(Peter Parker didn’t deserve to be happy. Not after everything that he had done.)

(But that didn’t mean he didn’t want to be.)

Chapter Text

The rest of the day, as well as the night, passed by uneventfully. Peter allowed himself one more granola bar, and drank enough water to where a quarter of the bottle was now gone. His shoes still weren’t dry, so he left them alone as he curled back up into the corner once night had fallen. It was easier to get some sleep without a storm going on outside, and Peter was still exhausted enough that he wasn’t plagued by any nightmares.

When he woke up, it was light outside. There was sun once more, but he could see a few clouds dotting the sky through the tree branches. Much of the ice on them had melted, though streaks of snow were still stretched over the wood. Peter still felt groggy, so he wasn’t sure why he’d woken. There was a buzz near the base of his skull, though, that wouldn’t let him close his eyes once more, and before he could take time to wonder what it was, there was a knock under the window of the shed.

“Mister Shed-Peter? ”

( I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist. )

A groan rumbled from his throat without him even thinking about it. He did his best to muffle his yawn as he moved away from the corner.

“Yeah?”

“...Did I wake you up? ”

“No, no, I’ve been awake for…” He swallowed, his tired thoughts trying to formulate words to little effect. “...hours.”

“You sound like Daddy does when he lies. About sleeping .”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah. Friends aren’t supposed to lie to each other, Shed-Peter .”

He paused, circling back a bit. “...Friends?”

“Yeah! ”

“Oh. Okay.” He took in a small breath. “Sorry. I won’t lie anymore.”

“Thanks! ” She paused, and he heard her shifting a bit on her feet, as if she was nervous.

“What’s up?” He prompted. 

(He’d had a bit of practice talking to little kids when he’d gone to the lake house to see Mrs. Stark and Morgan Stark back in his old universe.)

(He wondered if all little kids sounded the same. The two Morgans certainly did.)

( I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist. )

“Oh, uh… ” She hummed, as if unsure of how to say what it was she wanted to. “I, uh… I wanted to know if you wanna watch me play Barbies! ”

He blinked. “What d’you mean?”

“You open the window and I’ll get on the stool, cause I’m not tall enough to look in the window but on the stool I can stretch my arms up, and then I can play Barbies there, and you can watch! ”

Peter swallowed. A beat of silence. “Sure.”

Her squeal was full of so much excitement it almost overwhelmed him.

(How long would it take for spending time with him to ruin her life, take that joy away, suck all of the light out of her world?)

(Peter Parker was selfish, though, and, for now, he wanted to pretend he had a friend.)

(Even if that friend wasn’t tall enough to look through the window of a shed.)

There was the scratching of something against the wooden siding, and a moment later, two Barbies popped into view in the window. They were visible up to their knees, and below that, Peter was able to see Morgan’s little hands wrapped around their feet to hold them up. She was wearing knitted violet mittens.

(He was glad her hands wouldn't freeze off.)

The two Barbies started talking to one another (or, well, Morgan talked for them), and Peter sat there and listened quietly, doing his best to pay attention, just in case he was quizzed later.

( I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist. )

After what had to be at least forty minutes, Morgan stopped, the Barbies falling from view. She tentatively asked, “ What d’you think? Is it good? ”

“Yeah,” Peter replied. “It’s great.”

“ What was your favorite part? ” She asked eagerly.

(God, it was such a good thing that he’d paid attention.)

“I really liked it when Natalie and Steven were sneaking around,” he said. “Lying low so that they could save the world.”

“ Yeah! ” Morgan exclaimed. “ Daddy told me all the stories about it, and he said I could play Barbies with the stories, but I had to change the names of all the people in the stories if I wanna tell them to other people .”

“Well, I didn’t even notice,” Peter said, not pointing out that he couldn’t notice, as he didn’t know the original names of these people. “You’re a very good storyteller. And you’re great with the Barbies, too.”

“ I know ,” Morgan said, and then paused. “ But thank you .” He could hear her bouncing a bit on the stool she was on. “ Can I keep going? ” 

“Sure,” Peter replied. “My schedule is clear. I’ve got all day.”

( I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist. )

She laughed, happy and bright, and Peter’s chest felt a bit warm as the Barbies reappeared in the window and she launched back into her story.

. . .

“ Stop at the end of Chapter Two, ” Morgan said the next day, appearing without warning. His Spider-Sense was still dulled by the pain continuously coursing through his body, and so Peter wasn’t given as much preparation for her sudden appearance as he normally would have been.

He startled a bit from where he laid on the ground, staring up at the ceiling.

“Sorry, what?”

“ The Magic Tree House book. Stop reading at the end of Chapter Two ,” she explained.

“Oh. Okay.” Peter scanned the shed to find where he put the book. He cracked a smile. “Don’t you mean the Merlin Missions book?”

She groaned loudly, and Peter laughed as he shifted to look further.

“ What d’you do when I’m not here? ” She asked.

“Uh, I mean, I just kinda… sit here,” he replied, finally spotting the book sitting on the edge of a shelf and leaning forward to grab it. 

“ You don’t have a phone? ”

“I do,” Peter said, “But it’s almost out of battery, and I can’t find an outlet in here.”

“ Daddy accidentally covered it one time, ” she said. “ When we were moving stuff around. It’s in a corner, but there’s a big shelf with lotsa stuff on it in the way .”

(Something that he couldn’t move without being noticed, then.)

“Oh,” Peter said instead, “Okay.”

“ I could take your phone and charge it ,” Morgan offered. “ There’s a plug in my closet in my room that I don’t think Mommy or Daddy know about. Then they wouldn’t find it! ”

Peter blinked. On one hand, he didn’t feel the most comfortable giving his phone away. On the other hand, he needed it charged, and he was rather sure that Morgan didn’t have any bad intentions.

“Okay,” Peter said. 

“ Give it to me and I can go plug it in so it can charge while you’re reading! ” Morgan said. Peter pulled his charger from his bag and moved to the window, hanging the phone and charger out so she could grab it.

(He was glad he’d changed his lockscreen to a picture of the New York skyline that he’d taken one day. He didn’t want to deal with any questions she might have about who the people that used to be there were.)

(He didn’t want to have to explain to her how the empty space between Ned and MJ in his old lockscreen was where he was supposed to be.)

( I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist. )

He felt the items being yanked from his hands. “ I’ll be right back! ” Morgan exclaimed, and then she was scampering away, her little footsteps moving toward her house.

Peter sat there for a while, feeling just a bit awkward. It was odd, knowing that he’d just given his phone, one of the only things he had left from his home dimension, one of the only things he had to remember the good times he once had with the people he loved, to a little girl. Just so he could get it charged.

Still, he trusted Morgan. She hadn’t told her parents about him, and it had been two days. She wouldn’t steal his phone. What would she even do with it? 

(She wouldn’t be able to get into it, even if she knew the passcode. Peter and Ned had worked to add extra security to it a few weeks after his identity was revealed, just in case it ever got stolen. That thing wouldn’t be cracked by anyone less than Tony Stark himself.)

A few more minutes passed, and then he heard a door open again and those little footsteps crunching through the snow. 

(It must still be piled high, even if the storm was a few nights ago.)

There was a small thunk from the window, then the sound of something crinkling, and Peter looked up to see that something had been dropped through. He rocked forward on his feet to grab whatever it was off the table.

It was a bag of chips.

“ Mommy and Daddy don’t keep any food in the shed ,” Morgan explained, “ And I don’t know how much food you have, so I brought you something! ”

Even though she couldn't see it, Peter smiled.

(He couldn’t help it.)

( I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist. )

“Thanks, Morgs.”

(The nickname came naturally. He didn’t even realize he’d said it until far later.)

“ No problem. It was easy. I know where Daddy’s secret stash is, and he never notices when I take some. ” She paused, and he heard her shifting a bit. “ Read now? ”

“‘Course,” Peter said. He flipped through the pages of the book until he found the page where they’d left off. He opened his mouth to begin reading before he paused. “Do you want me to start where we left off or just restart the whole chapter?”

“ Hm, ” Morgan said, clearly deep in thought. Peter could almost imagine her tapping her chin.

(A faceless child, tapping away, taptaptap )

“ Start from the start ,” she decided after a moment. “ Just in case I forgot something .” She said it as if she hadn’t, from the looks of it, read this book at least a dozen times before.

“Okay,” Peter said. He flipped back a page, landing on the opening of the second chapter. “You ready?”

“ Make sure you do the voices, ” she replied. “ You do them better than Mommy or Daddy does .”

( I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist. )

“Got it.”

. . .

Morgan brought his phone back after they finished the second chapter before heading inside before her parents could notice. She hadn’t brought him his charger, but Peter found that he didn’t mind very much. He spent a bit of time scrolling through his phone. He had no cell reception, which made complete sense, given that he was in another universe.

(He hadn’t had cell reception back home, anyway. He couldn’t afford to pay for that, so after no one paid the bill at the end of the month after May died, the reception was cut off automatically.)

( I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist. )

Peter went to check for any possible nearby WiFi signal. There was only one, which he assumed was the house that Morgan and her family lived in. His phone seemed to be going insane as it desperately tried to explain to him just how strong the connection was. That was odd, but Peter guessed that it was just because they were in the woods and one or both of Morgan’s parents worked from home.

Just for a moment, Peter considered attempting to hack into the WiFi network. It would be rather difficult to do from his phone, but he could at least try to find a way to civilization from there. 

If the connection was as strong as it was, though, there was a good chance that there was good security on it, too. If it was detected that someone was trying to breach their network, Morgan’s parents might realize that there was something wrong, especially since they lived alone in the middle of the woods. It would only be a matter of time after that before they checked the shed, just to be safe, and found him.

Maybe he would try hacking in after his wounds were more healed.

He’d been in the shed for four days now, and had known Morgan for that same amount of time. Peter had to admit, his days were much duller when she was inside with her family.

(It was selfish to wish that she could just stay and talk to him, though. She had people that she cared about, people that were more important to her than he could ever be.)

( I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist. )

He wasn’t sure if the time on his phone was right, or if it had gone out of sync when they transferred universes, but Peter didn’t need it to be able to tell that night was fast approaching. The slivers of sky that he could see through the trees outside of the window were turning pink and orange, the few visible clouds glowing a bright golden color in the rays of the setting sun. Winter sunsets were always softer, he noticed, but no less beautiful.

Morgan probably wouldn’t be back out for the rest of the night.

Peter sighed. He only had one more thing, then, that he needed to do before he could attempt to get some sleep.

Cleaning the stab wound in his shoulder was probably the worst part. He could handle the sting that came with disinfecting and treating the cuts on his hands.

(He’d gotten used to those after they kept reopening for the two weeks before he landed here.)

On the other hand, cleaning the stab wound required him to bite down on a balled-up t-shirt and squeeze his eyes shut so tightly he got a headache. Working around the stitches was one of the worst parts, and he hated how he had to waste some of his drinking water to clean it, too.

Still, Peter made it through, and when he finally let the t-shirt fall from his mouth, he was gasping for breath, digging his nails into his legs and biting down hard on his lip in futile attempts to distract himself from the pain coursing through the top half of his body.

Peter didn’t bother curling up in the corner. Instead, he just spread out on the floor of the shed as much as he could and stared up at the ceiling, willing himself to fall asleep.

( I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist. )

Eventually, he managed to, but not before the pain had run its course and left him numb, his head pounding and heart beating so fast he was sure it would pop right out of his chest.

. . .

What looked like a piece of cardboard fell through the window. Peter leaned forward to grab it and flipped it over,

“ It’s Tic-Tac-Toe ,” Morgan said. “ There’s a marker on it . You’re X’s and I’m O’s .”

There was an O written in the middle of the board. Peter found the dry erase marker clinging to it by a string that hooked around a small hole in the board. He grabbed it, pulled the cap off, and drew an X in the top right corner. 

(He ignored how his right hand flared in pain as he grasped the marker. None of the scabs reopened, though, so he would call that a win.)

He held the board out the window, over the ledge, and Morgan grabbed it. A moment passed before it was passed back, an O now in the top left corner.

They played more rounds than Peter could count, and Morgan seemed to be keeping track, so he didn’t bother.

( I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist. )

Finally, when Morgan’s mother called her name, Morgan passed the board back to him and said, “ Keep it. ”

“Okay,” Peter said. “Who won?”

“ I did ,” she replied, sounding just a bit smug before she adjusted her tone. “ But it was really close. ”

“You were a good opponent,” Peter said, and she giggled before dashing off, her footsteps fading into the distance, in the direction of her house.

Two hours later, Morgan returned. A plate balanced on the window ledge.

“ Grab it before it falls, ” she said, and Peter’s hand came up to rest underneath the plate. It stopped wobbling, and he pulled it back to place it on the table. There were four chicken nuggets, all shaped like dinosaurs, a small bit of ranch, and some pieces of broccoli.

(It was more food than Peter had seen in weeks.)

“What is this for?”

“ They’re from a microwave dinner. Mommy has them for when Daddy won’t stop working in the garage, and then I tried them one day and I really liked them, so now she gets them for me, too, ” she replied. “ I ate the mac ‘n’ cheese, but I brought you the dinos. ” She paused for a moment. “ Sorry I didn’t ask if you liked ranch. That’s what I always have with them .”

(He loved ranch.)

( I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist. )

“Don’t worry,” he said, fighting through a lump in his throat. “Who doesn’t like ranch?”

“ Crazy people ,” she said firmly. “ Like Cooper. ”

“Who’s Cooper?” Peter asked. “Your friend?”

“ He’s my cousin ,” Morgan replied. “ Oh, wait! ” There was shuffling again, and then something fell through the window. Peter’s eyes widened, and he reached forward to grab it.

It was a bottle of water.

(He felt like he was going to cry.)

“ The dino nuggies always make me thirsty, ” Morgan said as Peter wrenched the cap off and took a deep gulp. “ I don’t want you to be thirsty. ”

( I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist. )

“That’s very thoughtful of you,” Peter said once he’d swallowed the water down.

“ I know ,” Morgan said. She cleared her throat. “ I mean, thank you .”

Peter snorted. “All right, do you have free time right now?”

“ Yeah. ”

“You wanna get started on Chapter Three?”

“ Yeah! ”

. . .

Eight days after he had first begun staying in the shed, Peter woke up with a pounding headache.

(He always had a headache these days, but this one was worse than usual.)

When Morgan arrived an hour later, she seemed to notice that something was wrong.

“ You sound funny ,” she said as she passed the Tic-Tac-Toe board back to him through the window.

“Thanks,” Peter replied, his voice a bit strained.

“ Are you sick? ”

“Maybe,” Peter said. He really wasn’t sure. He didn’t get sick often, but his healing also wasn’t what it usually was at the moment.

“ I can get you some medicine, ” Morgan said as she passed the board back. “ I know where Mommy and Daddy put it .”

“No!” Peter said, looking up as if she could see him. Normal medicine wouldn’t work with his metabolism either way, but he also couldn’t have her parents seeing that any medicine was missing from their house. They would ask Morgan where it went, and then everything would fall apart.

( I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist. )

(His stab wound throbbed with pain.)

“ Why not? ” She sounded sad.

(A sad, faceless child, with tears rolling down her cheeks.)

(He made her sad.)

“Your parents would notice that it was missing,” he said. “Medicine is pretty important. Don’t worry, it’s just a little cough. I’ll be better in a few days. Trust me.”

“ Okay, ” Morgan said, though she sounded a bit uncertain. “ Are you sure? ”

“Positive,” Peter replied.

“ Okay .” She sounded like she believed him whole-heartedly. 

(His heart ached.)

“ Can you read Chapter Four? ”

“If that is what the Lady Morgana desires, then that is what she shall get,” Peter said, leaning to the side to grab the book off of its safe spot on one of the shelves.

Morgan giggled. 

They made it through the fourth chapter and were halfway through the fifth when Morgan quietly asked, “ Shed-Peter? ”

( I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist. )

He paused. “Yeah?”

“ Can I ask you something? ”

Peter cracked a grin. “You just did.”

She groaned. “ You sound like my dad. ”

“He must be a man of good taste,” he replied. “But, seriously, you can ask me anything, what’s up?”

“ Can I… call you something other than Shed-Peter? ”

He blinked. That felt like an odd question. “Mo, you can call me whatever you want.”

“ I don’t want to call you Peter, ” she said. “ ‘Cause Peter’s my brother .”

Peter nodded, even though she couldn’t see it. “That makes sense. It must get confusing.”

“ Sometimes ,” she said. There was a lengthy pause, and Peter didn’t attempt to fill it. Finally, Morgan spoke again. “ Can I call you ‘Petey?’ ”

( I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist. )

Peter wondered if his original universe and this one had communicated with one another. Either way, it was a cruel bit of irony.

(The only person back home who had ever called him Petey had been Morgan Stark herself.)

( I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist. )

“Of course,” Peter said, his voice surprisingly steady. “If that’s what you want?”

She was quiet for a moment. “ Is that what you want? ” A beat of silence. “ ‘Cause I’ll… I’ll call you ‘Peter’ if you really want. ” It sounded like it was hard for her to say that.

“I would be honored if you called me Petey ,” Peter said, and for some odd reason, the nickname didn’t feel out-of-place on his tongue. Not in the slightest.

(This was how things were meant to be.)

( I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist. )

“ Good ,” Morgan said, and she sounded much more relieved than her words would imply. “ Okay, keep reading .” She said it as if they hadn’t just had one of the most emotionally-charged conversations of their entire friendship.

(Could it be called that?)

(He liked to think so.)

“Your wish is my command,” Peter said instead of any of the other million statements resting on his tongue. He heard her shifting to get comfortable once more, and Peter found the page again and continued to read.

When Chapter Five was finished, Morgan still hadn’t been called inside. Neither of them wanted to risk starting a new chapter, though, so instead she sat there under the window for a bit and just rambled on about anything and everything.

“ I’m starting school in a few months, ” she said. “ I’m really, really excited. ”

“Oh, yeah?” Peter asked. A thought abruptly occurred to him. “Wait, Morgs, what’s the date today?”

Morgan huffed. “ It’s… January eleventh, 2024 ,” she said after a moment. Then, she added helpfully, “ It’s a Thursday.”

Huh. It was just after the new year, 2024. Over a year before where his old universe had been at. 

(It was just a few months before everything had started to go wrong for him.)

(Just a few months before he had to stop being a kid, for good.)

(Just a few months before everything felt more unfair than it ever had.)

(You deserved it, though. You messed everything up, and everything that happened after that was just karma making its way around.)

(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)

“Wow,” Peter said. He flipped open his phone to the settings and fixed the date on the calendar from late February of 2025 to early January, 2024. That was an odd thing to do. “Do you know the time?”

Morgan rattled it off, and Peter changed it accordingly. His question led her off on a tangent, then, about how she’d gotten a Paw Patrol watch for her birthday from her Uncle Nick.

“ Everyone’s always scared of Uncle Nick ‘cause he looks like a pirate, ” Morgan said, “ But he’s really funny! And he’s got a really nice cat! ”

“He sounds cool,” Peter said.

“ He is! ” She exclaimed, and he could hear as she stood up and bounced on the balls of her feet below the window. “ He’s awesome! ”

She launched into a random story, then, about how she’d impressed everyone by getting Uncle Nick to laugh. Peter responded at all the right times, asked questions, laughed whenever something funny happened, and, by the end of her story, Morgan sounded the way Peter was sure rays of sunshine did.

When Morgan settled back down, she sat back against the shed and was quiet. Peter left her to her thoughts, instead staring at the minutes ticking by on the lockscreen of his phone.

“ Petey? ” Morgan finally asked. 

Peter hummed. “Yeah?”

“ I hope my brother is half as good a brother as you are, ” she said.

Peter felt like the floor had been swept out from under him.

(His chest was cold, and his face was warm, and he felt fuzzier inside than he had for months .)

(He wasn’t quite sure how to respond.)

( I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist. )

“I’m not…” Peter faltered. “I don’t have any siblings.”

Morgan scoffed. “ Of course you do ,” she said.

He was confused. “No, I’m pretty sure I don’t.”

“ Yeah, you do! ”

“Who, then?”

“ Me, silly! ”

His heart stopped.

(As if it hadn’t already?)

“What?” His voice was weak, barely a whisper.

Morgan heard it anyway.

“ I mean …” Her words, previously so bright, had dimmed. They were hesitant. Nervous. “ I mean, if you… if you wanna be? ”

Peter didn’t know what to say.

In a moment of surprising clarity, though, he knew what he wanted to say.

( I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist. )

(Peter Parker was selfish.)

Peter wanted nothing more than to tell her that, yes , he would love it if she called him her brother. He wanted nothing more than to have this amazing little girl as a sister.

(This amazing, faceless child that had done nothing but try to help him since she found out he was there. Who kept him company and made him laugh and made him feel like he was worth something.)

Yet, despite all of that, Peter knew that he had to say no.

Morgan wasn’t his sister. She had a brother.

(A dead one, he was sure, but a brother nonetheless, and he didn’t want to replace anyone.)

This wasn’t his universe. Peter didn’t exist here. After his wounds were finally healed and this sickness worked its course, he would leave, and he would never see her again, and that would be fine .

He had to say no.

(He didn’t want to.)

(He had to .)

But Peter Parker was selfish.

He was selfish, and for once he wanted things to go his way. So, Peter opened his mouth to decline her, and instead said-

“Of course I wanna be your brother, Morgan.”

( I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist. )

She gasped, such a happy and relieved sound, and, for just a moment, any qualms or worries he had were chased away. 

“ Really? Really, really, really really? ”

Peter laughed. “Yeah, really.”

She let out a cheer, and Peter’s face hurt from smiling. His head was still pounding, and his shoulder ached more than usual, but, for a moment, that was all right.

“ Can I come see you now? ”

Abruptly, the joy stopped. It was so quick, a comical record scratch could be played in the background.

“Uh, no,” Peter said, his eyes on the bloodstains still on the ground. “No, not yet.”

“ Why not? ”

“I can’t move the thing in the way of the door out of the way,” Peter said. He was glad she hadn’t asked how it got there in the first place. 

“ Then when? ” 

“How about this,” Peter said slowly, thinking over his options. “When I feel good enough to leave, I’ll make sure I leave while you’re here, so then you can give me a big hug.”

( I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist. )

“ Yeah! ” She paused. “ I forgot you were gonna leave .”

(A sinking feeling in his chest.)

“Yeah, I’ve gotta at some point,” Peter replied. 

“ Will you come visit? ”

“Of course.”

(He didn’t know how he would.)

“ Promise? ”

“I promise.”

(He couldn’t.)

( I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist. )

Morgan went back to her house soon after that before her parents noticed that she’d been playing in the backyard for far too long. She left with a “ See you tomorrow, Petey ” before her footsteps scampered away.

Peter took the opportunity to clean his stab wound for the day. The cuts on his hands had scabbed and were finally beginning to heal completely, which was a relief. He stripped his shirt off, turned on his phone flashlight and propped it up, looked down at the wound, and felt his stomach drop.

Oh. It was infected.

Peter felt like he could cry.

He worked so hard to try and make sure that nothing happened while he was in such a terrible position, and here he was, sitting on the floor of a random family’s shed, staring at his stab wound that was definitely infected. It was a brighter red than it had been, more swollen (which he was annoyed he hadn’t noticed), and discolored along the lining of the stitches. As Peter’s hands hovered over it, he could feel the heat radiating off of the injury.

(The warmth was almost intoxicating. Peter couldn’t really keep himself warm, and so having actual heat coming off of his body for once was almost thrilling, if not for the circumstances.)

At the very least, Peter understood why his head hurt so bad. He was probably developing a fever.

“Okay,” Peter murmured to himself. “You’ll be fine. You’re Spider-Man. Everything will be fine.”

( I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist. )

. . .

Everything was most certainly not fine. When Peter woke up the next morning, his tongue felt like sandpaper. His mouth was as dry as a desert, and his throat felt like it was on fire whenever he swallowed. His head was pounding, and he was so congested he could barely breathe through his nose. He felt more exhausted than usual, despite having slept the whole night.

He looked at the wound. He looked away.

(He didn’t look at it again.)

(Peter wanted to throw up.)

Morgan noticed. When she came to visit, she said that he sounded even more sick than before. She attempted to insist that he let her give him medicine, but Peter said, once again, that he would be fine. He just had a little cold, that was all.

“ Okay, ” Morgan said, though she didn’t sound convinced. “ But you gotta tell me if it gets really bad, okay? I don’t wanna lose a brother. ”

( I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist. )

His heart swelled.

“Okay.”

Two more days passed.

Peter didn’t get better.

(He got worse.)

On the eleventh day since he first met Morgan, Peter took a nap after she visited him around ten in the morning. He couldn’t sit up when he woke.

Everything was blurry. He managed to press the screen of his phone, seeing that it was already eight at night. From what he could see from the floor, it was growing dark outside. The sun had most likely just set, and twilight had truly fallen. The trees made everything darker than it would have been were the shed in a field instead.

Morgan wouldn’t be visiting anymore. She never came outside once it got dark out.

Peter laid there for a bit, his ears ringing and his head throbbing. Looking around sent shocks of pain through him even though there wasn’t any light for his eyes to react negatively to. As a result, he found himself staring at the ceiling, unable to get more sleep while so much pain coursed through his body.

(He kept coughing.)

There was a constant buzz in his head. He couldn’t tell if it was the Spider Sense or not.

(Probably just trying to tell him that he was in danger. Yeah, thanks, Spider Sense, he knew. Sickness. Infected wound. Not fun.)

There was a knock under the window. Then, tentatively, Morgan’s voice rang out.

“ Petey? ”

Peter opened his mouth to respond, but only managed to cough. Once he could speak again, he said, “Yeah?”

“ Are you okay? ”

( I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist. )

A wave of pain ran through his body as he coughed again, his head throbbing. He let out a small whine without meaning to. “Yeah,” he managed to say. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

“ You’re lying ,” Morgan said, and her voice was thick. “ Please, don’t lie. ”

“I’m not lying,” Peter choked out. “I’m fine, don’t worry.”

“ You’re not fine, you’re not! ” She exclaimed. “ Petey, please let me in. ”

“I can’t,” Peter said. His thoughts were swimming. He wasn’t what was real anymore.

“ Please, Petey ,” she said desperately. He was sure she was crying now.

(A faceless child, tears streaming down her face, with nothing he could do to help.)

“ Let me in, please, ” she cried. “ I can’t reach the window, you gotta let me in the door .”

Peter was sure he responded to her, but he didn’t hear anything come out. Despite the fact that he wasn’t moving, the world was spinning. He coughed again, and grit his teeth at the resounding hurt that followed.

“ -Is he okay? ” Morgan asked.

(Peter’s ears were ringing.)

(He had no idea who she was talking to.)

( I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist. )

Morgan let out a sob, and if Peter weren’t so numb, he would try to comfort him.

“ Don’t worry, Petey ,” she said, her voice wobbly. “ I’m… I’m gonna go get help, okay? ”

He tried to protest. 

(Nothing came out.)

“ Don’t worry, don’t worry, don’t worry, ” she said, and it sounded like she was trying to reassure herself. “ Everything’s gonna be fine, don’t worry. I’ll be right back, Petey, I promise .”

Her voice was gone. The ringing in his ears reached a crescendo. He couldn’t hear her footsteps crunching in the snow.

Everything was still for a few, long minutes. Pain rocketed through him with every breath. His head was pounding so hard he was surprised his brain hadn’t just shut down.

(Peter was sure he was dying.)

( I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist. )

There were voices outside, then, and something hitting the wood. Someone was crying, a deeper voice was speaking, and then there was a sound not unlike a gauntlet on an Iron Man suit charging up.

The empty corner that Peter sometimes slept in exploded.

(The three different sizes of hedge trimmers and the unused axe clattered to the ground across the splintering wood.)

Peter couldn’t move his body, but he squinted and looked at the figure stepping through the opening in the shed, and he felt a calm wash over him.

Mr. Stark.

Tony.

Dad.

“Mr. Stark , ” Peter managed to choke out. He mustered the best smile he could. “ Mr. Stark. ”

“ Peter? ” The illusion asked, bending down next to him. There was a pressure on his cheek, and he could almost imagine that Mr. Stark was actually cupping his face.

( I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist. )

“Mr. Stark,” Peter said, gathering all his strength to lightly grasp the wrist of the ghost. “Mr. Stark, I’m so sorry .”

“Kid, what’s happening, what happened to you?”

(Peter was going to cry.)

“I messed up,” Peter said. “I’m sorry.”

His eyes drooped a bit.

(God, he was so tired .)

“No, no, no, don’t you dare do that to me,” Tony said firmly. Tendrils of desperation seeped into his tone. “Don’t you fucking dare , Underoos.”

( I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist. )

He wanted to laugh.

He wanted to cry.

(He couldn’t.)

“I’m sorry,” Peter breathed out again. He closed his eyes. He was tired. He would nap now, and maybe the apparition of Tony Stark would still be there when he woke. 

“No, kid, don’t you dare . Peter, you listen to me, don’t you dare close your eyes. Just… Just open them for me, okay? Keep them open, stay awake, stay with me, kiddo, please .” Arms grasped at him, holding him close. Peter swore he could hear a heartbeat through the incessant ringing in his mind.

There was a sob from somewhere behind the ghost. “ Petey? ” 

It was Morgan’s voice.

( I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist. )

Her word, her near-whispered cry of his name, stirred something in him. Peter’s eyes shot open, and he grasped at Tony as hard as he could, staring up and locking his gaze with Mr. Stark’s own.

“Mr. Stark,” Peter said desperately, trying to keep a tremble out of his voice. “Mr. Stark .”

“Yeah, kid, yeah. I’m right here. I’m right here.”

( I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist. )

( I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist. )

( I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist. )

That wasn’t what he needed. Peter swallowed, took in a deep breath, and spoke as firmly as he could.

“I am Peter Benjamin Parker,” he said. “And I exist .”

The ghost opened his mouth to respond. 

Peter never heard what he said.

Darkness flooded his vision, there was a sharp pang in the back of his head, and there was nothing more.

(That was all right, though.)

(Peter was warm in the arms of a dead man.)

( I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist. )

(He was sure he could stay there forever.)

Chapter Text

For Morgan’s entire life, her dad had been telling her stories of her brother.

He would tuck her into bed, and he would sit down and spin a tale about him. 

“Brother?” She had asked one day, pointing at a picture of Dad with another boy.

Dad nodded, a smile on his face that looked just a little sad. “Yeah, that’s your brother. Peter.”

When Morgan asked where her brother was, Dad said that he was away for a while.

“Will he ever come back?” She had asked.

“Hopefully,” Dad replied.

“Does he not love us? Is that why he’s not here?”

“No, Morgan,” Dad answered immediately. “No, of course not. Something just… happened, and he had to go away for a bit. He would love you, though. I know it.”

Dad knew everything, and so it was easy for Morgan to believe him. 

Morgan’s mom didn’t tell her stories about her brother, though, and when she turned four, she started to notice it.

“Mommy?” She’d asked one day, propping her chin on the edge of her parents’ bed where her mother lay, scrolling through documents on a tablet.

Mom chuckled. “Yes, Mo?”

“Why don’t you ever talk about Peter?”

Her mother faltered. She put her tablet down and twisted a bit to look at Morgan. Morgan reached out, and Mom’s hands lifted her up from her armpits so that they were both sitting on the bed together.

“Mommy?”

Mom sighed. “Morgan, I…” She bit her lip and paused. “I didn’t know your brother as well as your father did.”

Morgan cocked her head, her brow furrowing. “Why not?”

“Well, you know how you’ve known Dad and I since you were born?”

“Yeah.”

“Dad met your brother when Peter was already fourteen.”

Morgan blinked. That was surprising. “Then, who was he with?”

“He lived with his aunt May,” Mom replied. “I think Uncle Happy’s talked about her before.”

Morgan nodded. He had, sometimes, probably when he didn’t think Morgan could hear.

“I didn’t meet Peter until quite a while after that. In fact, your dad didn’t really get to know him, either, for quite some time. A bit after Peter turned fifteen, Dad decided to get to know him more. I met him just a bit after that, and I got to know him too, and, eventually…”

“He became my brother?” Morgan prompted.

Her mom laughed and nodded. “He did.”

“Why doesn’t he ever come visit, then?” Morgan asked.

Mom sighed, and the laughter was long gone. “He’s… Something happened before you were born. I’m sure you’ll learn about it in school one day. It… It was something very bad , and it made it so that a lot of people had to go away.” She paused. “Peter was one of them.”

“Oh,” Morgan said. “When will he be back?”

“I don’t know,” Mom said quietly. “I really don’t know, sweetie.”

“I hope it’s soon,” Morgan commented, playing with her mother’s hair. “I wanna know if he does good voices or not.”

When Morgan was four-and-a-half, her dad was working hard at night. He did that a lot, but it felt different this time. She sat on the steps as she watched him, giggling when he said a Mommy Word.

“Where’s Daddy going?” She asked her mom the next morning. Dad, who hadn’t slept last night to the best of her knowledge, was gathering all of her things up and getting ready to leave. He was going to the Compound, according to Mom. Normally, Morgan was allowed to go to the Compound with him if she wanted, but this time Dad said no

“He’s got something important to do,” Mom replied. 

“What is it?”

Mom took in a shaky breath, watching with glossy eyes as Dad shoved things into the back of the car. “He’s going to try and bring Peter back.”

Morgan was over the moon at the news, despite the worried lines that were creasing her mother’s brow. 

“I’m gonna show him my room, and all my dolls, and I’ll get him to read all the stories, and we can have mac ‘n’ cheese, and-”

Mom nodded along with her rambling, and Morgan didn’t notice the way that her mother kept looking down at her phone, as if waiting for something to happen.

Uncle Happy came to stay with them, saying that Dad sent him. Mom seemed grateful, and Morgan spent a lot of time with her uncle so that her mother could try and relax.

A few days passed, and then FRIDAY spoke.

“ Boss Lady ,” said the magic voice in the ceiling. Sometimes, Dad called FRIDAY Morgan’s sister, because he’d made both of them. Morgan loved talking to FRIDAY. “ I have urgent news .”

Mom, sitting on the couch with Morgan, hopped up immediately. “Tell me, Fri.”

“ Operation Bring Him Home was a success ,” FRIDAY said. Mom’s eyes widened, but she said nothing as FRIDAY continued. “ However, a different version of Evil Purple Grape has followed the Avengers back to this time, bringing his entire army along with him. The Compound has been destroyed, and Boss, Capsicle, and Point Break are now facing Evil Purple Grape alone. ”

Something in her mother’s eyes seemed to shatter. Then, Morgan watched Mom’s gaze darken, harden in a way. “Is the Rescue armor ready?”

“ Of course, Boss Lady. ”

“Happy,” Mom said, turning to Morgan’s uncle, “Keep an eye on Morgan, okay?”

“Of course,” Uncle Happy said. “What are you going to do?”

Mom’s eyes were steely. “I’m going to bring my boys home.”

Morgan stood outside with Uncle Happy as her mom, suited up in a gleaming suit, blasted off into the sky. She turned to Uncle Happy, then, and asked, “Can we have dino nuggies for dinner?”

Uncle Happy smiled down at her shakily. “What about cheeseburgers?”

Morgan thought for a moment before nodding. “Cheeseburgers are good.”

She tried to stay up that night and wait for her parents to come home.

“They might not,” Uncle Happy said. He winced, and continued. “Come home tonight, I mean. Of course they’re coming home. Obviously.”

“You’re being silly, Uncle Happy,” Morgan said.

“I know.”

Morgan was sure that Mom and Dad would be there that night, though. Still, she eventually fell asleep on the couch in her pajamas, and she woke up curled under the blanket in her bed. 

Morgan shot out of bed, pulling on her slippers before dashing out of her room and down the hallway, eventually reaching the stairs. There were voices down there, and she hopped down the final steps, rounding the corner into the living room in hopes of seeing her parents there. 

Instead, it was Uncle Happy and Uncle Rhodey.

She squealed and greeted the latter with a hug, but noticed after a moment the strain in the smile on his face. It was like he had forced it on just for her.

“Uncle Rhodey?” Morgan asked, looking up at him. “What’s wrong?”

Uncle Rhodey hesitated for a moment.

“Where’s Mommy and Daddy?” 

He sighed after a moment. “You know how your dad is a superhero?”

She nodded emphatically. “Yeah! He’s Iron Man!”

“Yes, he is,” Uncle Rhodey said. There was something odd in his voice. “Well, there was a big fight yesterday, in order to save the world. Your dad was fighting a bad guy with the other Avengers. Your mom came to help, too.”

“Were you there?” Morgan knew that her uncle was an Avenger.

“I was,” Uncle Rhodey said.

“Then why are you here and Mommy and Daddy aren’t?”

“Your dad did something very brave,” Uncle Rhodey said. “And it hurt him a lot, so he’s getting better in the hospital now. Your mom is with him, and she sent me here to come and get you.”

“So I can go see them?” Morgan asked, bouncing on the balls of her feet.

“Yep. So, why don’t you go get dressed and we’ll head out?”

“Can we get donuts on the way?” Morgan asked, and her gaze shifted from Uncle Rhodey to Uncle Happy instead.

Uncle Happy sighed and nodded. “Of course we can. I’m sure your parents would like some anyway.”

Morgan ran back upstairs to her room and changed out of her pajamas. Once she had pulled on a shirt and leggings, she brushed her teeth like Mom always told her to before quickly going to meet her uncles at the front door.

“Ready to go, little miss?” Uncle Rhodey asked, ruffling her hair a bit.

Morgan swatted his hand away. “Yeah!”

Uncle Happy was already in the driver’s seat when they got into the car. Morgan and Uncle Rhodey sat in the back, and she buckled herself in just to prove that she could before the car began to move.

“Uncle Happy’s going really fast,” Morgan whispered to Uncle Rhodey after the car took a turn faster than it usually did when they were driving this road.

“He’s just nervous,” Uncle Rhodey said. “The fight was really important and really scary. He wants to make sure that your parents are okay.”

“Okay,” Morgan said. She thought for a moment before adding, “Me too.”

For the rest of the drive, Morgan spent time telling stories to Uncle Rhodey while she held tight to her spider plush. Even though Dad was Iron Man, he always told her stories about Spider-Man, so he was actually her favorite. Dad had laughed when she asked for a spider plush, mentioning that Spider-Man was actually terrified of spiders. Dad had given it to her, anyway.

When they reached the Super-Secret-And-Super-Special-Avengers-Base that was a lot closer to the cabin than the Compound was, Morgan held tight to Uncle Rhodey’s hand as he led her inside and to the Medbay. 

Dad was always put in the same room, and Morgan was eventually pulling her uncle along to it.

“Oh, hello there, Morgan,” Doctor Cho, standing near the door to Dad’s room, said. “How are you?”

“I’m good,” Morgan said, grinning brightly. “I’m here to see my mom and dad.”

“Of course,” Doctor Cho nodded. “Well, your dad’s awake and your mom’s in there with him, so go right ahead.”

Morgan didn’t need any more prompting. She pushed open the door and bounded up to her father’s bedside. 

“Hi, Daddy!” She exclaimed. Her mother was sitting in the seat next to the bed, holding Dad’s hand, so she added, “Hi, Mommy!”

Mom gave her a small smile. “Hey, there, sweetheart.”

Dad didn’t respond. The circles under his eyes were darker than Morgan had ever seen them, darker than they were even when he stayed in the garage and didn’t sleep for three days. They were distant, a bit vacant. It didn’t seem like he was really there .

Mom sighed and nudged Dad. “Tony. Say hi to Morgan.”

His eyes moved to find her, and his throat bobbed before he murmured, “Hi, Mo.”

Morgan frowned. “What’s wrong, Daddy?”

He didn’t respond, and so Mom did, instead. “Dad was trying to save the universe,” she said. “And he had to use some really special things to do it. They were very dangerous, though, and they hurt him really bad, even if he never got to use them, so his arm got burned.”

Morgan, abruptly, noticed the wrappings on Dad’s right arm. “Oh,” she said. She looked up at her mom. “Is he gonna be okay?”

“Yeah,” Mom said. “Yeah, he is.” She didn’t sound very certain.

Morgan’s eyes fell on another empty chair in the hospital room, felt the spider plush grasped in her hands, and she gasped. “Wait! Where’s Peter? Is he here? Didn’t you say you were bringing him home?”

Something cracked in her dad’s gaze. His jaw set, and his eyes, already bloodshot, grew even more red. He leaned his head back and squeezed his eyes shut.

Mom let out a shaky breath, and her fingers tightened around Dad’s hand.

“Mommy?” Morgan asked, his brow knitting together. “What’s wrong?” She swallowed. “Where’s Peter?”

Dad said nothing. Mom was quiet for a moment before speaking.

“He… He had to go away,” she said.

“He was already away!” Morgan exclaimed. “I thought you were bringing him back!”

“I thought so, too,” Dad breathed, his voice hoarse.

“Why did he have to leave again?”

“Your brother did something very brave,” Mom said. She licked her lips, eyes flicking about as she tried to think of the words to say. “He took the things that your dad had and used them himself.”

“What did he do with them?” Morgan asked, leaning forward a bit.

Mom’s voice broke as she spoke. “He saved the universe.”

“Wow.” Morgan’s eyes were wide. “That’s why Spider-Man is my favorite ,” she said.

“He’s a good choice,” Mom said, and her eyes had tears brimming at the edge of them. 

“When will he come back, then?” Morgan asked.

Mom hesitated. “I don’t know, baby.”

“He’s gonna come back, though, right?”

Instead of responding to her question, Mom said, “Sweetie, why don’t you go with Uncle Happy and find some of those pudding cups, the ones in the secret Medbay fridge? I know you know where those are.”

Morgan smiled widely. “Okay!” She opened the door to the room and grabbed Uncle Happy’s hand from where he stood outside, pulling him down the corridor. Uncle Rhodey slipped inside the hospital room as she left and pulled the door closed behind him. 

When Morgan came back, there were new tear streaks on Mom’s face. Dad’s eyes were more glazed-over than they had been before. Morgan moved forward and handed a pudding cup to her mother.

“It’s for you and Daddy to share,” she said.

Mom smiled at her. “That’s very thoughtful of you, Morgs.”

A week later, when Dad got out of the hospital and was finally able to come home, Morgan went to bed thinking about all the things that they would be able to do together the next day. Instead, when she woke up and went downstairs for breakfast, her mom explained that they had different plans.

“We’re having a lot of people over today,” Mom said as she slid two pieces of toast onto Morgan’s plate. They were the tiniest bit overdone. Dad always made better toast than Mom. 

“Why?” Morgan asked. “Are we having a party?”

Mom pursed her lips. “No, not really. Everyone wants to… to thank Peter for what he did, but no one can, uh, go and visit him.” She paused. “We asked his aunt May, and she said that she wanted us to all gather here, because it’s out of the way. It wouldn’t end up being very private if a bunch of Avengers were all getting together in a… place.”

“Oh,” Morgan said. “Okay.” Their house was really good for get-togethers, but they usually always threw them at the Compound. “Why aren’t we having it at the Compound?”

“You remember that really big fight that your dad and I were in, right? A few days ago?” Morgan nodded. “Well, that fight was at the Compound, and during it, the bad guys destroyed everything.”

Her eyes widened. “Can you fix it?”

“There are plans to, sweetie, don’t worry,” Mom said. 

“What about all my things that were there?” Morgan asked, thinking about the toys and books that she had left in her room at the Compound.

Mom frowned. “I don’t know about them, Mo. It was… The Compound got really badly broken. I wouldn’t be surprised if you didn’t get any of that stuff back.”

Morgan sniffed. 

“It’ll be all right,” Mom said. “We’ll get you new things. Just… don’t ask Dad about it for a while, okay?”

“Why not?”

“He’s…” Mom hesitated, and Morgan noticed that her eyes were still red. “He lost someone very important to him while we were at the Compound. We all did. He’s trying to cope with that.”

Morgan’s heart sank and she leaned back a bit. She understood the concept of death, at the very least. Mom had had an aunt die the year before, and they’d had to go out and visit people for that. “Oh. Who was it?”

Mom swallowed. “No one you’ve met, hun.”

“Okay. Do I still have to go if Peter’s not gonna be there?”

Mom’s nod was quicker than Morgan ever could have thought possible. “Yes, you do. No questions asked.”

Her shoulders slumped and she let out a small whine. She hated having to get dressed-up for things. 

A few hours passed, and Mom helped Morgan get ready. She did her hair, put her into a black dress, and kissed her firmly on the forehead before finishing getting dressed herself. When they went downstairs again, Uncle Rhodey and Uncle Happy were there, along with a woman that Morgan had never met before. She sat beside Uncle Happy, who was holding her hand, looking a bit awkward, but determined to stay there. Her face was blank, but she had steady tears rolling down her cheeks.

Morgan broke away from her mother to approach the woman.

“Hi,” Morgan said, holding out a hand the way her parents did whenever they greeted someone they didn’t really know. “I’m Morgan.”

The woman glanced up at her, stared at her hand for a moment, and then cracked a smile. “Hey, there, Morgan,” she said, shaking Morgan’s hand lightly. “It’s nice to meet you. I’m May.”

“Nice to meet you, too,” Morgan said. She cocked a head to the side. “Are you Peter’s aunt May?”

May’s smile faltered for a moment. She nodded. “I am.”

“Wow,” Morgan said. She opened her mouth to ask more questions, but her mother called out to her.

“Morgan,” Mom said. Morgan turned to look at her. Her mom’s eyes were tired. “Not right now, sweetie.”

A few minutes passed, and then the door opened again, revealing more people. There was Uncle Bruce, hunching his shoulders as he walked inside, one of his arms in a sling. Mr. Scott was with him, a man who had shown up out of nowhere in the middle of winter, right before Dad started working harder than she'd even seen him work. Mr. Scott was accompanied by a woman that he held tightly to the hand of, with a little girl a few years older than Morgan on his other side. There was Uncle Clint, who she knew had always been Dad's friend, and yet who had only started showing up in the last few months. He entered with his arm around a woman and three other children in tow.

Everyone was dressed in black.

Mom stepped forward and embraced Uncle Bruce. “It’s good to see you,” she said.

“Wish it were under better circumstances,” Uncle Bruce replied, a sad smile on his face. “How’s Tony?”

“How do you think?”

Uncle Bruce frowned and stepped aside. 

“Scott,” Mom said to Mr. Scott before turning to the woman at his side. “Miss Van Dyne.”

“Hope, please,” the woman said. “Though I am glad you call him Scott. He doesn't deserve anything else."

“Rude,” Mr. Scott retorted. He looked back at Morgan’s Mom. “Pepper. It’s good to see you. This is my daughter, Cassie.” He gestured to the girl at his side. His smile was wide, and despite the fact that he had always been a funny man, he seemed far more relaxed than she remembered ever seeing him in the times he came over to the lake house since the winter.

“Nice to meet you, Cassie,” Mom smiled, reaching out to let the little girl shake her hand. “I've heard much about you. This is Morgan.” Morgan gave a little wave, which Cassie returned.

“Thanks for inviting us,” Hope said. “My parents are on their way. I must say, they were surprised to get an invitation.”

“Their invention was the reason half of the universe is back,” Mom replied. “It was the reason Tony was able to hug him one more time before…” Mom’s voice failed and she closed her eyes, taking in a deep breath before saying, “Of course they were invited.”

Hope nodded. The three of them moved on, and Morgan watched as they drifted through the back door and onto the porch.

Mom sighed at the next ensemble of people. “Clint.”

Uncle Clint offered a smile, but it was strained. “Pepper.”

There was a pause, and then Mom stepped forward and pulled the man into an embrace. He stiffened for a moment before returning it.

“I’m glad you’re all right,” Mom said once she’d pulled away. Her eyes moved to the woman next Uncle Clint. “You too, Laura.”

The woman nodded. “I’m surprised you remembered. We’ve only met a few times.”

“It’d be good if that changed, don’t you think?”

“I wouldn’t mind that at all.”

Mom smiled softly before turning to Morgan. “Come here, sweetie.” She did. Mom placed a hand on her shoulder and turned back to the little family. “This is Morgan, Tony’s and my daughter. Morgan, this is your Aunt Laura, Uncle Clint's wife, and their kids.”

“Lila, Cooper, and Nathaniel,” Uncle Clint said, gesturing to each one in kind. “I'm... they've been really excited to meet you, Morgan.”

Aunt Laura nodded. “As have I. We can’t wait to get to know you better.”

Morgan beamed up at her and then looked at her mom. “You didn’t tell me I had cousins?”

Something in her mother’s eyes flickered, but she shrugged. “Well, as they say, little miss, no time like the present.” Mom turned back to the family. “Why don’t you all head out to the back?”

Uncle Clint gave a nod and pulled her mother into one more embrace before the five moved to the back door and slipped outside.

Morgan wanted to go to the back and talk to the kids around her age, but Mom held her back. “We have to greet people,” she said, and left no room for argument.

The next three people who arrived, Morgan only recognized one of them.

“Uncle Steve!” She exclaimed, surging forward to hug him. When she and her parents went to the Compound on occasion, Uncle Steve was always one of the most fun to hang out with, excluding Aunt Natasha. She didn’t see him as often as she did Uncle Rhodey or Uncle Happy, but he always had a cool story to tell. They had been coming over much more since the winter, just as Mr. Scott and Uncle Clint had.

“Hey, there, Morgan,” Uncle Steve said. “Goodness, you’re getting strong.” He bent down to properly hug her back. “It’s good to see you.”

“Good to see you, too,” Morgan grinned. She looked at the two other men next to him. “Who’re they?”

“These are my best friends,” Uncle Steve said. He gestured at the man with long hair. “This is Bucky.” He waved his hand toward the darker-skinned one. “And this is Sam.”

“Nice to meet you,” Morgan said.

“She’s Tony’s daughter,” Uncle Steve said to the two, and something flashed deep within Bucky’s eyes. Sam nodded and knelt down. 

“Nice to meet you, too, Morgan,” he said. “Fist bump?” He offered a fist.

Her grin widened and she bumped her fist against his.

“It’s good to see you, Steve,” Mom said, finally moving forward.

“You too, Pepper,” Uncle Steve replied, pulling her mother into an embrace. “How are you holding up?”

Mom snorted, but she didn’t sound amused. “As well as I can hope, I suppose.”

Uncle Steve nodded. “Sometimes, that’s all we can do.” He sighed. “It’s weird, you know? Being here?”

“In what way?”

“All these people are back,” Uncle Steve said, “And yet I can’t feel happy about it. Not right now.”

Mom’s shoulders slumped a bit. “I know.” She paused. “Why don’t you all go outside? Some of the others are already out there.”

Uncle Steve nodded, patted Morgan on the shoulder so as to not mess up her hair, and then moved toward the back door, Sam and Bucky following him out.

A few more minutes passed, Morgan got to eat a clementine, and then the door opened again. This time, it was far slower. A single head poked inside.

“Pepper?”

Mom’s head shot up, and her face morphed into some weird mix of relief and something that Morgan couldn’t quite define. “Nebula?”

Nebula stepped inside, and Pepper immediately embraced her tightly. “It’s good to see you,” Mom said.

“Yeah,” Nebula replied. “You too.”

“Hi, Nebula!” Morgan exclaimed, bouncing up to her. “How was space?”

“Hey, there, Morgan,” Nebula said, bending down to her eye level . “It was good. Spacious.”

Morgan giggled, and leaned forward to wrap her arms around Nebula’s neck.

“Holy shit, never thought I’d see the day Nebula made a kid happy.”

Morgan released Nebula, who stood up and rounded on a man standing in the doorway. “Quill,” she growled, “Your commentary is just appreciated as it always is.”

The man shrugged before raising a hand to wave at Mom. “Hey, I’m Peter Quill. Star Lord.” He gestured to the other members of his party. “These are Drax, Mantis, Groot, and Rocket.”

Mom nodded, her eyes falling to the raccoon. “Good to see you, Rocket. Are you doing all right?”

“Better now that Groot’s back,” Rocket replied. “But, yeah, it’s good to see you too, Pepper.”

Quill’s eyes widened. “What? You two know each other?”

“You were gone for five years, Quill,” Rocket retorted. “‘Course we do.” His eyes fell on Morgan. “Hey, kid. You gotta stop growing, you’re gonna get taller than me , and then what’ll I do?”

Morgan laughed.

“Of course she will get taller than you,” the big alien, Drax, said. “It is not a difficult feat. You are incredibly small.”

Rocket ran a hand down his face. “I have no idea why I missed you guys.” He looked up at Mom. “We’ll go around the side to head to the back so no one gets distracted .” He glared at Drax and Quill as he said this. “See ya in a bit.”

Mom nodded. The aliens disappeared, but Nebula stayed put.

“How is he?” She asked after a long silence.

Mom sighed and bit her lip. “Bad.”

“To be expected,” Nebula nodded. She paused. “You know, the only things he talked about on the ship were you and him.”

“I know.”

“He dusted in his arms.”

“I know.”

“I’m sorry,” Nebula said. “Really, truly sorry.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“It’s not,” Nebula nodded. “I’m still sorry.”

Mom stayed silent.

“I’ll head back and try to wrangle those idiots,” Nebula said after a moment. “Let me know if you need anything.”

Mom hummed. “Of course.”

Nebula spoke for a few moments to Uncle Rhodey before she disappeared out the back door.

More people came, greeted Mom, and then went outside. There was a woman that Mom introduced her to as Aunt Wanda , who barely said anything, her eyes distant, before she went outside to join Uncle Steve. There was General Okoye (who Morgan got a bracelet from for her last birthday that she wore every day), accompanied by two other people that Morgan had never met before.

“I am Shuri,” the girl said. She had the same accent Okoye did. “This is my brother, T’Challa. He’s a professional dummy.”

“He’s also the King of the nation of Wakanda,” Okoye added. “Shuri is the princess.”

Morgan’s eyes widened. “You’re a princess? ”

Shuri grinned and jabbed her brother in the side with her elbow before kneeling down to Morgan’s height. “Indeed I am. And who are you?”

“I’m Morgan!”

Shuri tapped her lightly on the nose, making Morgan giggle. “Princess Morgan. Has a nice ring to it, no?” Shuri raised her wrist. “Have you ever seen one of these?”

It was a bracelet, similar to the one that Okoye had given her. Morgan nodded and raised her own wrist. Shuri’s eyes widened just a bit, and her smile grew.

“Well, what a surprise. I suppose our beloved general gave you that?” Okoye inclined her head when Shuri glanced back at her. “Wonderful. Do you know how it works though?”

Morgan scrunched her nose. “How it works? It’s a bracelet.”

Shuri’s smile widened even more. She moved a hand over her own bracelet and tapped on one of the beads. The bracelet shifted, and things that looked like little grains of sand moved to rise over it in the form of the Black Panther helmet. 

Morgan’s eyes widened. “ Whoa . Can mine do that?”

“Not yet, I assume,” Shuri said. Her gaze flicked to Okoye, who nodded in confirmation. Shuri turned back to Morgan. “That’s one of the unmapped ones.” Morgan frowned. “Tell you what. I’ll program it to whatever images you want before we head back to Wakanda, all right?” She grinned.

“Thanks, Princess Shuri.”

Shuri stood up. “Of course, little princess. And, please, just call me Shuri.”

“Okay, Shuri,” Morgan said.

Mom stepped forward. “Thank you for coming,” she said.

“If the rumors are to be believed, that boy is the reason for Thanos’s defeat,” Okoye said. “The reason the world as we know it did not come to an end.”

“We would not miss it for anything,” T’Challa confirmed.

“I am sure Steve will be happy to see you,” Mom said. “Barnes as well. They’re in the back, along with the others.”

T’Challa nodded, and the three moved to go into the backyard. 

The door closed behind them, and Morgan opened her mouth to speak, but she was interrupted by a sizzling sound behind her. Mom placed a hand on her shoulder and pulled her back as sparks appeared in midair. Morgan watched with wide eyes as the sparks formed a circle and an image of a completely different building appeared. Two men stepped through it, and the ring of sparks disappeared behind them, taking the image with it.

“Did you just come out of that? ” Morgan breathed. “How did you do that?”

The shorter of the two men considered her for a moment before cracking a smile. “Magic.”

“Wong,” Mom said, nodding to the man. “It’s been a while. How have you been?”

“As well as I can be, Mrs. Stark,” Wong replied. “Being Sorcerer Supreme has taken up much of my time, as would be expected.” He snorted and shook his head. “I’m also still getting people asking me about your wedding, which makes it much harder to get my work done.”

“The Masters of the Mystic Arts don’t tend to get out much,” the other man said.

“I suppose you’re Strange,” Mom said, finally acknowledging him. “I’m Pepper Stark, and this is Tony’s and my daughter, Morgan.”

Strange inclined his head. “Please, Mrs. Stark, call me Stephen.”

“Only if you call me Pepper,” Mom shot back. “You too, Wong. You were at my wedding, you get that right automatically.”

“How is Tony?” Strange asked, abruptly changing the subject.

Mom’s shoulders slumped a bit. “He’s… not doing well. He was convinced it was meant to be him who… did it, in the end.”

Strange’s lips tightened. “I thought it was, too.”

Mom looked up at him, her eyes widening just a bit. “What? He said that you looked into the future and saw the one way we won. This was it, wasn’t it?”

Stange shook his head. “I saw just over fourteen million possible futures. We only won one of those, where Tony was the one to do it. This future, clearly, was not one of the ones I observed.”

Mom let out a short breath. “You’re going to have to be the one to tell him that.”

Strange frowned. “Where is he?”

“Don’t do it now,” Mom said sharply. “Don’t. I think the only one this is harder on than him is May.”

“It’s incomparable,” May interjected from her position on the couch. She wasn’t looking at them, instead staring off into the distance. “I may have known him for longer, I may have raised him, but… you can’t compare one to the other.”

Mom furrowed her eyebrows. “I would’ve thought you’d be furious with Tony.”

“I’ve seen the suit footage,” May replied. “I know that he tried to do it himself.” She sniffed and let out a humorless laugh. “Peter always was the best of us.”

Morgan didn’t really know what they were talking about. 

“These are the wizards, right?” May asked.

“We are,” Wong said after a moment.

“I told Peter’s friends you would be able to get them,” May said, finally turning to look at all of them. Morgan was surprised that eye bags could get as dark as hers were. “I heard about your portals. Can you?”

There was a beat of silence before Strange asked, “What’s the address?”

May rattled it off, and a moment later there was another glowing ring of sparks in the air. Morgan wondered if this was a portal, if what May had just said was to be believed.

On the other side, there were two teenagers. One of them, the boy, had tears streaming down his face. The other, a girl, had an expression similar to May’s, with a blank face and bloodshot eyes.

May let out a strangled sound. “Oh, Ned, MJ. C’mere.” She got off of the couch, and the two teens noticed her and immediately stepped through the portal without any thought. It swirled shut behind them, and May swept them into a tight embrace.

“May, I’m so sorry,” the boy, Ned, said. “I’m so, so sorry.”

May let out a shaky breath. “He did it for everyone. For all of us. For you two.” Morgan watched as her fingers curled into the backs of their shirts. “You were his best friends. He’d be happy you’re here.”

“I wasn’t a great friend,” the girl, MJ, said. “I was distant, and I never said that I cared about him, and-”

“He knew,” May interrupted, and MJ fell silent. “He knew.”

Eventually, the two teenagers pulled away from May and looked in the direction of Morgan and her mom.

“Hello,” Mom said, a small smile on her face. “You must be Ned and MJ. Peter talked about you a lot.”

Ned’s face, already flushed from the crying, darkened even more. MJ blinked and said, “You know, if not for the circumstances, I’d have a lot of questions for you, Miss Potts.”

“Maybe one day we’ll get a chance to talk about them, then,” Mom replied. “And it’s Mrs. Stark.”

“Sorry.”

“It happened while you all were gone,” Mom said. “It’s all right. Plus, I still go by Potts on occasion, anyway. Just add the ‘Mrs.’ in front.” She patted Morgan’s shoulder lightly. “This is Morgan. She’s Tony’s and my daughter.”

Ned gave a little wave. “Hi, Morgan.”

MJ nodded. “Hello, Morgan.”

“Hi,” Morgan said. “Who’re you?”
“I’m Michelle, but you can call me MJ,” MJ said. She gestured to her friend. “This is Ned.”

“They’re Peter’s friends,” May added.

Morgan’s eyes widened. “You’re friends with my brother? What’s he like?”

There was an awkward silence that fell, though Morgan didn’t notice the tension within it. She rocked on her heels and looked from one teenager to the other.

“Uh…”

“How about they tell you later?” Mom suggested. “We have to get ready for more people.”

May nodded. She beckoned the two teens toward her, and they sat on one of the other couches. May sat back down on the couch she had been on, shifting to the side nearest to Ned and MJ so that they could talk to each other. Her hand was still entangled with Uncle Happy’s.

Mom fiddled with Morgan’s hair for a few moments as they waited for more people to arrive. Morgan’s hair, at one point, stood on end, she heard the buzz of static, and then, suddenly, there was a crash of thunder outside.

Mom’s shoulders untensed. “Thor,” she said.

The door opened, revealing the man himself. He looked different from the Thor that Morgan knew from pictures, but it was clearly still him. He was joined by a woman, dark-skinned with her hair tied back. They were both dressed in black suits.

“Thor,” Mom repeated, giving him a small smile. “How are you?”

“Pepper,” Thor said, returning her smile with one of his own. “I feel I should be the one asking you that question.”

“I’m as well as I can be,” Mom replied. “But I know that you’ve been struggling. How are you feeling?”

Thor was silent for a moment. “I’m doing better,” he said eventually. “Much better.”

Mom nodded. “Good to hear.” Her gaze fell to the axe hanging at his side, grasped lightly in his fingers. “You can leave that in the dining room,” she said after a moment. “Is it like your hammer was?”

“It is,” Thor confirmed.

“The dining room,” Mom said, nodding to herself.

 Thor disappeared in the direction Mom gestured, the woman who had come with him remaining behind. There was a beat of silence before Mom said, “Thor’s friend?”

The woman nodded. “I’m called Valkyrie.”

Morgan’s eyes widened. She’d heard about valkyries in stories before. “Like the fighter ladies?”

Valkyrie inclined her head. “Just like them. I’m one of them.”

“Whoa,” Morgan breathed. Then, she raised an eyebrow. “Wait, if you’re a valkyrie, why is your name also Valkyrie?”

“It’s not my birth name,” Valkyrie explained. “However, long ago, all of the valkyries of Asgard were defeated except for me. As the last valkyrie, I took it as my name, so that all know who I am.”

“Wow,” Morgan said. She looked up at her Mom. “Am I the last Morgan?”

Mom chuckled. “Unfortunately not. But you are the best one.”

Valkyrie nodded. “You’ll be a brave warrior in whatever you wish to do, I just know it.”

Morgan grinned. Thor walked back into the room, stepping to Valkyrie’s side.

“Oh, I suppose you haven’t been introduced,” Mom said. She placed a hand on Morgan’s back. “Thor, this is Morgan, Tony’s and my daughter.” She looked down at Morgan. “Sweetie, this is your Uncle Thor.”

Morgan moved forward and wrapped her arms around his legs. “Nice to meet you, Uncle Thor. Daddy told me lotsa stories about you.”

Thor gave her a wide smile. “Only the good ones I hope.”

She giggled and didn’t respond.

“All right, big guy,” Valkyrie said to Thor, and it didn’t seem condescending in the way Morgan might have expected it to. “Let’s head out back.”

After they were gone, Morgan heard MJ ask Ned why he hadn’t freaked out about being in the same room as Thor, God of Thunder . Ned replied that he couldn’t really think about being happy like that at the moment.

Morgan hoped that he felt better soon. Peter would be upset if he found out his friends were sad. She was sure of it. 

Another few minutes passed. The front door opened again, and an older couple stepped inside. The man wore dark sunglasses. 

“Doctor Pym, Doctor Van Dyne,” Mom said, and her tone was a bit colder, though no less welcoming. “I’m glad you could make it.”

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” the woman replied. “And, please, call me Janet.”

Mom nodded. “Pepper,” she said.

“Hank is fine,” the man said after a moment. 

Mom gave another incline of her head. “Your daughter is already outside with the Langs, though I assume you already know that.”

“We do,” Janet confirmed. “Thank you.” The two made their way to the back door and disappeared without another word.

“Were they not your friends?” Morgan asked once the door had closed behind them.

Mom sighed. “It’s… complicated. Dad and Doctor Pym haven’t really… gotten along in the past.”

Morgan furrowed her brow. “Then… why’re they here?”

There was a beat of silence. “They made a machine that helped save a lot of people. Old arguments are no reason to keep them away.” She cracked a smile. “Besides, it was really your dad’s father that Doctor Pym was always at odds with, to be honest.”

Morgan nodded. That made sense. From the few things that her parents said, her grandfather Howard Stark didn’t seem like he was the easiest man to get along with.

Mom took in a sharp breath, before making a noise that sounded almost like a growl. “Fury.”

Morgan turned to see a man that she hadn’t before sitting in one of their chairs. “Pepper,” the man, Fury, nodded at her. He was wearing an eyepatch. 

“Are you a pirate?” She asked before she could stop herself.

Fury raised an eyebrow, looking a bit taken aback, and Mom’s hand was firmly on Morgan’s shoulder. Before anyone could say anything, though, a new voice cut in.

“Yes, he is.”

Morgan turned to see a woman standing in the open door. Her hair was cut short, a cap secured on her head, and she wore an aviator jacket. Morgan had met her before, a few times, and so she grinned.

“Miss Carol!” She exclaimed, rushing forward. “Are you here for the party?”

Something flickered in Miss Carol’s eyes when Morgan called it a party, but she smirked and nodded. “Yep. And to wrangle that one.” She gestured to Fury, still sitting in one of their chairs.

“You know him?”

“Unfortunately,” Miss Carol said. She straightened up and looked at Mom, nodding to her. “Mrs. Stark.”

“I’ve told you to call me Pepper,” Mom replied.

“I’ve never been the best at remembering things,” Miss Carol shot back, a cheeky grin on her face.
Fury snorted and Mom shook her head before saying, “It’s nice to see you, Carol.”

“You too, Pepper.”

“Anyway,” Mom said, turning back to Fury. “I am going to insist that you either leave right now, or you keep your mouth shut about anything involving any sort of SHIELD Initiative or world-ending issue for the entire time that you’re here.”

Fury opened his mouth, but yet another person cut him off.

“She’s right, Nick,” said a new woman who had appeared in the doorway alongside Miss Carol. “Now is not the time.”

“Hill,” Fury nodded at the woman. “I was going to say that I understand that. I am not here for any reason but to pay respects.”

“Good,” Hill said. “You’d be getting your ass handed to you otherwise.”

Mom let out a short breath that sounded a bit like a groan, and her hands slammed over Morgan’s ears. She could still hear perfectly fine.

“And who would do the handing?” Fury asked. “You?”

“No,” Hill replied, “Even though I could beat you. No, I’d get Carol to do it.”

“And I would do it gladly,” Miss Carol confirmed with a nod.

Fury’s eyes flicked from one to the other and then back again before nodding. “Understood.”

Hill hummed and stared at him for another moment before turning to Mom. “Apologies, Mrs. Stark. I didn’t notice that there were little ears in here.”

Mom sighed and removed her hands from the sides of Morgan’s head. “Just don’t do it again and we won’t have any problems.”

Hill nodded. “So, who is this?”

“I would like to know that too,” Fury added.

“You’ve certainly already read everything there is to know about her,” Mom deadpanned. “Still… Morgan, this is Maria Hill and Nick Fury. Fury, Maria, this is Morgan Stark.”

Morgan gave a wave. Hill smiled down at her. “Nice to meet you, Morgan.”

“Nice to meet you too, Miss Maria.” She turned to Fury. “You too, Mr. Fury.”

Fury inclined his head in her direction, and she swore that she saw the corners of his mouth tilt upward.

“You all can head to the back,” Mom said after a moment. “Pretty much everyone else is already back there.”

The three were gone so quickly Morgan wondered for a few seconds if she had imagined them. 

Mom had Morgan sit with the few people still left inside while she went to go and try to convince Dad to come back out of the garage.

She sat there with them for twenty minutes before Mom returned. There was no Dad in sight.

“Where’s Dad?” Morgan asked. Mom’s eyes were more red than they had been before.

“He wouldn’t come out,” Mom replied, but it felt like she was talking more to everyone else than to her. “Rhodey, do you want to-”

“I’ll do it,” May said, cutting Mom off. 

Mom blinked. “May? Are you… sure?”

May nodded. “He’ll listen to me. I’m the one who’s feeling the closest to how he is. I’ll get him to come out.”

Mom swallowed before giving a nod of her own. “I’ll show you the way.”

When Mom came back, it was without May. She sat down on the same couch as Uncle Rhodey, and Morgan slid into place between them. They waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity (but had apparently only been about thirty-five minutes), May came back, her hand wrapped around Dad’s wrist as she guided him into the living room.

He looked worse than Morgan had ever seen him. 

The circles around his eyes were so dark that Morgan wondered if he had slept at all in the last week, even though she had seen him sleep. He was pale, and constantly looked like he was going to be sick. His cheeks were sunken as if he hadn’t been eating, and his eyes were rimmed with red. She swore that she could see the glistening remnants of tear tracks on his face.

She wondered what had happened that had made him so sad.

“I was there,” he was murmuring to May. “I had them.”

“I know,” May said. “I know.”

“I swear, I wanted to do it,” he breathed. “I did. I wanted to do it, I never wanted him to be the one to do it. I was going to do it, I was.”

“I know,” May said again. “I know, Tony. It’s okay. I know.”

“I did it for him.” His voice broke. “All of it. I did it for him.”

“I know.”

Morgan hopped off of the couch, approached carefully, and wrapped her arms around her father’s legs. He always hugged her when she wasn’t feeling well, so she hoped that a hug from her would help him in turn.

“Hey, Maguna,” Dad said, as if just now realizing she was in the room. He bent down a bit and wrapped his arms around her. His hand tangled into her hair and pressed her head securely into the crook of his neck. “How’re you?”

“Are you sad, Daddy?” Morgan asked instead of answering his question.

“Yeah,” Dad said after a long moment. “How’d you know?”

“You look tired.”

“I’ve been tired before.”

“Not like this,” she said. “This is sad-tired.”

Dad hummed, but it was weak. “I guess I am sad-tired.”

“Why?”

“I already told you, Morgan,” Mom cut in. “Remember?”

“Oh.” Morgan thought back to what Mom had said, about how Dad had lost someone that he cared about a lot during the big fight that had apparently happened at the Compound. She nodded. “Yeah.”

“C’mon, kids,” Uncle Happy said, breaking through the silence as he looked at Ned and MJ. “Let’s head on outside.” The two teenagers didn’t look happy about it, but they followed him regardless. There were tears rolling down both of their faces. Uncle Rhodey stood up, gave Dad a pat on the shoulder, and then went to follow the others. It was just Morgan, her parents, and May left.

“We’ll go outside,” Mom said, turning to Dad and May as Morgan moved away from them. “If you two are ready?”

“I don’t think I’ll ever be ready,” May said quietly, and Mom nodded. Dad’s wrist was released from May’s hand. He grasped her hand in his own, and it didn’t look like the way that Mom and Dad held hands. It didn’t look like the way they held Morgan’s hand either, though. Instead, it looked like it was out of necessity. Morgan was sure one or both of them would collapse if they let go.

Dad took in a shaky breath. “I don’t… It feels like letting go. I don’t… I don’t want to…”

“You’re not letting go,” Mom said, “But you’re allowing yourself to move forward.”

“I don’t want to move on,” Dad replied.

“Not move on,” Mom said, giving him a sad smile. “Move forward . He’ll always be a part of you, of all of us, and you know that he would want you to keep living .”

“I can never seem to stop losing.” May’s laugh was bitter. It didn’t really sound like a laugh.

“He knew what he was sacrificing,” Mom said. “He understood as soon as he put those stones on. He still did it, and he did it for you. You said the same thing to Ned and MJ. He did it for all of us.”

There was a beat of silence.

“He always was the best of us,” May murmured.
Dad nodded. His voice was almost nonexistent as he said, “The best.”

Mom took a deep breath. “C’mon Morgan. Let’s go outside.”

“What about them?” Morgan asked as her Mom led her toward the back door.

“They’ll be out in a minute,” her mother replied. They stepped through the door, Mom closed it behind them, and Morgan looked out at the congregation of people.

All the people who had come through the house earlier were there, standing around with stoic faces and heavy eyes. Uncle Rhodey and Uncle Happy stood at the start of the dock with Ned and MJ. Mom led her past the assembly of people and to the dock, where she finally stopped in the middle of it, pulling Morgan to a halt along with her.

“What are we doing?” Morgan asked, looking up at her mom.

“We’re celebrating Peter,” Mom replied.

“Why is everyone so quiet then?”

“Because everyone is sad that he had to go away again,” Mom said. “We’ll be happier later. Right now, though, everyone wants to be a bit sad. Stay quiet, all right, Mo?”

She made a face, but nodded. “Okay, Mommy.”

A few more minutes of silence passed, and Morgan squirmed in place. Her mother’s hand on her shoulder held her in the same spot. She looked up as she heard the slide of the back door of the house opening, relieved to have something to actually look at.

Dad and May walked out, still hand-in-hand. It didn’t feel weird, even though Morgan was sure that grown-ups were only supposed to hold hands if they were in love with each other. Kiss -love, specifically. She knew that her father and May weren’t like that, and yet they still held hands. Morgan thought about how they still looked like they would fall if they weren’t supporting each other. That was probably why. They held hands because they had to.

Tears rolled slowly down Dad’s face. May’s expression was careful and resigned, as if this was something she had done a million times before.

The crowd, Morgan noticed, had drifted to the side to allow the two of them to walk between the people. Morgan was reminded of the red carpet events that Mom sometimes watched on TV.

They walked slowly, and Morgan fiddled with the edge of her dress as she tried to get a closer look at what was held between them. As they approached, she was able to see it more clearly. 

It was a wreath of flowers, with ones as blue as the ocean and ones as red as blood curling around one another. Little white ones that looked like ringlets were weaved between the larger flowers. 

As they made it onto the docks and passed by Morgan and Mom, she was able to see what was in the middle of the wreath of flowers. It looked like a circle of metal made out of iron. Along the top and bottom, the name Peter Parker was engraved. There was a spider carved into the middle.

May and Dad bent down as one and placed the wreath into the water of the lake. May reached forward and grabbed the metal circle out from the flowers. Her mask of calm cracked and then shattered, and tears streamed down her face as she held the circle close to her heart before pressing her lips against the name Peter written on it.

She passed it to Dad, who stared down at the circle for a long moment, tears falling from his chin and splashing onto the metal, before he, as well, pressed a kiss to the name. He held the circle out to May, who grabbed a side of it, and, together, they placed it back in the wreath. May’s shoulders shuddered with a breath. 

As one, Dad and May pushed the wreath away, and stood up to watch as it drifted off into the lake.

Morgan felt as though there was something she was missing.

When she asked, though, Dad pretended that he couldn’t hear her, and Mom said “ Later ,” and so she was sure that whatever it was couldn’t be all that important.

The ‘party’ wasn’t much of a party, in Morgan’s opinion. It was nice to meet her cousins, and Cassie Lang was only a few years older than her and was really funny, and she loved seeing all of her aunts and uncles in one place (except for Aunt Natasha, but no one would tell her where she was). Still, the mood was dreary, and Morgan was a big girl, so she picked up on it easily.

Dad and May stayed near one another the whole time, talking in low tones that ceased as soon as Morgan approached. Mom stood with them, as well as Uncle Happy and Uncle Rhodey. Those three would drift away sometimes, though. May and Dad stayed in the same spot.

At one point, Morgan went back to them and saw that Dad was gone. Uncle Happy and Mom were standing with May instead. When she asked where he was, Mom told her that he’d gone to the garage. Mom didn’t say when he was coming back, and Morgan knew what that meant. He wasn’t coming back.

That was annoying. Morgan wasn’t allowed in the garage yet, because even though she was a big girl, the garage was for big big girls. It was dangerous, according to her parents. 

She hoped he would at least come out to give her a kiss goodnight. Dad always did, except for in the last week. Mom said that things were hard for him.

Morgan knew that, and also found that she didn’t care if it meant she didn’t get her goodnight kiss.

Months passed. Her aunts and uncles visited more often. Uncle Steve did something with Uncle Bruce, Bucky, and Sam in the forest near the lake, and two hours later they all came in with Aunt Natasha, too. Mom and Dad had cried, everyone had cried, and Morgan had been told to give her aunt the biggest possible hug.

She had, of course.

Dad didn’t tell her stories about her brother as much. Mom didn’t, either. Her aunts and uncles hadn’t known him well.

Morgan still asked for the stories when she was tucked in. Most of the time, Dad would just kiss her forehead and leave. Sometimes, though, he would tell her a short one, with sad eyes. He never talked about time with Peter, just about times when Peter was Spider-Man. She liked both stories, and she missed the ones about Peter Parker rather than Spider-Man , but she didn’t say anything. She didn’t want Dad to stop telling the stories altogether.

Morgan went to kindergarten. Her parents worked with the school to make sure that no one knew who her family was, she was drilled to ensure that she didn’t let anything slip, and yet she had still been able to make friends. It was nice, knowing that people were friends with her not just because her dad was Iron Man. Mom and Dad had been really worried about that.

The year passed by. Morgan had a few sleepovers with some of her new friends after her parents had run a million-and-one background checks on them and their families. She got great grades and brought home projects to do with her parents on the floor of the living room at nine in the night because she forgot to tell them about it until the evening before it was due. She gave them Christmas ornaments that she’d handmade during an hour that was set aside in class for it.

“She could definitely skip a few grades if she wanted to,” Mom said to Dad one night as Morgan rooted through her shelf for the next book in the Magic Tree House series.

“Skipping grades was the worst thing that ever happened to me,” Dad replied. “She can study other things outside of school. She needs to be able to make friends her own age.”

Mom hummed in agreement, and Morgan skipped back over with her copy of Civil War on Sunday .

Morgan’s kindergarten had a winter break that lasted six weeks, all the way through the end of January. Mom and Dad were planning on spending most of it at the lake house, since during the summer they would alternate back and forth between it and Stark Tower in New York City every week.

Her parents had assured her the previous summer that Gerald would be fine whenever they were at the Tower. He would be taken to a farmer who lived fifteen minutes away who agreed to watch him as thanks for her dad being an Avenger.

Her parents still paid him, though.

The night after a big snow storm, Morgan went outside to help her mother with cleaning off the deck. Mom asked her to run and get a bucket from the shed for the rock salt, and so she did.

When she tried the door, though, it wouldn’t budge. 

She tried again, and again, brushing aside more snow than was probably necessary, but nothing.

When Morgan turned to run back and get her mom’s help, though, something stopped her.

“ Wait! ”

She froze. It was a voice, one that she didn’t recognize, coming from inside of the shed. Mom was over on the deck, and Dad was in the garage. There should’ve been no one else in their yard.

“Hello?” She asked, approaching carefully. Stranger danger echoed in her mind.

“ Please, don’t tell anyone ,” said the voice. It was scratchy, and the words were choked. It sounded like it hurt the person to talk.

“Are you… in the shed?” She asked, just to be safe.

“ Yeah, I am ,” the voice said after a long pause.

“Why?” She didn’t understand why anyone would want to be inside of the shed. The shed was boring.

The voice explained how they (he? Morgan was pretty sure it was a guy) had been out in the storm last night and had needed somewhere to hide to get out of the snow. Morgan thought about her parents, one of whom was a real-life superhero, and offered to get help.

“ No, please don’t do that ,” the voice cried.

When she asked, they explained how they weren’t ready to leave yet. Then, they mentioned how they had lost something that they cared about a lot, and Morgan was reminded abruptly of how Dad had acted after he failed to bring her brother home. She thought about how May, who over the months had turned into Aunt May, would come over once in a while, and how she and Dad would get the same distant look in their eyes as they talked, how they would disappear for hours on end, walking around the lake with just the two of them.

Mom had said that Dad needed time. He had gotten better in recent months. He still wasn’t great. Losing things was hard on people, if the effect that losing whatever her father had lost had on him was anything to go off of.

Morgan knew that she was supposed to be wary of strangers, too, but her parents weren’t anything if not thorough. The entirety of the land that they owned, all of the house and the yard, was covered in cameras and scanners and sensors that FRIDAY controlled. If someone got onto their property without having express clearance to, then they would get an alert.

There hadn’t been an alert the previous night. That meant that the person couldn’t be a stranger , and there was no way that they were a danger to her.

She finally agreed to keep the voice’s presence a secret. She would be a spy, just like Uncle Clint and Aunt Nat had been in the stories that her dad told her sometimes.

After giving her what she needed, the voice carefully told her that she shouldn’t trust strangers as easily as she had trusted them, and she laughed and explained how there was no way the voice would’ve gotten into the shed if they were a stranger.

“ But you still shouldn’t talk to someone you don’t know ,” the voice said.

Morgan hummed and frowned. “Oh. I don’t know how to know you, though.” The voice had said they wanted to stay hidden, after all. 

“Uh…” The voice paused, as if thinking. “We can start with this: my name is Peter.”

An image of the boy in so many of the pictures in her house, of her brother , flashed in her mind, and she gasped. “ Whoa! My brother’s name’s Peter!”

The voice, now named Peter, listened silently as she rambled a bit about how excited she was for when Peter finally came back from wherever he was. She wanted to meet him so bad, and she was also sure that he could help make it so that Dad, Mom, and Aunt May weren’t as sad anymore.

She moved away from the window and around the shed, making it back in front of the door. She was about to head back to the house before she thought about how worried Shed-Peter was about strangers. She needed to reassure him.

“My name is Morgan,” she said. “So now you don’t have to worry about talking to a stranger, either.”

They said their goodbyes quickly, and Morgan raced through the mud back to the house where Mom was waiting.

When Mom dragged Dad out of the garage for a nap, Morgan decided it was as good of a time as ever to go and talk to the guy sitting inside of their shed. FRIDAY wouldn’t tell on her, not if Morgan asked her not to, and so she slipped out the back door and ran back over to the shed, her boots crunching in the snow as she went.

She didn’t mean to wake Shed-Peter up, but, in her defense, she hadn’t known he had been sleeping. She passed her favorite Magic Tree House: Merlin Missions book in through the window, wiped off the snow that was on the stool propped up against the shed, and sat down.

He asked her a few questions about the book, and Morgan crossed her fingers as she answered them, hoping that he would agree to read it. He agreed, and even said that he would try to do voices for the characters, and she sat with bated breath, waiting for him to start reading.

Morgan was blown away by how good he was at it. She wondered if he had read the book before. They had become her favorites in the time since Peter hadn’t come back, after Mr. Lang, who came over sometimes so that Cassie and Morgan could play, brought a set of them with him. 

They were a little ways into the second chapter when Mom’s voice called from the house. Morgan pouted, but responded.

“Keep the book with you,” she said before Shed-Peter could pass it back through the window. “Then you can read to me again later.”

“ Are you sure? ” He asked after a moment of hesitation. 

“Yeah!” She replied. “You’re really good at the voices. Better than Uncle Clint, I think.” That was high praise. Uncle Clint was great at the voices. He said it was because he had so much practice. “Bye, Shed-Peter!” Morgan dashed back off toward the house before her mom could call her again.

“What’s for lunch, Mommy?” She asked as she met Mom at the open door.

“Mac ‘n’ cheese, just as the little princess requested.”

Morgan had forgotten that she had asked for that for lunch, but as her stomach growled, she was glad that she had. She laughed, followed Mom inside, and closed the door behind her.

Mom had made homemade macaroni, which was always nice. The Kraft boxed kind was good, but Mom knew exactly how to season the pasta and exactly what types of cheese and milk to use to make it creamy no matter what. 

A few days passed by, and Morgan was pretty sure that Shed-Peter was her new favorite person. Her parents were great and all, but Mom was still CEO of a company. Morgan didn’t really know what that meant, she just knew that her mother was important. Dad owned the company, and did a lot of the ‘ R-N-D ’ work, which required him spending time in the garage. They were able to mostly work at home, but that didn’t mean that they had every hour of the day available to spend with her.

Mom said that in the last week of January, her and Dad were taking all the time off of work so that they all could spend every day together before Morgan had to go back to school. She couldn’t wait.

Until then, though, Shed-Peter was her favorite person in the whole world.

He was always there when she went back, and he always talked to her. He never sounded condescending, he never sounded like he wasn’t actually listening to her. He listened and talked to her as if he actually cared about what she said, even though she was only five-and-four-months old. 

When she played out her stories for him with her Barbies, she would tell stories about her aunts and uncles that her parents had told her. She made sure to always remember to change their names though, just like Mom and Dad said to do if she ever wanted to tell any of her friends any stories of her family.

He kept reading through Summer of the Sea Serpent , and his voices for all the characters stayed the same, even if a whole day went by in between chapters. That was impressive, Morgan thought. Dad was never able to keep the voices consistent.

Shed-Peter mentioned little things, and Morgan thought about how much he was helping her by being her friend, and so she decided to help him, too. 

Before he started reading, she would take his phone up to her room, plug his charger into the little outlet in the back corner of her closet behind her ninja costume, and would let his phone charge while they made their way through another chapter. 

She would bring him plastic water bottles from the storage closet near the garage, and bags of chips from Dad’s secret stash behind the towels in the hallway closet on the second floor. She would heat up a microwave dinner, would eat the mac ‘n’ cheese, and would bring him the dino nuggets, along with some ranch. Thankfully, Peter wasn’t crazy, because he liked ranch, unlike her cousin Cooper, who Morgan was certain was certifiably insane.

One day, over a week after she had met Shed-Peter, they were playing Tic-Tac-Toe, and she noticed him sniffling. 

“Are you sick?” She asked.

“ Maybe ,” Shed-Peter replied.

Morgan frowned. Being sick wasn’t fun, not at all. Medicine was supposed to help, though. “I can get you some medicine,” she said. “I know where Mommy and Daddy put it.”

“ No! ” Shed-Peter exclaimed. He desperately explained how her parents would notice that it was missing, and Morgan knew how afraid he was of someone finding him. Even though she knew that he wouldn’t have been able to get into the shed if he wasn’t someone her parents trusted, Morgan had made a promise to Shed-Peter not to tell anyone, and so she didn’t. He told her that he would get better, soon, and she was sure that Shed-Peter was one of the smartest people she knew, and so she believed him with every ounce of her being.

His phone was apparently still fully charged, and so Morgan pulled over her stool instead of running back to her room to plug it in and waited for him to start reading.

As he began to read Chapter Four of Summer of the Sea Serpent , Morgan did her very best to focus on what he was saying. Instead, though, she found her thoughts drifting.

It was hard not to think about her brother Peter when she was spending so much time with someone also named Peter. That was one of the reasons that she had to call Shed-Peter what she did. She couldn’t just call him Peter . That was her brother’s name.

“Shed-Peter?” She asked when they were halfway through the fifth chapter.

“ Yeah? ”

“Can I ask you something?”

He cracked a joke just like the ones that Dad made when he was in a good mood, and it made Morgan want to bury her face in her hands in shame. Finally, though, she asked her question.

“Can I… Can I call you something other than Shed-Peter?”

He was silent for a moment. Then, he said quietly, “Mo, you can call me whatever you want.”

She loved that he used nicknames for her. Mom and Dad both had names that were nicknames instead of their actual names, and Morgan loved it when people called her some random variation of her own name. Shed-Peter, though, always made it sound different. As natural as Mom or Dad made it sound.

“I don’t want to call you Peter,” she explained. “‘Cause Peter’s my brother.”

“ That makes sense ,” he said, and he sounded like he meant it, not like he was just saying it to appease her. “ It must get confusing .”

“Sometimes,” Morgan nodded, not really thinking about how he couldn’t see it. She fiddled with the hem of her shirt, rocking back on her heels a bit. Finally, she asked carefully, “Can I call you ‘Petey?’”

It was silent for a long moment, and Morgan could feel her heart pounding away in her chest as she wondered if she had somehow made him mad with her nickname suggestion.

“ Of course ,” he replied eventually. “ If that’s what you want? ”

Morgan didn’t really think it was about what she wanted at the moment. “Is that what you want?” She shot back. She swallowed. “‘Cause I’ll… I’ll call you ‘Peter’ if you really want.”

She hoped he didn’t. That would get confusing, and it would make it harder for her to remember that Brother-Peter and Shed-Peter were two different people, one of whom she hadn’t even met yet, and the other of whom she didn’t have any idea the appearance of.

“ I would be honored if you called me Petey ,” Shed-Peter said, and a grin erupted onto Morgan’s face.

“Good,” she said firmly. Now that that was out of the way, they could get back to more important things. “Okay, keep reading.”

“ Your wish is my command ,” Petey said, and launched back into the story.

She made sure to pay attention this time so that he wouldn’t need to go through any parts again when they next read. As he finished Chapter Five, they agreed not to start a new one, but Mom still hadn’t called Morgan in, and it was still light out, and so she began to talk about anything she could think of.

“I’m starting school in a few months,” she mentioned at one point, because she never really thought that kindergarten counted as school. All the things that she learned there were things that her parents had already taught her. It was mostly games instead, but she could appreciate time spent having fun with friends, so she didn’t complain. “I’m really, really excited.”

Petey asked her the date and time next, which Morgan thought was odd considering he had his own phone, but she listed them off either way, reading the numbers off of the Paw Patrol watch that Mr. Fury, now Uncle Nick, had gotten her for her birthday last year. Dad had taken it into the garage for the night when she first got it before giving it back to her looking exactly the same.

Her mind now on the topic of her watch, Morgan described to Petey how Uncle Nick had given it to her, and how she was the only one other than Aunt Carol or Aunt Nat (and, on a rare occasion, Dad) that was able to make him laugh. She talked about how he’d brought his cat, Goose, over twice. She didn’t bother explaining that Goose was some sort of alien cat, because she didn’t really care, and that was supposed to be a secret, anyway. She only knew about it because she had overheard Aunt Carol telling Mom and Dad about how Goose isn’t dangerous to anyone that’s not a threat .

When she’d finished telling her story, Morgan’s thoughts were buzzing, and she sat down with her back against the side of the shed so that she could calm the storm in her mind.

It was odd how, just on the other side of the wood her head rested on, Petey was sitting there. He was a real person, and he was sitting in there, and he liked to talk to her and spend time with her . 

Despite the fact that she was calling him something different now, it was still hard to think about Petey without her thoughts drifting to her brother, Peter, as well. She wondered what Peter would be like, if he would like talking to her the way that Petey did.

Abruptly, she realized that the exact type of person that she hoped that Peter was, was the same person that Petey already was. 

She thought of Aunt May, and about how she’d explained that Peter’s parents weren’t Morgan’s parents, not in the same way, and that his parents had died when he was her age, which was why he lived with May in the first place. Peter and her didn’t have the same birth parents, but they were still brother and sister. Why couldn’t Petey be her brother, too?

“Petey?” She asked, her mind reeling from this revelation.

“ Yeah? ”

“I hope my brother is half as good a brother as you are.”

There was a sharp intake of breath, and then a long pause.

“ I’m not… I don’t have any siblings ,” he eventually managed to say.

Morgan, her thoughts still resting on her previous realization, snorted. “Of course you do.”

“ No, I’m pretty sure I don’t .”

“Yeah, you do!” She wondered if he would figure it out just like she had.

“ Who then? ”

“Me, silly!”

“ ...What? ” 

His voice was quiet, almost less than a whisper. It reminded her of Dad’s sad voice, the one that he’d had back when Peter hadn’t come home.

“I mean…” She twisted the hem of her shirt in her hands. Mom would complain about wrinkles later, but Morgan didn’t care. “I mean, if you… if you wanna be?”

There was another long, almost unbearable pause. Morgan’s eyes stung, and she wondered if she was going to start crying without meaning to.

“ Of course I wanna be your brother, Morgan .”

Her heart soared .

Unfortunately, she still couldn’t see Petey, because whatever was in front of the door was too heavy, and he couldn’t move it. Morgan understood that. A lot of things in the shed were really heavy. He promised to give her a big hug before he left, though, and that he would come to visit, and that was all she could really ask for.

She hoped that Peter came to visit soon, too.

Morgan ran back to the house later with a skip in her step.

“What has you looking so happy?” Mom asked as Morgan skidded into the living room.

“It’s movie night!” Morgan exclaimed.

It was not movie night. She knew that.

“It is?” Dad questioned from his position in one of the chairs.

Mom snorted. “It is now.”

Morgan wanted to watch Finding Nemo , but she also knew that her dad would leave if they did. They had never watched Finding Nemo or Finding Dory as a family. Dad always made up some reason to leave, and Morgan and Mom would watch it alone. 

She didn’t want Dad to leave their impromptu movie night. So, instead, she selected Brave , which had been introduced to their family as a “ must watch ” when Uncle Clint and his family first came to stay with them for a weekend, and settled in between her parents, letting them wrap their arms around her and one another, comfortable and safe.

The whole time, Morgan couldn’t help but think about her brother , Petey, sitting out in the shed, all alone. 

She made a note to ask Mom if they could bake cookies soon. She was sure that he would like one.

The next morning, after Mom agreed to bake cookies on the coming Saturday, Morgan went outside and made a beeline for the shed.

When Petey started talking, she immediately noticed how he sounded worse.

“Just let me get you some medicine,” she insisted. “We have a lot of it! Mom and Dad wouldn’t even notice it was missing!”

It was true, they did have a lot of medicine. It was for a lot of just-in-case scenarios. If a true emergency happened, Dad might have to leave and go be Iron Man, and he could come back hurt. If another Avenger showed up sick or injured, they would need something to make them feel better. If anything happened around the house or outside, her parents thought it was important to have everything on hand.

Still, Petey refused. Morgan had to bite her tongue to stop from telling him that her dad was a superhero. Even if he had gotten in the shed, it seemed clear that Petey didn’t know precisely who she was, nor who her parents were. If she spilled the secret, she would be breaking a rule, and then FRIDAY, with her infinite eyes and ears, would tell Mom and Dad, and then they would find Petey, and then he might have to leave, and he’d be upset with her about it.

Instead, she listened as he explained that it was just a cold, and she forced herself to believe him. He had been out in that storm, afterall, and Mom always said that spending time in the rain when it was cold was an easy way to get sick.

“Okay,” she agreed, letting the matter be laid to rest for the moment. “But you gotta tell me if it gets really bad, okay?” She licked her lips, and thought for a moment about a world with no Petey. “I don’t wanna lose a brother.”

“ Okay ,” he replied.

Two more days went by, and Petey sounded relatively the same. He spoke a bit slower each day, but Morgan supposed he must just be tired. He read through more chapters of Summer of the Sea Serpent , and his voices were a bit messed up thanks to his stuffy nose, but Morgan made sure not to mention it.

On the fourth day after he had first gotten sick, Morgan visited in the morning for a bit after breakfast before returning to the house to do a puzzle with Mom. When she came back out after lunch, Petey didn’t seem to be awake.

An hour later, she went back and knocked again.

Nothing.

Another hour. Another knock.

Nothing.

Morgan wasn’t supposed to go outside on her own when it was dark out. An hour after dinner, though, around eight at night, the pit of worry in her stomach had just gotten worse. She had to check one more time if Petey was up.

“Mommy?” She called out. 

“Yeah, Morgs?”

“I left Leggy outside! Can I go grab him?”

That was a lie. Leggy, her spider plush that was aptly named for his eight legs, was safe upstairs on her bed, waiting for when it was time for her to go to sleep.

Mom sighed. “You know where he is?”

“Yeah, by the shed!”

“All right, but use a flashlight and come right back, all right? No playing. I’ll come get you if you’re gone for more than two minutes.”

Two minutes. Morgan glanced at the seconds ticking down on her watch. That was enough time, provided Petey was awake. “Okay,” she said. “Don’t worry, Mommy. I’m a big girl.”

“I know, Mo. Go ahead, before it gets even darker.”

She didn’t need to be told twice. Flipping on the flashlight on her phone, Morgan shoved her feet into her boots and took off across the yard.

When she got closer to the shed, she heard coughing. She hoped that meant that Petey was up.

“Petey?” She called out carefully, rapping her knuckles against the wood beneath the window.

There was a pause. Morgan could almost feel the seconds ticking by.

“ Yeah? ”

She would’ve cheered if she wasn’t so worried. He sounded worse than he had over the past four days combined.

“Are you okay?”

“ Yeah ,” he said. “ Yeah, I’m fine .”

“You’re lying,” Morgan said, the words almost getting caught in her throat. “Please don’t lie.”

“ I’m not lying ,” Petey said. His voice was hoarse, and it sounded like it hurt for him to talk. “ I’m fine, don’t worry .”

“You’re not fine, you’re not!” Morgan cried, tears stinging her eyes. “Petey, please let me in.” His voice was distant, so she was sure he was lying down on the ground. He wouldn’t get up on his own. She wasn’t even sure if he could . She had to help him.

“ I can’t ,” he replied. He sounded as if he was having trouble figuring out how to make words work.

“Please, Petey.” She grabbed the small stool she normally sat on, pushed it over, and reached up. She could barely reach her hand over the edge of the windowsill. Jumping didn’t help. Morgan couldn’t get a solid enough grasp to pull herself up. “Let me in, please.” The tears were streaming down her face now, but she didn’t care. “I can’t reach the window, you gotta let me in the door.”

Petey didn’t say anything in response. Instead, he began coughing. Each one sent another wave of panic coursing through her.

“FRIDAY,” she called out, not caring that Petey could hear her. Keeping secrets didn’t matter if his life was in danger. “Can you see in there? Is he okay?”

“ I can see inside the shed ,” FRIDAY replied after a long moment. “ Vitals are dropping on the one occupant .” She was picking her words carefully for some reason, but Morgan didn’t have time to think about it, not right now.

“What does that mean?” She asked desperately.

“ Would you like the truth, Morgan? ”

“Yes, please,” Morgan said. The tears wouldn’t stop coming. She stopped trying to wipe at them.

FRIDAY was silent for a long second before saying quietly, “ It would seem that your brother is dying .”

It was as if ice had replaced her blood. She felt cold everywhere, numb, and it came all at once. A sob abruptly wracked through Morgan’s body.

She had promised Petey that she wouldn’t tell her parents about him.

When Morgan had made that promise, though, she hadn’t ever thought that she would be the one person who would know whether or not he was going to die. She was the one person who could choose to tell someone.

She had to. She couldn’t lose her brother.

“Don’t worry, Petey,” she said, all previous promises forgotten. “I’m… I’m gonna go get help, okay?”

A strangled sound came from within the shed, followed by another round of coughs. 

Her mouth was dry.

“Don’t worry, don’t worry, don’t worry,” she mumbled to herself, doing her best to keep her thoughts straight as she hopped from the stool and ran around the shed. “Everything’s gonna be fine, don’t worry. I’ll be right back, Petey, I promise.”

She dashed off through the yard and to the house, biting her lip as the sobs trying to rip from her throat threatened to throw her off balance.

Morgan yanked the door open so quickly she wondered if she broke it. She heard a snap from it, so she wouldn’t be surprised. At the moment, though, she didn’t really care one way or another.

“ Mommy! ” She screamed into the house, her voice echoing around the room. “ Daddy! ”

Mom was in the room less than a second later, her own shout of, “ Tony! ” ringing through the house. Morgan could hear Dad racing down the hallway from the garage as she sobbed, Mom sliding down in front of her and looking her over.

“Morgan? What happened? Are you hurt? What’s wrong?”

Dad entered the room, a gauntlet forming on his hand. It retracted back into his watch as soon as he saw her standing there.

“What happened? Morgan, what’s wrong, sweetie?” He sounded frantic, far more frantic than Mom did.

Morgan took in gasping breaths, trying to keep the sobs from coming. She had a mission. Petey needed help.

“In the- In the shed,” She said desperately. “You gotta help him, he needs help!”

Mom and Dad exchanged glances. “Who needs help?” Mom asked.

“ Petey! ” She exclaimed. “He’s my… my friend, and he needs help!” They looked confused, and concerned.

“C’mon, honey, why don’t we get some hot cocoa and talk about this,” Mom said. A hand was on Morgan’s shoulder. She wrenched her body away.

“ No! ” She screamed. “No, I’m not- I’m not lying! ”

“We don’t think you’re lying, Mo-”

“Petey’s in there and he’s dying! ” Morgan sobbed. “ He’s going to die! I can’t get in, and he needs help! FRIDAY said he needed help!”

Mom and Dad frowned. “FRIDAY?” Mom asked carefully.

“ Yes, Boss Lady? ”

“Is there anyone in the shed?”

FRIDAY was silent for a long moment. “Yes,” she said finally. Morgan let out another wail.

“ It’s Petey! ” She cried. “We have to help him! He’s dying!”

“FRIDAY, who’s in the shed?” Mom asked urgently, ignoring Morgan. She was close to pulling the watch off of Dad’s hand and trying to use the gauntlet for herself. She was sure she could figure it out. Petey was in trouble, afterall.

“ I’m afraid I cannot answer that ,” FRIDAY said after another long pause.

Her parents shared looks of alarm.

“I told you! ” Morgan exclaimed. “His name is Petey! He needs help, he’s gonna die! ”

“FRIDAY?”

Another long pause. Far too long. Morgan’s vision was blurred by tears. She eyed Dad’s watch, ready to pounce.

“ Baby Boss’s assessment is correct ,” FRIDAY finally said. She was being annoyingly vague. It was hard to prove things like that. 

“I said I was gonna help him!” Morgan cried. “I promised! I promised him I’d get help.” She reached forward and wrapped her hands around Dad’s arm, pulling him toward the door, sobs shaking her body. “You have to help! ”

Finally, Mom gave Dad a nod.

“Okay, Maguna,” Dad said. “Let’s go get this guy out of our shed. We’ll make sure he doesn’t die.”

Morgan was sure that they would do something to Petey after that, but that didn’t matter at the moment. Right now, she just needed to make sure that one of her brothers didn’t die.

“Come on! ”

She tugged Dad through the open doorway and then raced across the yard. He was just a few steps behind her. He hadn't even put on snow boots.

Morgan pounded on the door to the shed. “Petey? Petey, can you hear me? Are you okay?”

He didn’t respond. She cried harder.

“Petey, I got my dad. He’s gonna help, okay? It’s gonna be okay. Don’t worry.”

“He’s in there?” Dad asked.

Morgan nodded frantically. “Please hurry, Daddy.” Dad moved to face a corner of the shed, the Iron Man gauntlet forming over his hand again. “And don’t hurt him!”

“Not planning on it,” Dad replied, and it sounded like he was talking a bit to himself. “I’ve got a few questions I need answered, afterall.”

There was the sound of the gauntlet charging up, and Morgan covered her ears as it blasted, sending shattered wood off to the side. She raced forward and ripped some of the pieces of wood away, ignoring the fact that she was definitely getting splinters in her hand.

Dad stepped into the shed. She watched as he froze.

Then, Morgan heard a quiet voice.

“Mr. Stark,” it said, choking on the words. 

Morgan’s heart pounded. That was Petey’s voice. He was awake, and he was talking, and he recognized her dad.

“ Mr. Stark ,” Petey repeated.

Dad looked pale in the beam of her flashlight, the glow of the gauntlet, the yellow light of the lanterns they hung around the trees. 

His lips were parted slightly, as if he was surprised. Then, his voice breaking as he did, Dad breathed, “ Peter? ”

Dad surged forward, bending down, and Morgan moved forward, holding her flashlight out for him. She couldn’t see Petey’s face. Dad’s body was curled over him, holding Petey close.

“Mr. Stark,” she heard Petey say. “Mr. Stark, I’m so sorry .”

“Kid, what’s happening?” Morgan felt a chill run down her spine. She’d never heard Dad sound that scared before. “What happened to you?”

“I messed up,” Petey gasped. Morgan thought that was dumb. Petey had never done anything wrong as far as she could tell. She wanted to tell him that. “I’m sorry.”

More tears poured down her face as he apologized. She wasn’t sure what he was apologizing for, but she couldn’t help crying.

There was a beat, and then Dad was rambling.

“No, no, no, don’t you dare do that to me,” Dad said, and he sounded more desperate than Morgan could truly fathom. It was like he was begging with Petey. “Don’t you fucking dare , Underoos.”

She was sure she had heard that nickname somewhere before, but Morgan had no idea where. Dad had nicknames for pretty much everyone.

Either way, it didn’t really matter, because Dad was sounding more and more worried by the second, and if Dad was worried about Petey, then Morgan knew that she had reason to be, too.

“I’m sorry,” she heard Petey whisper again, and another pang shot through her heart. Tears flowed even faster. Morgan wiped at them, and it didn’t seem to make even the smallest of differences.

“No, kid, don’t you dare . Peter, you listen to me, don’t you dare close your eyes. Just… Just open them for me, okay? Keep them open, stay awake, stay with me, kiddo, please .”

Dad shifted, pulling Petey closer to him. Morgan blinked as she heard him call Petey Peter . She hadn’t told Dad Petey’s real name.

Morgan knew that Dad wouldn’t want her to look at this. 

She didn’t care.

Flashlight in hand, Morgan took another step forward. Finally, she was able to see Petey’s face, after days of not knowing what he looked like. 

She had a face to match with the name of her second brother.

And the face that she saw was that of the first.

It was as if all of the air had been sucked out of her lungs.

That was Petey, she knew it was, but his face was Peter’s . She’d looked at her brother’s pictures a million times before. That was Peter .

Petey was Peter .

Her two brothers were the same person.

Which meant that she was losing both of them at the same time .

“ Petey? ” She asked, but it came out as more of a sob. 

At her calling of his name, Peter’s eyes shot open. He took in a sharp gasp, and his eyes wandered until they found Dad’s.

“Mr. Stark,” Peter said, and Morgan saw how his fingers dug into Dad’s arm. “ Mr. Stark. ”

“Yeah, kid, yeah. I’m right here. I’m right here.”

Dad’s words sounded almost like a prayer. It was as if he needed to keep reassuring Peter just to make sure that he didn’t disappear, just to make sure that this was all real.

Morgan pinched herself, just to be safe.
Her shoulders were shaking, and the beam of the flashlight bobbed. 

Peter looked up into Dad’s eyes, and his voice was the steadiest Morgan had ever heard it as he said, “I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist .”

Dad went to say something, but instead Morgan let out a scream as Peter’s eyes rolled back in his head and he seemed to go limp in her father’s arms.

Dad was breathing heavily. He scooped Peter up, and Morgan took the lead, dashing across the yard and back to the house. The door was still open. Mom was still standing in the living room, waiting for them.

“Oh, my god,” Mom breathed as Dad quickly moved inside. “Is that-”

Dad didn’t reply, instead quickly walking toward the garage, Peter held closely to his chest.

Morgan gripped her mom’s hand tightly. “Mommy, Mommy .” Mom looked down at her, lost. “Mommy, Petey and Peter are the same person .”

Mom let out a small breath. “Are they now?”

Morgan nodded, tears still rolling down her face. “I thought I was only saving one brother. I was saving both of them . They were the same person .” She let out a sob. “FRIDAY said he was dying .”

Mom wrapped her arms around Morgan. She felt her legs fall out from under her as her mom picked her up. Morgan wept into her shoulder, letting her cries rip through her body. She had sworn to Peter that she would get him help, and she had. Dad had Peter, and there wasn’t anything that Morgan could do anymore.

All she could do was sit there in Mom’s hold, cry, and hope that she wouldn’t be breaking any more promises tonight.

Chapter Text

When Peter finally woke up, it was to blinding light.

He let out a groan involuntarily and squeezed his eyes shut. His head pounded, and his ears were ringing.

Peter attempted to open his eyes again, blinking rapidly as he did. The pain in his head didn’t go away, but he was able to force his eyes open without feeling like he couldn’t see. Spots still danced at the edges of his vision. Breathing was hard.

(He was drowning.)

Through the haze, there was a voice. It was muffled, somewhere off in the distance. Peter didn’t try to focus on it.

He sighed and leaned back a bit, his head pressing into the pillow. His heart skipped a beat, and Peter shot up. He looked around, realizing suddenly that he was in a bed .

It was a real bed, too. It wasn’t the pull-out couch he’d used as a bed back in the apartment he’d rented for a month in his own universe. It wasn’t the cold, hard ground of a burned-out building, nor was it the rough wooden floor of the shed. It was a real bed , with a mattress, and sheets, and blankets, and a comforter. There were pillows lining it. Peter’s fingers could curl into the sheets and feel the softness of the fabric beneath them.

Speaking of softness , he wasn’t in his clothes anymore. His sweater was gone, which made him want to cry just a bit.

(May had given him that sweater.)

Instead, he wore a t-shirt. The lack of sleeves made him feel uncomfortable. He hadn’t worn anything but the suit, his sweater, or his sweatshirt for months. Getting new clothes was expensive, and he couldn’t really afford it. He didn’t want to waste his money on any shirts from tourist traps, because it was likely that those would fall apart rather quickly.

(Sleeves always felt like an extra layer of protection, too. No one could see the scars on his arms from his fights. No one could grab him, could send tingles up his spine from the touch of their fingers against his skin.)

(No one could get too close.)

(Plus, Peter was cold. He was never not cold, now. Long sleeves helped with that, at least a bit.)

His mind wandered to what he’d seen before he’d fallen asleep. He wasn’t sure who had actually been there, but he had seen Mr. Stark. Tony, looking just a bit worse than when Peter had seen him right before he’d died. Peter wasn’t sure who had actually grabbed him, talked to him, held him (if anyone), but it had looked like Tony to him.

He wasn’t sure if it had been his mind trying to reassure him, to show him someone he cared about, but Peter was sort of angry about it, because all it did was raise those terrible memories right back up again.

(Tony, kneeling in front of Thanos, a scowl on his lips and fire in his eyes.)

(Tony, body alight with the energy of all six of the Infinity Stones.)

(Tony, with the power of the universe at his fingertips, the six most powerful things in existence clinging to the Iron Man gauntlet, glowing madly with his wish.)

(Tony, standing on the battlefield as Peter ran up to him. Tony, looking at him with a look that Karen would replay for him over and over, something indescribable in his eyes as he stared at Peter. Tony, grabbing him, pulling him close, kissing the side of his head. Tony, hugging him for the first time in five years, and for the last time ever.)

(Tony, lying on the ground, half of his body burnt beyond recognition, whispering out his wife’s name as she held one hand and Peter held the other.)

(Tony, with the arc reactor going dark, and Peter, with his enhanced hearing, feeling the moment that his heart stopped.)

(Tony, dead .)

He was yanked from his thoughts by a knock at the door.

Peter’s head snapped in that direction. There was a long pause, before a familiar voice called out carefully, “ Petey? ”

It was Morgan. His heart pounding in his chest, he responded, “Yeah?”

“ ...Can I come in? ”

Peter must be in her house. Looking out the window, the trees looked the same as they had in the shed. He would be surprised if she hadn’t seen what he looked like, yet.

(How was he meant to protect her if she got even closer to him than she’d already been?)

(Peter was selfish, though. He didn’t want to push her away. He wouldn’t.)

“...Yeah.”

The door creaked a bit, and Peter’s eyes rested resolutely on his hands, laying in his lap, one of them scratching angrily at the other’s wrist.

She was in the room, just a few feet away from him, and Peter felt sick. He didn’t want to look at her.

(Looking at her made it real.)

(Putting a face to the name, to the voice, to the laughter and cries and loving words, to the hand that passed over dinosaur nuggets and a Tic-Tac-Toe board, to the gasps and giggles that came from the next chapter of Summer of the Sea Serpent , to the little girl who leaned against the wall of the shed and called him her brother, made everything real.)

(It made it so that he couldn’t turn back.)

“Petey?”

It was her whisper of his name that made him finally muster up the resolve he needed. 

Peter turned, and his eyes met Morgan’s, and everything seemed to stop.

He wasn’t quite sure what he had been expecting to see. Peter hadn’t come up with any vision of Morgan in his head. 

(A faceless child.)

He didn’t have any idea what hair color she had, nor her eye color, face shape, height, smile. Nothing but her voice and her skin tone, which he saw whenever her hands reached up over the windowsill. 

So, really, he should have been prepared for anything. He shouldn’t have expected anything.

Apparently, though, he did have expectations, and those expectations were shattered as his heart skipped a beat, and he realized that the girl that he was staring at was Morgan Stark .

She took his shocked silence as some sort of confirmation in her mind, because Morgan bounded forward to the edge of the bed and stared up at him, intensity glimmering in her eyes.

“You do know me!” She exclaimed.

Peter struggled to find words. His heart pounded in his chest so fast that it hurt. “I… I don’t…”

Her eyes were big and sad.

(The way that they were on the day of Mr. Stark’s funeral, as she listened to his final message for her.)

“Petey,” she said quietly, “Why didn’t you tell me that you were Peter?”

He was confused, more confused than he had ever been, even in the first few days that he had his powers, when he couldn’t stop sticking to things and broke door knobs off  just by trying to turn them.

(When every little noise made his ears feel like they were splitting apart, when every light was so bright he thought his eyes were on fire, when everything first became too much, too much, too much .)

“I don’t…” His voice was dry. “I don’t understand.”

None of this made any sense at all. 

Ignoring the fact that Morgan Stark didn’t remember him, she shouldn’t even be here. Peter was meant to be sent to another universe. He had been so sure that he had been sent to one. He was supposed to be far, far away, in a world without Peter Parker, in a world without anyone he knew. 

(No one was supposed to know who he was, not in the new world nor in his old one. )

(So why was it that Morgan Stark did? )

He hadn’t seen her since two weeks before the rejection letters from MIT came in, the last time that he had visited the lake house. She had been just a tad taller than this Morgan was, but her hair had been shorter, because she’d gotten it cut in October.

(That was partly his fault. He’d helped her dye the ends pink for her birthday the month before, only realizing after that they hadn’t asked for permission. Thankfully, Mrs. Stark wasn’t mad. Still, the look on her face when she first saw it nearly gave Peter a heart attack.)

Regardless of the inconsistencies between this Morgan and the Morgan from his old world, though, Peter knew that he had bigger things to worry about.

Because how was there a Morgan Stark here if this was a different universe?

The only true consistencies that had existed between his universe and those of Peter-2 and Peter-3 had been them being Peter Parker, Spider-Man . Their New Yorks were a bit different, their families were different, their friends were different, and, most importantly, the other two didn’t have the Avengers . There was no Captain America, no Guardians of the Galaxy, no Black Widow, no Thor, no Iron Man, no Tony Stark. Stark Industries didn’t even exist, if the confusion on their faces when he offhandedly mentioned it was anything to go off of.

The only thing that overlapped had been him .

And, on one hand, Peter understood that it was because the multiverse was pulling in people who knew that Peter Parker was Spider-Man, so obviously it would go to universes where he existed and was Spider-Man, but Peter was sure that those two universes were the ones closest to his own. That would make the most sense, especially in trying to explain why only villains from those two and only Peter Parkers from those two entered his own universe.

Despite being the closest two that still had a Peter Parker who was Spider-Man, they had nearly no similarities to his own world.

So, then, how could there be a Morgan Stark in another world that recognized him, knew who he was?

He wished he’d asked Strange more about magic while he had the chance.

Abruptly, it was as if all the air had been sucked from his lungs.

(Underwater.)

(Drowning.)

There cannot be a version of you already present, Doctor Strange had said. Living or dead, if there is already a version of your soul in whatever universe you are sent to, then further collapse could occur.

(Was his heart beating fast, or was it trying to pound out of his chest?)

Peter wasn’t in another universe. He couldn’t be. He couldn’t be in any universe where any version of his soul existed, whether living or dead, and yet there was Morgan Stark, standing right in front of him, talking to him as if she knew him.

Why didn’t you tell me that you were Peter?

Her brother, Peter, who she had never met, but was told stories about that she repeated with enthusiasm. 

Who hadn’t been around since before she was born.

(Morgan had been born while Peter was nothing more than dust in the wind on a distant planet made of nothing but ash and blood.)

“You’re my brother,” Morgan said earnestly, and Peter was suddenly reminded of her presence. “My parents always told me about you. Peter Parker.”

That solidified it.

(Set in stone.)

(Carved into his back.)

(Cemented in his mind.)

(Terrifying confirmation.)

He was still in his world, or he was in one just like it, but there were too many similarities. Peter wasn’t sure what had happened, but it must have caused all the memories to return, if this was still his home. Maybe it was something he brought with him?

(His thoughts were determined, yet they were muddled.)

(A haze of dull pain, from his head to his toes and back again.)

(His shoulder was throbbing.)

Something had gone wrong with the spell. Peter didn’t know what, but it made him want to scream. Wherever he was, a Peter Parker existed in some fashion, whether living or dead, and that meant that Peter himself had failed.

( What was the point of that, of all of that, if he was just going to end up here? )

(Every time he tried to swim, he just sank deeper down.)

The door opened again. Peter’s head swiveled, and his blood ran cold as his gaze met that of Pepper Potts-Stark.

“Morgan,” Pepper said, as if nothing about any of this was wrong. “Why don’t you go play with your dolls for a bit?”

Morgan frowned, and it was the same exact frown she always gave her mom when she was told that she couldn’t have a third serving of mac ‘n’ cheese even though Peter could.

(Eventually, they started giving Morgan smaller helpings so that she could have more of them. That had worked like a charm.)

(The memory made Peter feel sick.)

“I don’t wanna,” Morgan replied firmly. Her fingers tangled into the sheets of the bed. “I wanna stay here with Petey.”

“You can talk to him later,” Pepper said, and her tone left no room for argument.

(Which meant, of course, that Morgan would argue.)

“ Mommy! ” Morgan groaned, throwing her head back and nearly falling over with the force of it. “I wanna talk to Petey!”

“We have to talk about grown-up things.”

“You always said that Petey wasn’t a grown-up yet,” Morgan said.

Pepper raised an eyebrow. “He’s more grown up than you, little miss. Go on, go play.”

Morgan seemed to finally understand that she was fighting a losing battle. 

She turned to Peter, moved closer, and threw her arms around him for a quick moment before she ran out the door.

Where her skin touched his, it burned.

(Thousands and thousands of pins, needles, knives, all jabbing into his flesh.)

(Fire, scorching his arms.)

(Goosebumps, erupting and making him shiver.)

(The urge to flinch away, suppressed so hard that it made his sides hurt.)

He wished that he still had his sweater. 

He wished that his arms weren’t bare.

(He wished that everything would go back to normal.)

“How are you feeling?” Pepper asked. Peter snapped from his thoughts.

She had closed the door behind Morgan. His ears were ringing, and his Spider-Sense buzzed in the back of his mind like it always did these days. It settled a bit in Pepper’s presence, though.

(She’d always had that effect on him.)

Peter’s mouth was dry, and he didn’t know if he stayed silent because he didn’t want to talk, or because he couldn’t .

She frowned at him, and she looked just like Pepper as she did. Peter wasn’t sure if this was fake or real. He didn’t know which he wanted more.

(Fake meant that he hadn’t failed as badly as he thought.)

(Real meant that someone knew him, someone cared for him, someone loved him.)

“Are you okay?”

Peter stared up at her. “I don’t…” He let out a shaky breath. “I don’t understand.”

Pepper sighed. “Well, we’re in the same boat there.” She looked tired. “Tony wants to see you.”

He felt like the ground had been swept out from under him. 

(He was falling, he couldn’t breathe .)

(Underwater.)

(The surface was choppy, and every time he surfaced, a wave pushed him back under and shoved him even deeper.)

(Drowning.)

There was no way that any of this was real, he was sure of it. It wasn’t possible that he was in a world where he had never existed, but people knew who he was, but Mr. Stark was alive. Those three all meshed together into an amalgamation of impossibility.

Distinctly, though, in his mind, the image of a face popped up. The last one who had shown him Mr. Stark.

Quentin Beck .

“No,” Peter said immediately. “No, please , no.”

Not-Pepper looked as if she was trying to apologize with her gaze. “I’m sorry,” she said softly. “I don’t think you really have a choice.”

Out of anyone who could be doing this to him, Beck seemed like the most likely suspect. On one hand, Peter had been sure that he died. On the other hand, Peter himself had died, along with half of his universe, and yet here he stood.

It wasn’t really beyond the realm of possibility that Beck had survived, too. It was more believable that one person remembered who he was than everyone, and Beck had known that he was Spider-Man. 

(Obviously he had, if that video stating that he was a murderer, broadcasting it to the world, was anything to go off of.)

“He’ll be in here in a minute,” Not-Pepper said, seeming to take his silence as agreement. She had that look on her face that Pepper always did when she wanted to say something more, but thought better of it. The expressions fell away, and Not-Pepper opened the door, stepped outside, and closed it behind her.

Peter was on his feet a moment later. His Spider-Sense was a steady buzz in the back of his mind, like it had been since he’d been erased, and he prayed that it would still flare when he was in imminent danger.

It stayed the same as he moved as quickly as he dared across the room. Peter wondered in the haze that was his mind how Beck had come to know what the inside of the Starks’ lake house looked like. 

He reached the window on the other side of the room and looked outside. It looked normal. Peter squeezed his eyes shut and unlatched the window, pushing it open a bit and leaning his head out.

He was struck with a cold breeze, and the fresh air was so shocking that he physically reeled back for a moment. He took a few breaths and then shifted forward again. 

The air smelled fresh, despite the slight congestion he had. It was cold, too, the way air should be in the winter, biting at the skin in a way that left it flushed. Still, Peter had thought that he was outside during some of the times with Beck, and he hadn’t been. 

If this was Beck again, he couldn’t be too careful.

Peter was debating his options when he heard the door open again. 

He froze in place.

“Peter.”

His shoulders hunched, Peter turned in the direction of the voice.

Mr. Stark looked more tired than he had even on the final battlefield in the ruins of the Avengers Compound. His skin was pale, his eyes hollow. 

The thing that was most wrong was the fact that he was alive .

Peter’s heart hammered in his chest.

“Peter-”

“Don’t come closer,” Peter managed to say. His tongue felt heavy.

Not-Tony stopped moving. His eyes were sad, and Peter felt like he was going to be sick.

“Kid, take a breath. You’re okay, just relax,” Not-Tony said, and Peter’s stomach churned. His eyes were stinging.

“Don’t come near me,” Peter said. “Don’t.”

(Images of the Iron Man suit opening, a skeleton of Tony falling out of it, Beck cackling in the distance.)

(Tony was dead. He wasn’t here.)

Peter was certain that Beck, or someone like him, was here. He’d heard as Tony’s heart stopped. He’d been at the funeral. Whatever was going on, this was not Tony. Despite all of the fuzziness that clouded his mind, despite the pain and sickness coursing through his body, Peter was able to latch onto that thought and hold tight to it.

“Kiddo, listen to me.” Not-Tony’s voice sounded strange, but there was determination in it. There was drive. “Just breathe. Everything is fine. How about we just sit down and have a talk, okay?”

“I don’t want to talk to you, Beck,” Peter said before he could stop himself.

Something flickered across Not-Tony’s face at his words. His paranoia-fueled Spider-Sense flared.

(This was Beck, it had to be, it had to be .)

The illusion took a small step forward, and Peter launched himself out the window.

( Falling, falling, falling .)

He barely managed to roll into a landing. Small rocks and sticks dug into his skin, but he pushed himself off the ground, ignoring his growing headache, and sprinted as fast as he could in the direction of the open woods, steps crunching as he ran over the layer of dew frozen and clinging to the grass.

Peter ran with his eyes closed, focusing with all of his energy on his Spider Sense. It screamed in the back of his mind, his body moving of its own accord to dodge trees. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been running, but when his legs eventually gave out, any sign of civilization was nowhere to be seen.

Peter sat against a tree, and the bark felt real beneath his fingers, the layer of frost strikingly cold. Maybe he really had been somewhere in the woods, and the people and house had been the only illusions.

At the moment, however, Peter didn’t care. His mind was muddled, his Spider-Sense didn’t really seem like a warning as much as a cry for help. It was blaring even now, but Peter didn’t really want to listen to it anymore. His head was pounding, his nose was stuffed, his throat hurt, and he wanted nothing more than to start crying.

The image of Not-Mr. Stark was bright in his head, amid all the fog, and he wished that he could just push it away and never think about it again.

The scabs on his hand were almost gone, leaving behind soft red lines where the glass had stabbed into his skin. His shoulder still ached, but he didn’t know how healed it was, especially after it had gotten infected. 

His body felt numb, and Peter wasn’t sure he could get up even if he tried.

(He didn’t really want to, either.)

There was the sound of repulsors.

Peter knew that he should move. Beck and the drones had found him. Peter should move.

(He didn’t.)

He felt the vibrations in the ground as the Not-Iron Man suit touched down a few feet away.

The suit opened, and Not-Tony walked out.

“Peter,” he said softly, and Peter felt like he was going to cry. His throat ached.

“Please, stop,” Peter whispered, squeezing his eyes shut. “Stop showing him to me. Please.”

( Stop reminding me of everything I lost .)

( Stop it, stop it, stop it .)

He heard nothing, and then a few footsteps, the pebbles on the ground being moved by the shoes scuffing through them.

“Beck, please ,” Peter whispered desperately. “I don’t know what else you want from me.”

“Kiddo, I don’t know what you’re talking about. C’mon, catch me up, get us on the same page.” The words were so terrifyingly Tony that Peter wanted to sob.

“I don’t have anything else to give to you,” Peter rambled. “You already took everything. I don’t… I don’t have anything else. Please . Please stop showing him to me .”

(Of all people, of all people , stop showing him Tony.)

(Stop using Tony’s body and face and voice and words.)

( Stop it, stop it, stop it .)

There was a long beat of silence, filled only by Peter’s breathing, which he was sure was going to become hyperventilating soon enough.

“March thirteenth, 2018,” Not-Tony said. “It was Tuesday, which meant that it wasn’t a lab day, but I always told you that you could come in whenever, anyway, so you did. You told me that the next day was Pi Day, 3/14, and that you wanted to go out and get pies for your Decathlon team to celebrate. We went to a really weird bakery and you insisted on trying every pie in existence. We ended up going to the medbay because you didn’t realize that spider aversion to peppermint made it into an allergen for you.”

Peter’s heart hurt, ached as his mind flashed with the memories.

“We were lucky that the serum somehow didn’t get rid of Cap’s apparent allergy to dragonfruit, because we had an Epi-Pen on hand that would work for you for a bit before your body burned through it. We ended up having to give you like four of those before they started doing anything, but it worked, and you were fine.” Not-Tony (or maybe not) snorted, but the sound was weak. “The first thing you said when you woke up was that you wanted to get one of the pies that nearly killed you, because you were sure that some of the kids on your team would love it.”

(They had. Peter remembered how Betty had taken half of the pie home with her, along with the name and address of the bakery, because she had loved it so much.)

Peter’s breaths were harsh, grating on both his ears and his lungs.

(Little knives in his ears, in his throat, in his heart. )

“I… You can’t…” His voice broke, and Peter bit down hard on his lip to keep from crying.

“Hey, no, none of that,” Not-Tony said, gesturing to his face. “We’ve talked about that. Better to just let it out than have to deal with cleaning blood off your face.”

They had talked about that, Peter was well aware of it. The conversation played in his mind as he clenched his jaw and grit his teeth to keep from biting down on his lip again.

His shoulders were trembling, and through the tears that blurred his vision, Peter could see Not-Tony’s hand shaking, balled into fists. It was the same thing that Tony always did when he was fighting off a panic attack because he was focusing on Peter instead. 

(He’d always felt bad about that, but Mr. Stark had always said that seeing Peter all right was one of the best ways for him to calm down.)

He squeezed his eyes shut.

“You’re dead,” Peter whispered. “You’re dead .”

The sob that had been welling up in his throat finally forced itself past his lips. Peter’s fingers gripped his hair, pulling hard on the strands as tears streamed down his face.

“I’m not,” Not-Tony said. “I’m not.” Peter’s body shook with the force of another sob. “Can I come near you?”

(Tony always asked that when Peter was struggling. Can I come near you? Can I hug you? Can I hold you? )

( Please .)

Peter must’ve said that last thought out loud, because a moment later there was a presence right next to him. 

A moment of silence passed. Another sob ripped from Peter's throat, and that seemed to be the final nail in the coffin.

Not-Tony was reaching out, and there were arms around him a moment later. Peter’s skin stung wherever Not-Tony’s flesh touched his own, but he was too exhausted to move away, and despite the electricity that the contact sent dancing through his veins, it was also addicting. 

Peter leaned closer, and his head rested against Not-Tony’s chest. A hand came up and rested in his hair, pressing his head and holding him in place, not seeming to care that he hadn’t had a shower in far too long.

He took a breath, and it hit him, abruptly, what was happening.

He was being hugged .

The tears were flowing more freely, but Peter couldn’t bring himself to care at all. He felt too tired to wipe at his face. As another sob coursed through his body, the arms around him seemed to tighten a bit, almost as if trying to shield him from everything else.

“It’s okay, kid. You’re all right. I’m right here, and I’m not going anywhere.”

( That was Tony. )

(He knew it was.)

“You did,” Peter choked. “You did .” He let out a shaky breath, and tried to curl up tighter. “You died . How are you here? You died .”

“I didn’t,” Tony replied calmly. “I’m right here with you. I’m alive, you’re alive. We’re both alive.”

The sound that he let out was somewhere between a whimper and a wail. “ How are you here? ”

There was a broken chuckle. “I feel like I should be asking you the same question.”

“I…” Peter wet his lips.

(How could he even begin to try and describe what had happened?)

“You don’t need to answer,” Tony said, and his fingers began to slowly card through Peter’s hair. “You don’t need to say anything. Just breathe, kiddo. It’s all right. Everything’s all right.”

As any and all adrenaline faded from his body and he felt his eyes gradually drooping shut, Peter was surprised to find that he believed him.

Sitting here, held tightly for the first time in months, Peter’s mind flicked to the one thing that had kept him sane for so long.

“I am Peter Benjamin Parker,” he breathed. “And I exist .”

A beat of silence. “That’s right, kid,” Tony said then. “You are Peter Benjamin Parker, and you exist.”

As darkness crept in, Peter could have sworn he was smiling, and there was a warm feeling in his chest that hadn’t been there since before he lost everything.

He felt safe .

(Because Tony was here, and Tony always made everything all right.)

Chapter Text

Peter woke up warm.

That was something that he wasn’t quite used to. Warmth, softness. It was all so foreign.

His mind, foggy from sleep, tried to organize itself into coherent thoughts.

One thing popped to the forefront.

Tony.

Peter gasped, shooting upright, his eyes flying open before he let out a small cry of pain and closed them. The light was incredibly bright, and completely unexpected. His head pounded.

“ Setting lights to 30% .”

The light behind his eyelids decreased, and when the pangs in his head had died down, Peter carefully opened his eyes. The lighting in the room had lowered exponentially, making it much easier for him to see.

Peter’s mouth was dry as he asked, “FRIDAY?”

“ Hello, Mr. Parker, ” FRIDAY replied. Her voice was soft, and despite so long without hearing it, it was familiar. “ How are you? ”

Peter’s throat hurt. He wet his lips and carefully asked, “Is… Is this real?”

His eyes scanned the room he was in, and it was the same one that had been set aside for him at the lake house in his own universe. There were none of his personal touches in it, but it was still the same room. It looked the way it had the first time he’d ever walked inside.

“ It is ,” FRIDAY said. “ Would you like me to prove it? ”

Peter nodded shakily. There was a lump in his throat.

“ Your name is Peter Benjamin Parker, born August tenth, 2002. You’re terrified of spiders, despite being Spider-Man. Boss always keeps the freezer stocked with Stark Raving Hazelnuts after he found out that it was your favorite flavor of ice cream .”

Peter took in a few breaths, willing his heartbeat to calm down. “Thanks.”

“ Of course, Mr. Parker .”

“Peter,” he said.

“ Of course, Peter. ” There was a beat of silence. “ Boss is on his way. ”

If the footsteps coming closer to the door were anything to go off of, Peter was sure he was. There was a long pause as the steps stopped, and then a knock on the door.

Peter’s fingers curled, tightly gripping the sheets of the bed. 

“Come in.”

The door opened, then closed, and Peter stared up into Tony Stark’s eyes.

They were quiet for a long time.

The seconds ticked by, and Peter’s heart beat at least twice in each one. Tony looked different than he had when Peter had seen him on the battlefield. That was to be expected, he supposed, but it was still odd.

Obviously there was no Iron Man suit, no blood or dirt smudged on his face. His hair was wild, though, like it had been in the ruins of the Compound, unbrushed and uncared for. Tony had looked tired when Peter had seen him, and he still looked tired, but this was different.

On the field, people dying around them and fire raining from the sky, Tony had looked tired in the way that seemed almost manic. His eyes had been wide and desperate. His movements were as if he was a puppet being controlled by strings, tugged along by nothing more than his adrenaline and willpower alone. 

Now, though, Tony looked tired in the way that would better be described as exhausted. There were dark circles under his eyes, which were ever-so-slightly sunken in. It was impossible to tell whether or not his eyes were red from lack of sleep or from crying. 

Maybe both.

The slump of his shoulders, the deliberate movements he’d made as he entered the room, all screamed of the kind of tired that came after a victory, when everything seemed to come to a stop and all there was to do was stew in the win and wonder distantly what came next.

Tony was just wearing jeans and a sweatshirt with the sleeves pushed halfway up his forearms, similar to how he dressed throughout the winter when they weren’t doing work in the lab. Peter’s eyes flicked down to Tony’s right arm, and something cold settled within his chest. Even though it seemed like Tony had full movement of it, the skin was scarred, an odd mottled red that snaked over the limb. The worst part looked to be right around the palm. Peter’s eyes could follow the curling scars that must follow the energy path that the Infinity Stones ran down. 

Tony looked older. Well, maybe older wasn’t the right word. Drained might be better. Resigned . 

( Lost .)

“Can I come closer?”

Tony’s voice was the same, for all that was different about him. It still made something warm settle within Peter’s chest. Despite his skin buzzing from nerves, a sense of safety draped over him.

He swallowed, and his hands felt clammy, but he nodded.

Tony moved over and sat down on the bed. Peter was sitting up, and Tony copied his position, crossing his legs beneath him. The two of them stared at one another in mirrored postures, and Peter felt like he was in the backseat of his own mind as he noticed, distantly, that Tony was making sure not to let their knees touch.

Tony’s eyes were rimmed with red, but there were no tears waiting to spill. Peter barely saw him blink. It was as if Tony was worried that he’d close his eyes and Peter would disappear.

(He couldn’t blame him.)

(Peter was trying not to blink, either.)

Finally, after something like ten seconds or ten hours had passed, Tony asked, “Can I touch you?”

(No one but May and Pepper knew that Tony asked that when Peter was in a state .)

(Every single time, he would ask.)

(“ Sometimes I don’t like being touched ,” Tony said once when Peter asked, in a rare moment of vulnerability. “ It makes me feel scared. I don’t want to ever make you feel like that. ”)

(Tony was always the most honest while sitting next to Peter in the medical bay.)

Peter nodded, and there was a jolt through his body as Tony’s knee pressed against his own. Both of them were wearing pants, and so there wasn’t any skin touching skin, but the contact was still odd. 

Then, there was a hand squeezing his, and Peter was sure that he was going to throw up. 

Tony’s fingers were just as rough and calloused as they’d always been from tirelessly slaving away in his workshop until Pepper sent Peter down to guilt trip him into sleeping. His hands were warm, or maybe Peter’s were just cold. His grip was firm, but it was gentle enough that Peter was sure he could pull away with little resistance. 

Instead, after a long moment, he gave a weak squeeze of his own in return, fighting through the clamminess of his hands to do so.

Peter was staring down at the way Tony’s palm rested over his own, and he didn’t even notice as another hand rose up to cup his face.

His head was nudged up slightly, and Tony’s hand felt like the only thing keeping Peter from collapsing. He grit his teeth, his eyes stinging, and stared at Tony, doing his best to not flinch away from the buzz that the contact gave him.

After a moment, though, Peter found that he didn’t want to move away. The buzz turned comforting, warm. It was an anchor.

(He was drowning.)

(It was a lifeboat.)

Peter’s free hand moved up to grasp at the one cupping his cheek, his fingers desperately fumbling to find purchase. His breaths were ragged, causing his shoulders to shake, but Tony didn’t seem to care. 

Instead, he gave Peter a smile. The kind of smile that would come along with a laugh of incredulity as the impossible managed to happen. 

Tony let out a small breath that was halfway between a laugh and a sigh. His eyes were shining.

“I’m so happy to see you, kiddo,” he said, his voice soft enough that there was no possibility of it breaking.

Peter let out a shaky breath and pressed his face further against Tony’s hand. In turn, Tony shifted forward and pulled Peter into a hug instead.

As Tony’s arms wrapped around him, Peter’s didn’t do the same. His hand fell and they stayed in his lap. Tony didn’t seem to mind, though, because sometimes their hugs were just like that . He shifted his grip a bit, and Peter leaned forward to let his head rest on Tony’s shoulder. Tony’s chin bumped against the top of his head, and Peter felt fingers gently carding through his hair while the other hand pressed against Peter’s back, holding him close.

(Peter had missed being hugged.)

Peter sniffled, trying his best to keep from crying so that he didn’t get Tony’s shirt wet with his tears.

Near his ear, Tony said, “It’s all right, Underoos. Everything’s all right. You’re safe, I promise.” There was a beat of silence. “I’m right here.”

(Tony had always said not to be embarrassed about crying.)

(“ You ever heard of toxic masculinity, kid?” “Yeah, MJ’s talked about it.” “Good, we’ve gotta get all of society’s shitty lessons trained out of you before Pepper takes it upon herself to do it, instead. I already went through it, don’t want anyone else to have to experience that.” )

Peter squeezed his eyes shut, and tears found their way through the gaps, slowly trickling down his face and falling off of his chin and onto Tony’s shirt. There was no reaction, and the embrace didn’t stop, and so Peter let himself cry and try to pretend that this was normal.

“Pete,” Tony said after a long moment, pulling back a bit to look Peter in the eyes. His hand rested against Peter’s forehead for a moment, as if checking for a fever. It didn’t even look like Tony realized he was doing it. “What happened to you, kiddo?”

“I…” Peter’s mouth was dry, and his eyes stung. “I messed up, Mr. Stark. I messed up really, really bad.” 

Tony let out a small breath and gave him a smile.“You don’t need to tell me right now if you don’t want to,” he said. “Do you remember the rule?”

He did. “Unless it’s life-threatening, just make sure to tell you before I’m thirty.”

( “Unless you might die, kid, you can keep things private ‘til then.”

“Why thirty, Mr. Stark?”

“Want it to be twenty-five?” )

( “You gotta know you can trust me, kiddo.”

“I do…”

“And I trust you, which is why I trust you to tell me if there’s ever something important.”

“...Thanks, Mr. Stark.” 

“‘Course. Now, get to work, that’s enough sentimentality for one week and that code isn’t going to write itself.” )

Tony grinned. “That’s right. Wait as long as you need, Underoos. I’m right here whenever you’re ready.”

Peter let out a small breath, his shoulders sagging as he did, and now he was quite sure that Tony still holding him in the embrace was the only reason he hadn’t fallen back onto the bed.

Tony gave a sigh, and Peter could feel how it shuddered in his chest.

“I do have one question, though,” Tony said.

“Okay,” Peter whispered, not trusting himself to talk any louder.

Tony was silent for a long few seconds, staring into Peter’s eyes, before he asked, “Pete, how are you alive? ”

Peter blinked. Out of any question Tony could have asked ( how did you mess up, what did you do wrong that I need to fix, why are you such a disappointment- ), that had not been what Peter had been expecting.

“What?” He asked eloquently.

Tony’s lips tightened into a line, concern dancing in his eyes. He wore his emotions on his sleeve far more than he had back when they’d met. “How are you alive, kid?”

“I…” Peter ran his tongue over his teeth. “I don't know what you’re talking about, Mr. Stark.”

“Peter, you…” Tony looked as if the words were painful, his voice strained as he said, “You died, kid. Half a year ago.”

Peter would’ve recoiled if he felt he had the strength. “I… what? ”

“Saving the universe,” Tony continued. “You snapped Thanos and his army away, do you remember?”

His brain felt like it was short-circuiting. Snapped Thanos and his army away?

“What?” Peter asked. “But… But you-”

Finally, the reality of the situation seemed to sink in. 

Peter was in another universe. For him to be sent here without causing further collapse of the multiverse, there couldn’t be a Peter Parker, alive or dead, already here. Yet, everyone he’d seen here so far knew him, recognized him.

Strange’s words, from an eternity ago and also only two weeks, echoed in his mind.

(“ The only thing that is powerful enough to release a soul is them being destroyed by the direct power of one of the Infinity Stones of any individual universe. ”)

(Just like his Tony had been.)

There had once been a Peter Parker in this universe, one who had lived the same life he had lived up until the Battle for Earth, when he’d snapped instead of Tony. His soul had been destroyed, then, by the direct power of all six Infinity Stones. 

There had once been a Peter Parker in this universe. Then there wasn’t.

And now, there was again.

His heart hammering in his chest, Peter realized that the person that Tony hoped that he was wasn’t who Peter was at all.

Tony wanted his version of Peter Parker, the one who’d sacrificed everything to save the universe, who’d probably died in his arms, who’d left behind a memory of trying to do something good. Who’d been a hero .

Instead, he got Peter .

The version of Peter Parker who’d messed up on such an astronomical scale that he had to be sent into another universe just to save the multiverse from his own mistakes.

(The version of him who failed, who messed up, who couldn’t live up to what people thought he could, who did nothing but get the people he cared about hurt- )

(The beaten, battered, broken version of him.)

(He was drowning.)

Peter leaned back, and Tony let him, the embrace falling away. He missed the feeling, he missed being held , but he swallowed down those thoughts, his throat aching as he said shakily, “I’m not… I’m not your Peter.”

Tony’s brow furrowed deeply, his hand moving forward seemingly on instinct before stopping, hovering halfway between him and Peter. “What are you talking about, kid?”

“I… I didn’t… I’m not…” Peter let out a shaky breath. His chest felt cold and hollow, and his heart ached. He wanted nothing more than to let Tony wrap him back up in a hug and block out the rest of the world, but he couldn’t. “I’m not your Peter.” 

(Maybe he was, once. Not anymore, though.)

“I… I messed up really bad,” Peter managed to say. “And the… the multiverse started to collapse.” He ignored the fact that Tony probably didn’t even know the multiverse existed, yet. “To… Because it was my problem, Doctor Strange, to… to fix it, he had to send me to another universe.” Peter swallowed, and his throat felt like it was on fire. “One with no Peter Parker. That was… here.” He sniffed, his eyes stinging. “I’m not… I’m not your Peter. I’m just…” His voice failed and Peter’s shoulders hunched. “I’m sorry. I’m not the Peter that you’re missing. I’m just… me.”

He sat there in the moment, his heart pounding in his ears, a steady pain in the back of his head, and his skin burning as if there was electricity dancing beneath it. 

Then, he was being hugged again.

Tony held Peter close, one hand on his back and the other on his head, pressing his face into the crook of Tony’s neck. Peter was sure that he was hyperventilating, but he did his best to breathe, despite the fact that the air around him felt like it was suffocating him.

( Drowning. )

“It doesn’t matter,” Tony murmured close to Peter’s ear, his breath tickling his skin. “Not at all, kiddo. It doesn’t matter where you’re from, whatever fucked-up future or alternate universe you came from, because you’re still my kid .” His fingers moved carefully through Peter’s hair. “You’re still Peter.”

Peter grit his teeth so that the sobs that escaped weren’t too loud. They were still painful, though, tearing out of his throat regardless.

(It had been so long since someone thought that he was enough.)

“Is that why you said I was dead?” Tony asked after a few moments. “‘Cause in your universe, I am?”

Peter nodded into Tony’s shoulder. “You… You snapped. To… To save the universe.”

Tony let out a wet chuckle. “Huh. And I thought I said never to do anything I would.”

There was a warm swell in his chest, one so foriegn and yet so familiar that it burned comfortingly within him.

Tony sighed and leaned back a bit. He stared at Peter for a long moment, as if trying to commit his face to memory. “How ‘bout you take a shower, bud? Then we can grab something to eat.”

Peter was sure that he would be sick if he tried to eat anything at the moment, but he nodded. “Okay.” 

(Either way, it had been far too long since he’d taken a proper shower. One where the water wasn’t freezing to the touch.)

Tony led him toward the bathroom across the hall. Peter knew where it was, but he supposed that if this Tony’s Peter had died at the Battle for Earth, he would’ve never seen the lake house. Tony never would’ve shown it to him.

(Tony never showed Peter the lake house. Pepper and Morgan did.)

The shower, which Peter had always loved because the water temperature changed the moment you turned the dial, looked exactly the same as when he’d last seen it. The only difference was that the soaps that Pepper always kept for when he came over weren’t there. Tony, who Peter hadn’t even noticed had left, reappeared with bottles, a change of clothes, and a bright red-and-blue-striped towel that Pepper had once explained Morgan had insisted on getting because it reminded her of the Spider-Man suit.

(Peter definitely hadn’t almost cried the first time he’d heard that.)

(And his eyes definitely didn’t sting as he saw that same towel set down on the edge of the bathroom counter.)

(Definitely not.)

Tony gave him a soft smile tinged with sadness, pat him on his uninjured shoulder, and said something, but Peter couldn’t hear it through the muffled roar in his ears. 

(It was as if he was underwater.)

(Drowning.)

Peter nodded anyway, the movement quick and jerky. It didn’t seem to satisfy Tony, whose smile fell away for a moment before returning. Still, it seemed that Tony wasn’t going to press, and, distantly, Peter was grateful for it. The door closed behind Tony as he left, and Peter was alone.

(Well, not completely. He knew that FRIDAY was in there, watching him through her heat sensors because there were no actual cameras in any of the bathrooms.)

(Still.)

Peter carefully turned on the water, his hands twisting to the perfect temperature on instinct. He made a face, and turned more, the water steaming as it quickly heated up. 

Standing there in a t-shirt and sweatpants, Peter already felt more exposed than he had in weeks. No sleeves covered his arms, no threadbare jacket draped over his shoulders.

He pulled his socks off and stepped into the shower, the rest of his clothes immediately getting soaked. 

The water was hot enough to burn, but it wasn’t scalding, and Peter didn’t have the energy to make it cooler. Instead, he stood there as his hair got wet, darkening and going more limp than it had already been, clinging to his face.

(The same way it had the night that May had died-)

Peter’s legs were shaky, and, vaguely realizing that he didn’t want to slip in the shower, he sat down on the tiled floor, crossing his legs beneath him. When he ducked his head, the stream of water just barely missed his face, instead landing on the back of his neck and streaking down over the sides of his wet shirt. A few stray drops bounced out of the jet and landed on his face. Peter didn’t really care that much, and he put his hands in his lap, letting them fall still. The warm water felt almost like rain.

(Peter had never known the shower in the Stark lake house to run out of hot water.)

(He sat there until the water turned cold.)

Chapter Text

He wasn’t quite sure how much time had passed when he finally turned off the water in the shower. Peter peeled off his soaked clothes and grabbed the towel that Tony had left for him. His hair was still damp, but he didn’t care much, pulling on the new set of clothes that seemed a mirror of the previous one: a t-shirt with a cheesy science pun and a uniform pair of gray sweatpants.

Peter shook his head quickly, small droplets of water flinging off of his hair and hitting the skin of his face. He let out a shuddering breath and turned to look in the mirror.

Despite the last month, the face that looked back at him was the exact same one that had back in the studio apartment the day that he had been evicted. Sunken cheeks, half-healed cuts, and dull, lifeless eyes. 

Eyes that held something deep and hollow within them, something dark and sad and broken .

Peter’s chest hurt and his throat ached and there was something hot coursing through his veins, pounding in his head. 

His eyes met his reflection’s. He blinked, and barely heard the mirror shattering through the storm in his mind. 

Peter took a strangled gasp, feeling the tiny cuts beginning to open up on his hand again.

(The same hand that just this morning had finally begun to lose the scabs from the last time he did this.)

His eyes stung as tears began to make their way down his face.

Overhead, FRIDAY said, “ Hold on, Peter. Boss is coming .”

Not even five seconds later, the door to the bathroom burst open. Peter wondered whether it had been locked and FRIDAY had opened it, or if it had been unlocked the entire time.

Tony’s face appeared in Peter’s vision.

“Hey there, kiddo,” he said. “What happened?”

“I…” Peter’s voice failed him. “I just… I didn’t mean to-” He choked on his words.

“All right, it’s okay, kid,” Tony said, patting him on the shoulder. “C’mon, let’s get back to your room.” Tony carefully guided Peter away from the glass shards scattered across the floor. Peter caught his own eye in a piece of shattered mirror, and wrenched his gaze away as that same hot, sharp pain welled up inside of him.

Tony sat Peter down on the bed, and a moment later, Pepper appeared in the doorway.

“Hey, honey,” Tony said, not turning to look at her. “Mo’s good?”

“She didn’t like it, but she’s staying at a friend’s until after dinner,” Pepper replied. “The Johnsons, you remember them.”

“I’m sure I do,” Tony nodded. “Their daughter’s… Mandy?”

“Maddie,” Pepper corrected.

“Maddie.” Tony finally turned his head to meet Pepper’s eyes before his gaze flicked back to Peter. “Pep, could you grab the first aid kit from our closet and help Peter out? I’m gonna go clean up the bathroom.”

Pepper didn’t question him, just nodding and disappearing out the door. Tony patted Peter gently on the shoulder and left as well.

Pepper’s face reappeared just a moment later, a first aid kit tucked under an arm.

“What happened?” Pepper asked, taking his bloody hand in hers.

“I punched the mirror,” Peter replied.

Pepper hummed, grabbing the tweezers from the kit and carefully picking the shards of glass out, dropping them onto a piece of gauze. Her hands were terrifyingly steady, and Peter remembered that this was the same woman who, years ago, had apparently pulled a magnet out of a hole in Tony’s chest.

(“ On accident! ” Pepper had protested when Tony first told Peter the story.)

“Any reason?” Pepper asked, drawing him out of his thoughts.

“I… For the mirror?”

Pepper nodded, already beginning to wrap Peter’s hand in bandages.

“I don’t…” Peter cleared his throat, biting his lip for a moment. “I don’t like looking at myself.”

“Seems a bit more intense than that, sweetie,” Pepper said. She pressed down a piece of tape against the end of the bandage, sticking it in place. “There. All better.”

Peter blinked down at his wrapped hand. Then, a moment later, his eyes fell to the blood dotting the clean comforter of the bed. He swallowed, hard, and was on his feet a moment later, stumbling away from the bed.

The room was a comfortable size, normally, but right now it just felt far too big. Peter’s eyes met his own in the mirror propped in the corner of the room. He sucked in a strangled breath and fell back into a corner, sinking to the ground and wrapping his arms around his legs. His nails dug into the sides of his knees.

Pepper stared at him from where she sat on the bed before standing up, moving to the closet, and pulling a spare sheet from a higher shelf. She unfolded it, shook it out a bit, and draped the sheet over the mirror, covering it from view. Pepper’s shoulders sank just a bit with a sigh, and she turned her attention back to Peter.

“Can I sit by you?” She asked.

The words rang in his head for a long moment. His stomach churned, but Peter nodded minutely. She seemed to pick up on it, though, because she moved toward him and sat down on the floor a few feet away, folding her legs beneath her.

“Are you comfortable there?” She asked, and she didn’t sound condescending. It was just a question. She was just wondering.

Peter nodded, the movement a bit shaky. His eyes still stung, and his face was still wet. “It’s… too much,” he said. It wasn’t much of an explanation, but Pepper nodded as if she understood anyway.

As he stared into her eyes, Peter was hit with the fact that he didn’t really know this version of Pepper.

The first time that he’d ever met Pepper, it had been in Tony’s temporary workshop, the second-highest floor in another building in New York that S.I. owned, in the middle of October of 2017. It had been just two weeks into his official internship at Stark Industries, and he’d barely started working on getting his footing with Tony on a more regular basis, when all of a sudden, Pepper fucking Potts walked in.

(“ Anthony Stark! ” She exclaimed, moving with a purpose that would’ve made the Winter Soldier tremble. “What is this I’m hearing about you not attending your meeting with the board again?! ”

“ Pep! ” Tony grinned, turning away from the code that they’d been working on together to look at her. “What a surprise!”

“One meeting every two weeks,” Pepper said, her eyes fiery. “That is all I ask of you, Tony.”

“Actually, to be fair, you ask a lot more of me,” Tony said, and then quickly shut his mouth at Pepper’s responding glare.

“What are you even doing?!” Pepper demanded. “Don’t you have another meeting with R&D in two hours? ”

“I do indeed,” Tony said, the smile returning. “And right now, I have Peter’s internship.”

Pepper blinked, her eyes flicking to Peter as she finally noticed him.

“Oh,” she said, her voice much softer. “Hello. I’m Pepper. You must be Peter?”

Peter nodded frantically, his face warm. “Yep, that’s me! It’s so nice to meet you, Miss Potts. An honor. Really.”

Pepper smiled gently. “Pepper is fine, honey.”

“Good luck with that, Pep,” Tony said. “He’s still calling me ‘Mr. Stark.’”

Pepper hummed. “More respect than you deserve.” She turned her attention back to Peter. “Well, it’s nice to finally meet you, Peter. I hope he’s not too much to deal with.”

“Not at all, Miss Potts,” Peter said.

“Let me know if he ever is.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Hey!” Tony exclaimed indignantly. “I’m right here .”

Pepper huffed out a laugh and Peter tried to hide his grin. “Well,” she said, “I’ll let you two get back to it. Tony, do put these internship days into the calendar, or we’ll have to have words .” The doors opened as she approached them. “And don’t miss that meeting, or I will find you .”

She gave Peter one more wave, and the doors slid closed behind her.

There was a beat of silence before Tony said, “You should come by more often. That was the best a Tony-missed-a-board-meeting-and-Pepper-is-pissed conversation has ever ended.”)

He’d known Pepper in the early months of 2018, too, on a more personal level. There had been times when he’d gone over to the workshop and ended up staying the night, simply because they’d worked too late. Then there had started being the times that May would have to go out of town for the weekend for one reason or another, and so she would send Peter to the internship on Friday and have him stay through the weekend with Tony, and, as a result, Pepper.

Through all of that, Pepper had never seemed anything less than completely and utterly put-together. When she was working, her hair would be pulled back into a tight bun. She’d wear pantsuits or crisp blazers and pencil skirts, standing on heels higher than Peter’s aspirations the entire time. She’d hold a briefcase in one hand and a tablet in another. Her expressions would be schooled, her words careful and measured, and yet her eyes would be alight with something strong and indescribable.

The next version of Pepper that Peter had seen had been after Tony’s funeral.

That version of her was quite different from the other one. It was clear that she was the same person, but her priorities had shifted. 

As had her life.

That Pepper wore whatever she felt like. Sweaters and t-shirts and hoodies with leggings and sweatpants and jeans. She’d walk around in slippers and fuzzy socks inside the house and tennis shoes or flip-flops outside. Her hair would be down, but it wouldn’t be straightened or curled. She seemed to just run a brush through it once and call it good. 

The public never saw that version of her, instead still viewing the old one, but Peter, who, at Pepper’s request, visited the lake house once a month, had. He’d seen the hollowness in her eyes that she tried to drown out by doing a million-and-one things at once. He’d seen the way she held Morgan tight, as if she was worried that she would disappear.

(He’d felt the way Pepper held him close, too, closer than she ever had, as if there was some piece of Tony that she could get out of him by doing so.)

(Peter had never really understood that.)

He’d seen the slower movements, heard the tired words and hitched breaths, stared into the empty eyes, and he’d done his best to make things easier. He’d take Morgan outside and run through the yard with her on his back, he’d play dolls with her in her room, or let her sit across from him in the bathroom and do his make-up with the supplies she’d gotten for her last birthday.

(Five months after Tony had died, after the return of Peter and everyone else who had been gone, after what had felt like the end of everything , Pepper had invited him and May to join them at the lake house for Christmas. They had gone, and it really had been a small gathering like Pepper’s invitation had promised, because it was just him, his aunt, Pepper, Morgan, Rhodey, and Happy. They’d arrived on December twenty-third, and had left on the twenty-sixth. 

Out of the entire group, Rhodey had been the only one with an actual clue about how to cook a holiday meal from scratch, but on Christmas Eve he recruited Pepper, May, and Happy to all help. Peter had kept Morgan entertained, something he was all-too happy to do, and the dinner had turned out great.

The next morning, Peter, who had slept on an air mattress in Morgan’s room so that May could take the bed in his, was woken by Morgan nearly jumping on top of him in her excitement. Pepper had forced everyone to eat breakfast first, which largely seemed to be because she needed time to get coffee into her system before Morgan got into the presents under the tree, and had passed around mugs of hot chocolate to anyone who wanted one. 

The air had smelled like cinnamon and frosting, with not a bit of peppermint found anywhere considering Peter was technically allergic to it.

After all the presents had been unwrapped and everyone was moving back into the living room, Pepper had pulled Peter aside for a moment.

“Here,” she said, pressing a present into his hands. 

Peter turned it over. There was no name on it. At Pepper’s small nod, he ripped the wrapping paper off and opened the box.

There was a tiny Iron Man plushie inside. 

“Squeeze it,” Pepper said.

He did. Beneath his fingers, a small heartbeat kicked up, lasting for about eight seconds before stopping.

Peter looked back up at Pepper.

“Tony got it for you,” she said quietly. “About a month before Thanos. He saw it in a store window, thought it was cute. He thought you’d think it was as funny as he did. He bought it, said he’d give it to you for Christmas.” She sighed. “A few years ago, when we moved here, he found it in storage and told me that he knew you had panic attacks sometimes. He thought that this would help. Something to ground you when you needed to be grounded and he and May weren’t there to help.”

Peter’s eyes had stung and he pressed the plushie again, feeling the heartbeat beneath his fingertips, the same way he had felt Tony’s before it’d suddenly stopped.

He’d kept it in the Stark lake house, too nervous about something happening to it in the chaos that was his apartment with May. Then, one day, two weeks before his next scheduled visit with the Starks, the entire world forgot who Peter was, and the plushie remained in the lake house, with no one having any clue who it belonged to in the first place.)

The version of Pepper sitting in front of Peter was different from any one that he had seen before. 

This Pepper was not an irritated CEO, nor a fiancee exasperated by her other half, nor a mother trying to pull her family through the loss of her husband. No, this Pepper was instead a woman with a living husband and happy daughter, trying her best to navigate through life but lacking the sort of unimaginable pain that she’d held when Peter had most recently talked to her in his original world.

Her hair was tied up messily in the kind of style that didn’t look good on anyone except for Pepper Potts-Stark. She was wearing a gray University of Southern California sweatshirt and black leggings. She had navy blue fluffy socks on instead of slippers. Her nails were neon pink, making Peter think that she’d let Morgan pick the colors. Her eyes were a bit tired, but there was none of the emptiness, none of the hollowness, that he’d seen there after Tony had died in his own world.

“Peter?”

He blinked. 

Pepper smiled gently. “You back with me, hun? You zoned out there a bit.”

He took in a shaky breath and nodded.

Her smile widened just a bit. She leaned back, her hands with the bright pink nails coming up to fold in her lap.

“So,” she said with the air of someone about to start an important conversation. “Tony told me that you’re… Peter Parker from another universe?” He nodded and she let out a breath. “Okay. That’s fine. This is all fine.” She paused. “He didn’t really tell me much else, though.”

“I didn’t tell him anything else,” Peter said, his voice sounding more like a croak than anything. 

“Okay,” Pepper said. Her eyes flicked downward and then back up. “Did… Tony tell you about what happened to our…” She frowned. “...To Peter from this universe?”

Peter was a bit confused by her correction, but nodded. “He… yeah. I… I snapped, right? Instead of Tony?”

Pepper nodded the affirmative. She opened her mouth to speak, but a shiver ran down his back and Peter tuned her out as he realized, abruptly, what he’d just said.

I snapped.

Instead of Tony .

( Me instead of him. )

( Tony, alive. )

( Tony, dead. )

( Peter, choosing between the two. )

There was a heavy sinking in his stomach, something searing and painful . His heartbeat increased, pounding in his chest. His vision sparked with darkness, and Peter felt like he was going to be sick.

I snapped .

Instead of Tony .

In his own universe, Peter could’ve snapped , and then Tony would’ve still been alive .

If Peter had snapped in his own world, Tony wouldn’t have died. Pepper would still have her husband. Morgan would still have her dad.

Mysterio wouldn’t have gotten control of EDITH. He wouldn’t have died, and then framed Peter for his murder. Peter wouldn’t have been outed as Spider-Man and put everyone he loved in danger. Ned and MJ wouldn’t have gotten rejected from MIT. 

The memory spell would’ve never been cast and then messed up. New York never would’ve gotten attacked by villains from another universe. Peter 2 and Peter 3 never would’ve been ripped from their homes and forced to fight villains they’d already defeated.

May never would’ve died .

Peter took in a strangled gasp, desperately trying to take air in.

May wouldn’t have died. Happy wouldn’t have been arrested. Peter 2 wouldn’t have been stabbed. 

Peter never would’ve been erased in the first place .

Instead, though, he’d just watched as Tony snapped his fingers and turned Thanos and his army to dust. He’d just watched as Tony had died, a happy future dying right along with him.

“Peter?” Pepper asked. “Peter, what’s wrong?”

“I could’ve…” Peter shook his head, as if doing so would stop his thoughts from screaming at him. “If I’d just… He didn’t… He didn’t have to die .”

“Peter, sweetie, breathe for me, please.”

He tried.

He couldn’t.

“If I’d… I could’ve snapped. He didn’t…” He looked at Pepper frantically. “ He didn’t have to die .” Peter was trembling as he said, “ I could’ve died instead .”

FRIDAY said something overhead, but Peter couldn’t make out her words over the storm roaring in his head, bouncing between his ears and drowning out anything else.

“I could’ve died instead of him,” Peter choked. “I could’ve… And then everything would’ve been fine. Everyone would’ve been happy if I’d only- ”

“Pete.” Tony’s voice cut through the hurricane, lulling his mind to calm. It was as if he had been fighting for his life and Tony was the eye of the storm, quiet and tranquil, for just a moment. 

In the same way that Peter didn’t know this world’s version of Pepper, he supposed he didn’t quite know this version of Tony, either. 

He’d known the Tony from before Thanos, the one who was cocky and confident and scared to let people in, the one who seemed to morph through the months as he tried his best to be a good role model for Peter the longer they spent together.

He’d known the Tony after for just a few moments before he was ripped away. The Tony who pulled him into his arms and held him close and made him feel, in the middle of the biggest battle of their lives, that everything was going to be all right, if only for a moment. He’d known the Tony that whispered his wife’s name, that did his best to hold Peter’s hand as his life drained from him. He’d known the Tony who had the light fade from his eyes and from his heart all at once. The Tony whose heartbeat Peter had heard stop.

He didn’t know this Tony, the one with a wife and a daughter, with a whole and complete family, with everything he’d ever wanted and everything that he deserved.

“I’m sorry,” Peter managed to say. “I could’ve… In my world, I could’ve snapped instead of you, and none of this would’ve happened .”

Tony sighed, heavy and sad. “Peter. Can I touch you?” Peter nodded shakily, and Tony’s hand came to rest on his knee. It felt like there was something lodged in Peter’s throat. “Kiddo, I don’t know exactly what happened to you, but I do know myself, and if your version of me was anything like I am, then I know that he would just be happy that you’re safe .” Peter’s next exhale sounded a bit like a whine, and he squeezed his eyes closed, a few tears making their way down his cheeks.

“You…” Peter took in a gasping breath. “But Pepper. And Morgan. You left them behind, they… they needed you.”

“Peter,” Pepper said softly, her voice quiet and yet still managing to hold so much weight to it. Her hand was resting on his other knee, and her eyes sparkled with what looked like tears. “I promise you, your Tony would have wanted you to live.” Her throat bobbed for a moment before she continued. “There is nothing worse than losing a child.”

Peter was too exhausted to try and figure out what exactly she meant by that, because they hadn’t lost a child. 

His hand hurt. 

His head hurt. 

His heart hurt. 

He just wanted to rest .

“C’mon, kiddo,” Tony said. “Let’s get to bed, all right? We can talk more in the morning.”

Peter hadn’t eaten, and he was sure that Tony knew that, but he was also sure that Tony knew that if he tried to eat anything right now, it would just come right back up.

His mouth tasted like dust.

Pepper stood and stripped the comforter off of the bed, the spots of blood disappearing right along with it. She grabbed a spare one from the closet, still open from when she’d grabbed the sheets, and draped it over the bed. She smoothed it out with a few quick, clean motions, and nodded to herself.

Tony led Peter over to the bed and he lay down, his damp hair pressing into the pillow and tickling the sides of his face. 

Pepper drew the curtains closed and moved back toward them. She brushed a curl from Peter’s forehead and pressed a quick kiss to it before sitting on the bed next to Tony.

A quiet fell over the room, and it was just the three of them, all in their newest versions.

This safe, happy, whole version of Tony.

This safe, happy, whole version of Pepper.

And this beaten, battered, broken version of him.
All existing at the same time, in this room, in this moment of time, in this universe that only belonged to two of them.

Tony’s voice cut through his thoughts.

“Go to sleep, Pete.”

Peter let out a shaky breath, closed his eyes, and went to sleep.

Chapter Text

Tony had never wanted kids. 

Well, he’d never thought he’d find someone to have kids with in the first place, but even when his relationship with Pepper was at its best, the thought of children was not one he gave even a single moment to. 

There wasn’t one specific reason, it was just never something that was in the cards for him. Kids were annoying , first of all. They talked too much without saying anything, they never understood the world around them, they always had to be watched after . Tony couldn’t imagine being able to enjoy life with a kid, being able to enjoy free time when there was always the possibility of some snot-nosed brat needing help with the smallest of things.

More than anything, though, what he knew and would never admit, was that he didn’t want kids because he didn’t want to become the father that he had grown up with. He knew that he would be. There was no scenario in which he wasn’t a carbon-copy of the sort of father his dad had been. So, if he never had kids in the first place, then he would never even have to worry about it.

Tony had never wanted kids.

He somehow still ended up with Peter Parker.

His philosophies held true in the beginning. The kid wasn’t held at arm’s length as much as he was placed on the other side of the room and waved at occasionally if only to let him know they remembered he existed. Tony would give clipped responses, would work on his phone and tune out the world when the kid began rambling, and had Happy deal with everything Spider-Man rather than doing it himself.

(Perhaps that should’ve been the first indication, though: the fact that he had Happy be Spider-Man’s handler, rather than some nameless, faceless government agent who would have been clinical with their reports and never would have complained about how often the kid texted.)

Originally, Tony hadn’t planned on really paying attention to the kid until he graduated high school, bar serious trouble arising. Somehow, though, he found himself reading through Happy’s reports, which, despite the man’s annoyance at being stuck with the job, were rather thorough.

“ Oh ,” Happy had said one day before he left to head to the Compound and work on something for Pepper there, “ The kid wanted you to know he aced his Calculus test, by the way. ”

Tony had hummed. “ Which Calculus? ”

“ Whatever one ‘BC’ is, ” Happy had grumbled.

Tony had nodded, turned back to his tablet, and said nothing more.

He knew that the kid was smart. Scarily smart, actually. It wasn’t something he’d ever know for sure, but he was rather certain that he could shove Peter Parker into MIT at the same age Tony himself had gone and watch him turn out fine.

(Not that he would ever wish that on someone else. His dad had been the only one who really wanted that, for good reason. Entering MIT at age fifteen was not the sort of thing that resulted in a well-rounded, mentally-healthy adult.)

When the ferry incident happened, the comparisons between Howard and Tony and Tony and Peter were rather apparent. Tony wondered how long he had spent thinking of his father as closer to some fucked-up sort of mentor than as a real parent. It made those comparisons easier, certainly. 

It didn’t stop him from feeling like shit when he sent the kid home in a tourist trap shirt, hair slightly damp and eyes shot with tears.

Spider-Boy had directly disobeyed him, though. The whole point was keeping him on the ground, helping out the little guy until he was old enough to actually make the choice to fight and risk his life for people who would never be grateful for him the way that they should be.

If the kid wasn’t going to listen, wasn’t going to stop throwing himself into situations that he couldn’t handle , then he wasn’t going to be Spider-Man. Simple as that.

(Maybe it was a testament to his technology that Tony forgot the fact that the suit was not what made Peter Parker Spider-Man .)

A week later, Tony got a call from Happy just as a notification popped up on the screen in front of him. 

“Happy?” He asked the moment the call connected. “Why is there a Stark Plane on Coney Island?”

Happy cleared his throat awkwardly. “So, you remember how the kid was talking about someone trying to rob the plane on Moving Day?”

Two days later, Tony had Happy kidnap the kid from school and bring him upstate. Pepper gathered reporters from every news station in existence, he was sure, promising some sort of big announcement, and Tony met Peter at the entrance to the Compound, clapping him on the shoulder and doing his best to apologize without actually apologizing. He pushed through the kid’s confused stutters and unveiled the Iron Spider Armor in all its glory, glittering nanotech that promised a better Spider-Man to protect the world, and a better suit to protect Spider-Man.

More than anything, Tony had been preparing for the rant the kid’s aunt was likely going to give him, and so he was caught completely off guard when Peter, all brown curls and shining eyes, let out a small breath before turning to Tony and saying, “Thank you, Mr. Stark, but I’m good.”

Tony blinked. “You’re good? Good? How are you good?”

“Well, I mean, I’m… I’d rather just stay on the ground for a little while. Friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.” He gave Tony a smile, and unlike the ones he’d given him before, this one wasn’t overflowing with hero-worship. Instead, it felt like a real smile, slightly cheeky and shockingly genuine. “Somebody’s gotta look out for the little guy, right?”

Tony took his sunglasses off, staring deep into Peter’s eyes, and it was a wonder that anyone’s could sparkle the way this kid’s did.

“You’re turning me down?” He pressed. “You better think about this” He gestured vaguely at the Iron Spider. “Look at that. Look at me. Last chance, yes or no?”

Tony already knew the answer when he asked the question. There was no surprise, then, when the kid firmly replied, “No.”

“Okay.” 

They shook hands, and the kid began to move back toward the car to wait for Happy to take him home. There was a spring in his step before he seemed to falter and turned around, a bit of hesitancy buzzing around his form.

“That was a test, right?” Peter asked. “There’s, uh, nobody back there?”

It took a moment for Tony to realize that the kid was probably more concerned about wasting the time of the press in the room than about the idea that he may have turned down being an Avenger (which, to be fair, he did ).

“Yes, you passed,” Tony nodded. “All right, skedaddle there, young buck.”

It was one of the more awkward things he’d said, but it seemed as if the kid brought that out in him. 

“Thank you, Mr. Stark, thank you ,” Peter said, giving another grin before disappearing through the doors.

“Told you he’s a good kid,” Happy said, as if he needed to be told.

The door to the press room opened and Pepper stepped out, looking just a bit frazzled, and something bright and dangerous appeared in her gaze when she registered that Peter wasn’t there.

“Where’s the kid?” She asked sharply.

“He left,” Happy replied.

She looked about ready to commit murder. “Everyone’s waiting.”

Tony, ever the poster child of self-preservation, cut in. “You know what? He actually made a really mature choice. It just surprised the heck out of us.”

“Did you guys screw this up?” Pepper sighed, completely ignoring Tony’s words, which he had kind of expected, to be fair. 

Still, he pointed at Happy. “He told the kid to go wait in the car.”

Thirty minutes later, Tony was engaged to the woman he had been with for almost a decade, and had somehow managed to set himself on the path to becoming a proper mentor for a fifteen-year-old superhero.

In the end, the person who really started it was May Parker. The same day that the kid said ‘no’ to being an Avenger, his aunt somehow managed to get a hold of Tony’s personal number, calling him at eight at night, just as the sun was beginning to set.

Tony furrowed his brow at the unfamiliar number that lit up on his phone’s screen. “Fri? Figure out who this is, will you?”

Half-a-second later, FRIDAY replied, “ May Parker, Boss. ”

He blinked, and a moment later, accepted the call.

“ Hello, Mr. Stark, ” May said, her tone sharp.

“Mrs. Parker,” he acknowledged. “Good evening.”

“ It should’ve been, ” she said. “ And yet… ”

“And yet?” He prompted.

“ And yet here I am, standing at the window, watching my nephew climb the side of the building across the street wearing a suit you designed. ”

Tony sighed and sank down into a chair. “Mrs. Parker,” he said, “What is it that you want from me?”

“ Why did you give Peter a supersuit? ” She asked. “ He’s a teenager . Why not any of your other friends? He has no business running around being a hero. ”

“Have you spoken to him yet?”

“ A bit ,” May said. “ I’m not going to punish him until I have all the information. That’s why I called you. ”

“You’re letting him go out, though?” Tony asked.

May scoffed. “ He’s not fighting crime, Stark. He wanted some air, and, honestly, I feel better about him running around on rooftops than running around in the streets. ”

That was fair, he supposed. “What do you think I gave him?”

She was silent for a long moment. “ Everyone knows your suits are incredible, ” she said. “ All of your technology is. They can do things that shouldn’t be possible .”

Tony let out a small breath. “Mrs. Parker, I gave Peter the suit in February. Spider-Man had been spotted for months before that.”

There was a long quiet, and Tony almost broke it to ask if she was all right when her voice came through the phone again. 

“ Months? ” The word was weak.

“Months,” Tony confirmed. “I don’t know where he got them, but Peter has powers . The wall-climbing, the superstrength, the enhanced senses… None of them are the suit.” He paused, before lowering his voice a bit. “He was running around in sweats , Mrs. Parker. Sweats .”

She let out a shaky breath. “ You… Why didn’t you tell me? ”

“He asked me not to,” Tony replied. “Begged me, more like.”

“ He’s a kid ,” she said.

“He is,” Tony nodded, even though she couldn’t see it. “And I don’t tend to hang out with kids, but I’d bet he’s a damn good one, too.” He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “He’s not going to stop, Mrs. Parker. No matter what you do. I took the suit away, he went back out in those sweats. I told him to stay down, he got back up anyway. Just a few hours ago, I offered him the chance to be an Avenger -” She sucked in a breath- “And he said no , because he wanted to stay the ‘ friendly neighborhood Spider-Man .’” Tony swallowed, and it hurt his throat a bit. “He’s helping people, just because he wants to.” He laughed, and it sounded a bit forced. “It’s a bit scary, if I’m being honest.”

May’s laugh was strained, too. “ I… you made that suit to… to protect him. ”

“I did,” Tony said, and it wasn’t a lie, because even if Peter had decided to stay home from Germany, the kid was still going to have gotten the suit. Tony had enough morals to not leave the kid running around the city in sweats, catching cars and getting shot at while looking through a pair of swim goggles strapped to his face.

May’s breathing came through the line for a few moments before she said, “ I’m going to speak with him, and then I’m going to call you back. ”

He didn’t dare argue. “You got it, Mrs. Parker.”

She didn’t say goodbye. Instead, he heard her distantly yell, “ Spider-Man! ” before the line dropped away.

“Fri,” he said into the silence, “Let me know when she calls back.”

“ Yes, Boss. ”

It took around two hours, and the sun had long gone down, but as Tony was staring hard at one of the nanotech diagrams that the princess of Wakanda had sent over, FRIDAY’s voice echoed through the Lab, announcing, “ Incoming call from May Parker. ”

“Put her through, Fri.”

“ Stark, ” May said, and she sounded much less tense than before.

“Mrs. Parker,” Tony greeted. 

“ I talked with Peter, ” she said, “ And while I don’t necessarily… agree with what he’s doing, I do understand it. ” She let out a breathy laugh. “ Maybe I should’ve expected this. He’s always been the best of us. ”

Tony found himself a bit uncomfortable by the fondness in her tone. “How can I help you, Mrs. Parker?”

She cleared her throat. “ Like it or not, Stark, you are a part of this, and that means that you are not allowed to just sit on the side all the time. ”

“Excuse me?”

May sighed. “ I’m not going to ask a lot of you. But, believe it or not, I am not an expert in superheroes and their jobs, especially not in the way someone like you is. I only want two things from you .”

“Which are?” He pressed.

“ A real, registered internship, ” she said. “ One with paperwork sent into the school, and an apology to them for not sending it in sooner. You don’t need to actually do internship things with him- ” Her voice lowered, as if she was simply muttering to herself- “ not that he wouldn’t love that- ” She returned to her normal tone- “ but the paperwork needs to at least be there. I’m sure there’s a way you can do that. ”

“I’ll talk with Pepper about it,” Tony said. He watched as one of the screens lit up and a reminder to do just that appeared. 

“ Thank you, ” May said. “ The other thing… ” She hesitated. “ Properly mentor him. At least occasionally, like once a month. I’m not asking for anything crazy, but Peter has always been the sort of person to not ask for help until he is already in over his head. He… You’ve always been his favorite hero. ” There was something like an ache in his heart. “ If he’ll talk to anyone, he might talk to you. Plus, he could do with… with being a bit happier, sometimes. Remembering that there are people looking out for him, that he’s… allowed to be a kid, too. ”

Tony was silent for a long moment before he said, “You’ve got it, Mrs. Parker.”

He could hear the relief through the phone. “ Thank you, Stark. ”

“Tony,” he said. “Please, Mrs. Parker.”

A beat. “ Thank you, Tony ,” she said finally. “ And it’s May. ”

Once more, there wasn’t a goodbye, but there didn’t really need to be. The line went silent, and Tony sat there for a long moment before turning back to the Wakandan nanotech and having FRIDAY message Pepper, telling her to give him a call when she could.

Six days later, the kid officially had an internship, Pepper had worked her magic to get his absences forgiven, and Tony was waiting at one of the other S.I. buildings in the city that his temporary workshop had been set up in for Happy to pull up and let Peter out for the first of those mentorship days May had insisted upon. In technicality, it was a true internship, because, as Pepper had kindly explained for forty minutes , they couldn’t just give paperwork for an internship that wasn’t actually happening. 

“ Twice a week, Tony, ” she had said sternly. “ That’s it. ”

The car rolled up, and Tony took one hand out of the pocket it was shoved in as Peter stepped out of the backseat, eyes a bit wide and looking rather nervous. Still, he gave a sheepish smile and moved toward Tony, fingers gripping the straps of his backpack.

“Hey, Mr. Stark,” the kid said, rocking back and forth on his feet a bit.

“Hello, Mr. Parker,” Tony said, flipping his sunglasses up. He thought about something that May had mentioned when they’d been working through scheduling this first meeting. “You pass that Physics test?”

Peter’s eyes lit up, and that was that.

In the middle of October, just two weeks into the real internship, Tony saw a board meeting scheduled at the same time as when he was meant to be working with Peter. He blinked at the schedule, texted Happy to confirm he was grabbing the kid, and turned off his tablet to continue working.

He and Peter were scanning over some code when Pepper stormed in, eyes glinting and steps purposeful.

“ Anthony Stark! ” She exclaimed. “What is this I’m hearing about you not attending your meeting with the board again?! ”

“ Pep! ” He exclaimed, putting on his most charming grin. “What a surprise!”

“One meeting every two weeks. That is all I ask of you, Tony.”

“Actually, to be fair, you ask a lot more of me.” Pepper’s glare was icy, and he shut his mouth tight when it landed on him. As it was before, Tony was simply a model for self-preservation.

“What are you even doing?!” Pepper demanded, her voice having the smallest edge of a threat to it. “Don’t you have another meeting with R&D in two hours? ”

“I do indeed,” Tony nodded, and a smile reappeared on his face as he inclined his head in the kid’s direction. “And right now, I have Peter’s internship.”

It was almost like magic. The furious fire faded from Pepper’s eyes, her posture loosened, and her features softened. She spoke gently with Peter, and then firmly with Tony, but the anger seemed to have drained from her, leaving only a bit of frustration behind. When she left just a minute later, Tony turned to the kid, whose face was still a bit red, and said, “You should come by more often. That was the best a Tony-missed-a-board-meeting-and-Pepper-is-pissed conversation has ever ended.”

The kid did come by more often as time went on, and he talked with Pepper more, too. Tony’s fiancee never seemed to be disappointed to see Peter, and sometimes, when she was there as the kid left, she would give Tony a glance heavy with some meaning that he couldn’t quite define.

“What?” He asked, once, and she smirked at him and turned back to her phone.

Two months after Peter and Pepper met, Tony was sure he could count on one hand the number of times he had called the kid by his actual full name. After the first week, it was always Pete, or kid , or Underoos , or Spider-Boy , or kiddo , or Spidey , or a million things other than Peter . 

Originally, he was fine to only meet with the kid for ninety minutes every Monday and Thursday. Somehow, though, he found himself not minding the idea of seeing Peter more than that. Tony nonchalantly gave Peter an open invitation to the workshop, and, once Pepper bought it back for the company, the Tower, too, and as a result was seeing him three times a week and every weekend by the time December rolled around.

Late November had Pepper Potts and May Parker somehow meeting one another, and becoming a force of nature that Tony was sure could tear the world to shreds on a whim. Instead, it was mainly used to lecture him, and he supposed that he never really stopped sacrificing himself for the good of the world, did he?

On the twenty-second of December, Peter showed up at the Tower after his last day of school before the winter break, face flushed from the dropping temperatures and the light wind.

“Peter,” Pepper said, the first one to notice him.

“Hi, Miss Potts,” Peter replied, a wide grin on his face. “Hey, Mr. Stark.”

“Hey, kid,” Tony said, spinning around on the stool he sat on. “So, you’re free from the prison of the education system.”

Pepper whacked him with the book she was reading. 

“Yep,” Peter nodded, the grin still in place, though it looked as if it had relaxed a bit. “For two weeks, at least.”

“Eh, take what you can get.” 

Pepper shook her head, but she had a fond smile on her face, regardless. Her gaze turned to the kid. “So, Peter, what are your plans for the break?”

The kid shrugged. “I don’t know. Go between here and home, I guess? Ned’s on vacation in the Bahamas somewhere, and MJ’s out of town with her mom to spend time with their family, and, well, it’s just May and I, you know? So…”

Tony watched as the lines in Pepper’s face settled into something firm. “Well, I’m glad to hear that you won’t be missing out on any plans with your friends.”

Peter blinked. “What do you mean?”

Pepper flashed Tony a smile, one of those ones that always seemed to proceed her doing something that made him fall in love all over again. “Because you and May will be joining us for Christmas.” And there it was. 

There was a long moment of silence before Peter said, “But… I’m sorry, Miss Potts, but May and I don’t celebrate Christmas.”

Tony snorted.

Pepper’s smile widened. “ Commercialized Christmas, Peter.”

“Oh,” the kid said. Then, “ Oh! ”

Tony let out a sharp laugh as Peter surged forward to embrace Pepper, and then protested as the kid moved to do the same to him, though he didn’t take any action to stop it.

“Does May know?” Peter asked, before shaking his head. “Of course she knows, she knows everything.”

If Tony had been told four months earlier that he would be spending Christmas in the Tower with Pepper, Rhodey, and Happy, he would have believed it. If he had been told he would also be spending it with Peter and May Parker, well, he would’ve been a bit more skeptical.

He wouldn’t have it any other way.

The months passed, and he kept seeing the kid . Peter would come over throughout the week, and some weekends he would end up staying the night. Once, he stayed over for five days because May was called out of town for some sort of conference and didn’t want him left home alone considering the very-real-possibility that he got hurt while out as Spider-Man

In February of 2018, he got a call from May in the middle of the day. When he answered it, he could hear noises in the background before she spoke. He checked the time. She was probably on her lunch break, maybe milling around in the cafeteria of the hospital.

“May, my fellow spider-wrangler, how can I help you?”

“I’m putting you down as Peter’s second emergency contact,” she replied, and immediately threw him off his groove.

“Sorry, May, I think I’m going through a tunnel. Must’ve misheard you. Repeat?”

She did. The words didn’t change.

“Yeah, okay, still the same thing. Are you feeling all right?”

“Tony,” May said, and he fell silent. “You and I both know Pete’s a good kid, and most of the time I’ll be able to get him anyway. If everything goes right, they should never have to call you. It’s just…” She trailed off.

“Just to be safe,” he finished for her.

“Just to be safe,” she confirmed.

Tony sighed, as if she was asking a lot of him, and not something that he would do in a heartbeat. “Fine. If you must.”

He must’ve been seeing her too often, because even over the phone, she saw right through his tone. She chuckled. “Thank you, Tony.”

He cleared his throat. “Yeah. No problem, May.”

As they neared summer, Peter spent half of their time together talking about how excited he was for the coming vacation. He rambled on about plans he had with friends, things he wanted to do, and how great it would be to have more free time.

Though Tony never said it, in the back of his mind, he couldn’t help but think that he was pretty excited, too. The summer meant he could spend more time with the kid, and that was becoming one of his favorite things to do.

Then, though, on the last Friday in May, those dreams of the future came crashing down as two wizards barged into his life speaking of world-ending threats, Bruce reappeared for the first time in years, and a spaceship descended on New York, bringing hostile aliens into the city for the second time in six years.

(Two times too many, if you asked him.)

Tony wasn’t quite sure what aspect of himself it spoke to when the first thing he said upon seeing Peter holding an alien back from hitting him was, “Kid? Where did you come from?”

(Because Peter was supposed to be in school .)

The kid barely managed to say something about a field trip (which he remembered being mentioned in ramblings the day prior) before being flung away.

They fought the aliens, but Bruce couldn’t seem to get the Hulk out, and one of the wizards (the asshole one, he noted with a twinge of annoyance) was kidnapped, getting brought aboard the ship with what was apparently one of the six most powerful things in the universe.

I hate magic , Tony thought as he blasted off into the stratosphere.

Looking back, if Tony had known that Peter would use the Iron Spider to sneak onto a spaceship with him, he would’ve probably altered the features a bit.

The rest of the day generally sucked. They managed to get rid of the Squidward guy, shooting him off into space, and stole the ship, but they had no way of steering it, no way of getting it to go back to Earth. 

A one-way trip , he thought, and tightened his grip on Peter’s shoulder. In his mind, Pepper’s face flashed, followed by May’s. He wondered if Pepper had let May know what was going on, if they were together, waiting for news.

When they finally landed on another planet that thankfully had a breathable atmosphere, they were ambushed by a group of some of the dumbest people Tony had ever had the displeasure of meeting. The fact that they were going to have to work together was just the icing on the cake, he supposed.

The asshole wizard ( Strange , he remembered, a name which really wasn’t much of an improvement) did whatever magic it was that he knew how to do, and came back to reality with a haunted look in his eyes that reminded Tony of himself when he looked in the mirror after one of those nightmares.

“I went forward in time to view alternate futures,” Strange said, breathless. “To see all the possible outcomes of the coming conflict.”

“How many did you see?” Quill asked, shifting a bit.

“Fourteen-million, six-hundred-and-five,” Strange replied.

Tony ran his tongue over his teeth once, twice, before asking, “How many did we win?”

He knew the answer. He already knew it. Of course he did, how could he not? He could see it in Strange’s eyes, in the way they flicked around, as if trying to remember every detail of the world around him, as if he was desperately trying to take it all in while he still could.

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Peter, leaning forward, eyes a bit wide.

( Don’t say it. )

( Don’t say it. )

( Don’t say it. )

“One,” Strange said, and sealed their fate.

They made a plan. 

They executed the plan.

They failed .

And then, just as Thanos was about to kill Tony, Strange traded the stone for his life .

As the Mad Titan disappeared, Quill got to his feet, whirled toward them and asked, “Did we just lose?”

Tony, his side on fire, glanced at Strange and asked, “Why would you do that?”

The sorcerer stared at him for a long moment before softly replying, “We’re in the endgame now.”

Tony didn’t know precisely what was going to happen, but based off of Thanos’s rant about his planet and the fate that it suffered, he had a pretty good idea.

What could’ve been hours, but was likely only minutes, passed, and they passed in relative silence as everyone stewed in their defeat. Tony felt like maybe he should be chewing Quill out for fucking all of them (and likely the universe) over, but the man looked so crushed, by the defeat, but moreso by the knowledge he had gained, that he couldn’t bring himself to do it.

Peter helped him to his feet, his hands a gentle but steadying presence. The group stumbled back together.

Something like lightning flashed in the distance. Something like thunder followed.

Then, out of nowhere, one of the Guardians, Mantis, the one who had kept Thanos down with only her mind, spoke. Her voice trembled as she looked up from where she supported Quill to say, “Something’s happening.”

A beat passed.

Mantis turned to dust.

Tony took a small step back.

“Quill?” Another Guardian, Drax, asked as his arm disappeared. The rest of him quickly followed.

Tony could hear his heartbeat.

Quill looked around, eyes meeting Tony’s. He looked as if he was going to be sick, or pass out, or both.

“Steady, Quill,” Tony commanded, stepping forward, an arm slightly outstretched, ready to catch the man if he fell.

“Oh, man,” Quill said instead, and turned to dust.

Tony’s gaze fell, darting over the rubble on the ground.

It was dusty. He wondered how much of it used to be people.

“Tony.”

He turned to Strange. The man sat right where he had the whole time.

Strange took a few deep breaths.

“There was no other way,” he said.

Breath.

Breath.

Dust.

Whatever star acted as the sun for this planet made his eyes burn. 

Tony could hear his heartbeat.

Then, through the haze, a single, choked, “Mr. Stark?”

His blood ran cold.

No .

Tony turned immediately, eyes falling on the kid. 

Peter held his arms out in front of him.

He stumbled as he walked.

“I don’t feel so good.”

Tony replied, almost on instinct, “You’re all right.”

Peter tripped. 

In all the time he had known the kid, Tony had never seen Peter look as scared as he did now. His eyes were slightly wide, his face pale despite the blood and dirt smeared across it.

“I don’t know what’s-” Peter took in a quick breath. “I don’t know what’s happening. I don’t-”

Peter lost his footing, and Tony caught him. The kid’s arms wrapped around him, shaking, but still solid. 

Why was it taking so long?

Tony clutched Peter closer, and his gaze fell on a cut he had gotten on his cheek during the fight in New York.

It was almost completely healed.

He let out a sharp breath, feeling as if he wanted to be sick.

Tony never thought he would curse Peter’s abilities, but he did in that moment, because the kid’s sixth sense was letting him know something was coming, and his accelerated healing, that made it so much easier to let him go out each night, was likely trying to stitch him back together as his body fell apart .

“I don’t wanna go,” Peter said, voice near his ear, strained and broken. “I don’t wanna go, sir, please.”

Tony lowered the two of them to the ground.

“Please, I don’t wanna go,” the kid cried. It didn’t sound right. Peter crying was for when they watched Pixar movies, or when Ned sent him a video of a cute animal, or when MJ found three-second long clips that she knew would bring tears of laughter to the kid’s eyes. It wasn’t for here, on a planet, light-years from home, as the forces of the universe worked against Peter’s body to try and tear him apart.

Tony’s side flared with pain, and he barely managed to get the kid to the ground without collapsing himself. 

“I don’t wanna go,” Peter said again, as if that was all he knew how to say.

Tony sat over the kid, one arm under him, supporting him, and another on his shoulder, doing his best to keep him steady.

Peter’s eyes were on the sky. 

The infuriatingly beautiful sky, with clouds painted in gold.

Tony could hear his heartbeat.

Their eyes met, and the kid’s jaw gave the smallest of shakes. Then, voice quiet, with an acceptance in it that made Tony want to scream, Peter said, “I’m sorry.”

A single beat.

The kid’s eyes turned back to the sky.

A single beat.

The kid was gone.

Tony fell back, a bit stunned by the sudden lack of weight clinging to him. 

Dust stuck to his skin.

Dust that, just a moment ago, was Peter.

He stared at his hand. He waited.

In the back of his mind, he pleaded.

Take me.

Please.

Please, take me.

Don’t make me go on, not after that.

Nothing.

A moment passed.

Silence.

Everyone was gone, except for that quiet, angry daughter of Thanos, Nebula, who said in a voice so resigned it was the only thing that fit, “He did it.”

Tony sat on the ground, face in his hands for a long minute. Nebula said nothing, just sat on the ground and stared at the stones.

He focused on breathing, steady and slow.

His mouth tasted like ash.

Tony’s breath hitched.

Oh, God, Peter .

His chest stuttered.

Peter was gone .

His fucking kid was gone .

Tony opened his mouth and screamed .

(He couldn’t hear his heartbeat anymore.)

He wasn’t sure when he stopped screaming, but he ended up on a ship with Nebula, which she claimed he helped fix up, despite him having no memory of doing so.

He taught her to play little games from Earth.

He recorded little messages for people that would never hear them. For people that he wasn’t sure were alive. For people that he knew were dead.

They talked.

Nebula spoke of growing up with Thanos, of the things that he would do. More than that, though, she would speak of her time with her sister, Gamora, the girl that Quill had thrown away half of the universe for. She spoke of how they never had the best relationship, and of how it had been steadily getting better, too. Weeks into their time in space, she mentioned quietly that she wished she had spoken to Gamora more, once they had started to get along again.

Tony, on the other hand, spoke of many things, but always found himself drifting back to the same two. 

He spoke of Pepper.

And he spoke of Peter.

As their supplies dwindled and their fuel ran out, leaving them drifting in space, Tony found himself lying by the giant windows, looking out at the stars, and speaking to a kid that wasn’t there.

“Wonder if, when I die, I’ll see you there, kid,” he said one day. Then, he laughed, despite himself. “No, probably not. No way you and I end up in the same place.”

A beat passed. 

He screamed.

Crying wasted too much water.

Carol Danvers found them right when Tony was ready for everything to end. She gleamed as bright as a star in the window, and he was reminded, vaguely, of the way Titan’s sun had made his eyes burn.

She took them home.

Nebula helped him out when they landed, and Tony all-but-stumbled into Rogers’s hold when they reached the bottom of the stairs.

He threw one last look to Nebula, who gave him a single incline of the head, before Steve began leading him away.

“Couldn’t stop him,” Tony said. His voice was stronger than it had been in weeks, but this was important .

“Neither could I,” Steve replied.

Tony stopped, and turned to Steve. His breathing was labored. Steve held him up, head tilted the way it always was when he knew someone had something vital to say.

For a moment, it felt like the last few years were nonexistent.

Then, the moment broke.

Tony took a deep breath, and said, voice broken in a way he didn’t know it could be, “I lost the kid.” He didn’t even say it so much as breathe it, as if he couldn’t quite believe it himself.

In a way he couldn’t.

“Tony, we lost,” Steve said, and despite his exhaustion, something hot bubbled up in his chest, something almost like fury.

Yes, Rogers, we lost , Tony wanted to say, because Steve didn’t get it. But I lost the kid .

Instead, he just said, “Is, uh…”

Before he could finish the question, the answer arrived.

He let out a breath he had been holding ever since he came to in the ship. 

“Oh, my God,” Pepper said, a noise somewhere between a laugh and a cry escaping her. She seemed to drink in his appearance for a moment, seemed to convince herself that he was real, before she wrapped her arms around him and began to cry.

Tony did not have the strength to embrace her, but as she pulled away, he pressed a kiss to her cheek and let her support him as they made their way inside.

They stopped in the medbay first. Steve said something about going to wake the others to let them know that he was alive, and, as a doctor hooked an IV into his arm and disappeared, Tony was left alone with Pepper.

“Pep-”

“May’s gone,” she interrupted. Her voice was hoarse, and he wondered how much she had cried in the last few weeks. 

“What?” Tony asked, breathy.

“I was with her,” Pepper said. “We… I called her, to tell her what happened, and she came to the Tower after her shift, and we…” She sniffed. “We were going to wait together . We were in my office, watching the news, trying to… to see… Then there was… there was screaming. It was like the whole city was screaming. She looked at me and… she asked what was going on, and then she…” Pepper pressed the back of her hand against her mouth. Tony squeezed the hand he still grasped and she took in a deep breath. “She was just… gone. A minute later and I couldn’t even find the dust.”

“Oh, Pep.”

She blinked rapidly before saying, “I’ve moved to a new office. So you know.” She brushed a strand of hair aside, her gaze turning to him, and she said, “God, Tony, you’re alive .”

His mouth was dry.

“The kid’s gone.”

Pepper blanched. Peter hadn’t come off the ship with him, but it seemed as if she hadn’t yet connected the dots. 

She made a pained, strangled sound.

“He…”

Tony nodded. It took more effort than fighting aliens had. “Right… Right in my arms, Pep.” He looked up at her. “His… his sense, it told him something was going to happen to him, and… God, it took so long , Pepper.”

“Long?” She asked, voice weak.

“His healing,” Tony replied. “I think. It was… it must’ve been trying to heal him as his body fell apart .”

She held his hand, intertwined with his own, near her face, and he could feel her tears wet against his skin.

“I had him, Pep,” he breathed, gaze turning to the window, to the sky that was readily becoming lighter as dawn approached. “He was… He was right there , in my arms, and then he just… wasn’t.”

“Tony…”

“God, Pepper, I…” He turned to her suddenly, eyes wide, heart pounding. There was a franticness in his limbs that was foreign after weeks of being functionally dead to the world. “Pepper, I lost the kid .”

She let out a sob, and leaned toward him. It almost seemed unconscious. They sat there for a long moment, and Tony wondered how long it would be until he would have enough fluids in his body to cry with her.

Days later, Tony stumbled into the common room of the Compound, where he found Pepper sitting, flipping through a book. Smart. It was easy to end up looking at the news on a tablet, and nowadays, that was just a recipe for a depressing day.

“Tony?” She asked as he approached. She must have seen something, because she stood and met him halfway, fingers on his forearms. “What happened?”

He took in a breath, and yet it still felt as if he couldn’t breathe. He wondered if ice ran through his veins now instead of blood. 

“Thanos destroyed the Stones,” he said. “He used them again, to destroy them.”

Pepper’s eyes grew a bit wide, horror flickering through them. “ Destroyed . But then that means-”

“This is it,” Tony said. “No… No fixing this , now. They’re… all of them are gone.”

“For good?” She asked, even though she clearly knew the answer.

He gave it to her anyway. “For good.” He caught a glimpse of the date on a nearby screen. “You know, today would’ve been Pete’s last day of school.”

Pepper seemed to wilt. She spoke in a whisper. “Tony…”

A few minutes later, she helped him outside, and held his hand as he screamed.

Morgan was born in September. Pepper didn’t even begin to show until July, when she insisted that they at least get married in the eyes of the law, if not in the eyes of the public. She told him that she had found out while he was in space, but she didn’t want to tell him when all of the pain was so fresh.

(It would never not be fresh, but he saw where she was coming from, regardless.)

Tony had no idea what he would feel when he held his daughter for the first time. He was expecting to feel scared, or excited, or something in between. Obviously, he was expecting to feel love.

What he wasn’t expecting was to feel the same swell in his chest that he got whenever Peter grinned at him, or made a joke, or corrected him, or asked him for help, or walked into a room, eyes bright and smile wide.

Oh, Tony thought as he looked down at Morgan and felt that swell.

Peter’s face flashed in his mind.

Oh.

It took two weeks to process, but one night, the first night that Morgan slept all the way through without waking up, as Tony sat on the couch beside his wife, he said softly, “Pep.”

“Yes, Tony?” She asked, not taking her eyes off her book.

“I realized something.”

There must have been something in his tone, because she slipped a bookmark between the pages and turned to him. “What is it?”

He wet his lips. “I didn’t just… I didn’t just lose the kid that day.”

She frowned, as if that wasn’t the topic she was expecting to discuss. “No?” She asked instead.

He shook his head. “No, I…” He grit his teeth. His eyes burned. “Pep, I lost my kid .”

There was a glint in her eye, one that told him that she already knew , and something inside of him broke. He crumpled in on himself, and Pepper was at his side immediately. 

“I’m sorry,” he said through the tears that he was able to shed again. “I’m sorry .”

She murmured reassurances, telling him that he had nothing to apologize for.

(He did.)

( I’m sorry that I wish it was me who was taken instead of him. )

( And I’m sorry that I’m not actually sorry for that at all. )

“He would’ve been a good big brother,” Pepper said an hour later, when they were calm again.

Tony’s heart stuttered in his chest, but he nodded. “Yeah,” he managed to say. “Yeah, he would’ve.”

The years passed.

The world began to heal.

The world began to move on.

Tony tried to.

He couldn’t quite manage it.

What was that quote again?

‘No parent should have to bury their child.’

He was never quite sure why that was the one that came to mind every time he passed by the tiny marker for Peter he’d made on a whim along the side of the lake.

(It wasn’t like there was even a body to bury.)

The Avengers would come to visit occasionally. Morgan learned to call quite a few of his old teammates ‘aunt’ and ‘uncle.’ Tony wasn’t quite sure if that was something Pepper pushed her into, or if it was something she did all on her own. He never bothered to ask.

They told Morgan stories of Peter, and of Spider-Man. They were her favorite stories to listen to, the ones where a little girl who asked a million questions would somehow find a way to ask a million-and-one.

When Morgan was four, as Tony was carrying her in from playing outside in the snow in the middle of January, he felt his heart drop as a black Audi pulled up to the cabin and Steve got out, face set in a firm line.

(He hated the black Audi. It always meant business. Whenever it was just a regular visit, his teammates would show up in their shitty cars that felt lived-in and that had far-too-many miles on them. The black Audi meant they wanted something from him, even though he was retired, even though they knew that he wasn’t going to give up his life here for anything.)

Natasha stepped out of the car, too, and Tony resisted the urge to groan.

Then, though, another door opened, and out came Scott Lang .

For a split-second, Tony wondered if he had missed something.

There was no way that the Decimation had been reversed. He knew that. Still, for that single moment, he wondered if, thousands of light-years away, Peter was fading back into existence, laying on the ground, confused and disoriented and suddenly alone.

He swallowed, pushed those impossibilities away, and went inside.

The plan was stupid.

He knew that it was stupid.

Or…

Maybe stupid wasn’t the right word for it.

It was risky .

It was too risky for Tony, who had Morgan running up behind him to ‘save him’ from his old teammates.

He bid them goodbye, and went inside to find something they could have for lunch.

That evening, after dinner was done, Tony was on dish duty, as Pepper had made the food. He put the last dish away, and his eyes fell on a picture frame.

He stared down at the picture.

Peter Parker stared back at him.

It was that stupid fake internship photo, where they held the certificate upside-down, and grinned at the camera so wide that Tony had wondered if his face was gonna split apart.

We could bring them all back .

All of them .

Tony Stark wouldn’t risk everything for the world. Not in a million years.

But he would risk it for Peter Parker.

(Tony could hear his heartbeat again.)

“I’ll do it,” Tony said, “But we are planning this out . We are not just rushing in the moment we have the chance to.”

“Why not?” Steve demanded. “We can get all of them back!”

“And bring them back to what, Rogers?” Tony asked. “A world that’s just barely recovered from the chaos of half the population disappearing? No. You thought the Decimation was hard? Try doubling the number of people in the world out of nowhere. It’d be hell.” He shook his head. “No, we’re going to do this properly.”

They called their intergalactic friends, having them send out messages to every planet they could, letting them know of the plan so they could begin to prepare.

They made up a plan of their own.

Finally, in February of 2023, a month after Scott reappeared, it happened.

He invented time travel.

It was shockingly easy.

(Then came the hard part.)

Tony called a meeting with the U.N. They accepted it, because of course they did. He was Tony Stark .

“Dr. Stark,” the U.S. ambassador, Erin Wilfett, a woman who had been appointed only when the previous ambassador turned to dust, said. “Why have you requested this meeting? You called it ‘world-altering,’ I believe.”

Tony nodded. “It is, indeed.” An image broadcasted at the front of the room. Scott, grinning, giving a thumbs-up and holding up a sign with the date on it. “One month ago, Scott Lang, thought to have died in the Decimation, appeared at the Avengers’ Compound.” 

Muttering broke out, which was definitely unprofessional, but Tony ignored it. He did not sit through Natasha lecturing him on how to present himself for hours for nothing. “As it turns out, Mr. Lang was not ‘dusted,’ but rather was trapped in the Quantum Realm, a region of existence that he was researching with Dr. Hank Pym, Dr. Janet van Dyne, and their daughter, until all three were victims of the Decimation, resulting in Mr. Lang being left trapped.”

Tony paused, thinking of the best way to phrase the next part. “Somehow, he was freed from the Quantum Realm. However, because time passes differently there, he was under the impression that only four-and-a-half hours had passed, rather than four-and-a-half years.” Gasps rippled through the chamber.

“Why was the U.N. called to order for this, Dr. Stark?” The Swedish ambassador asked. 

“Mr. Lang’s time-altered journey gave us an idea,” Tony said. “Last night, it was successful,” He let out an imperceptible breath. He wondered if this would be considered his greatest creation.

(It wasn’t. That would be Morgan.)

“I have invented time travel. Using this technology, the Avengers will be capable of going back in time, retrieving the Infinity Stones from different points in time, and returning here in order to use them to reverse the effects of the Decimation.”

The shock was palpable, and for a moment, Tony let himself bask in it. Shocking groups of powerful groups of generally-immovable people was one of his favorite things to do.

The Brazilian ambassador asked weakly, “Reverse… the Decimation? Bring… Bring everyone back?”

Tony nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Why haven’t you done it yet, then?” The Chinese ambassador asked.

“Members of my team wanted to,” Tony said, “And, believe me, there is nothing I want more than to reclaim those we’ve lost. However, reversing the Decimation with nothing put in place to soften the low will result in just as much chaos. Imagine what would happen if you simply doubled the population of your country without any warning.” He waved his hand. “Pandemonium.”

Some of the council looked a bit sick just at the suggestion. 

“Reintroducing three-and-a-half-billion people to the world? People will be homeless and confused. They’ll be without jobs, food, or care. If we’re gonna do this, we’ve gotta be ready.”

It was easy for them all to see the logic behind his words. 

“If you are retrieving the Infinity Stones, these… objects that have so much power… Why are you not instead resetting the world, making it so that the Decimation never happened in the first place?” The Egyptian ambassador asked.

“Unforeseen consequences,” he replied.

The French ambassador narrowed her eyes. “There is more. A greater reason. What is it?

Tony sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “Look, I’m gonna be honest with you: it’s because I’m selfish, okay? I have a kid now, and erasing the last four-and-a-half years would erase her , and that is not happening.” He shrugged. “Go ahead, try and tell all the people that have had kids in the last few years, ask if they wanna give those kids up. Good luck making it out of there alive, though.”

There was a beat of silence.

“So, are we doing this?”

The U.N. agreed, and countries began working both internally and externally to figure out how best to deal with the incoming people returning from the dead.

The public found out, as they always would, and they freaked out, as was to be expected. 

Some people demanded that the Avengers be allowed nowhere near the mission. They wanted soldiers fixing this problem, not heroes.

“ They’ve already failed once, and it cost us everything, ” one person said in an interview on BBC. “ We cannot afford to leave this in their hands again. Stop playing hero, and let the professionals handle this ”

Others were on the exact opposite side, saying that they had complete faith that the Avengers would succeed and reverse the Decimation.

“ Remember Loki? Remember Ultron? They’ve saved us time and time again. They’ll be ready this time, ” a CNN host said. 

One of their co-hosts nodded, and looked toward the camera. “ We believe in the Avengers. And so should you. ”

Between those sides, though, there was the overwhelming majority.

“ What do you think, Sharon? ” An MSNBC host asked one of his guests.

“ Well, ” Sharon, some sort of anthropology professor from some prestigious university said, “ Let’s look at the facts: They fail, life continues on as normal. Maybe we’re disappointed, but we move forward, as we have. Or, they succeed, and all of those people that we lost, everyone that we loved who we watched fall to dust, return to us. ” She shrugged. “ What’s the worst that can happen? I say give it a shot. ”

And so they did. In March, they decided on a date, one that was translated into different calendars and bounced from planet to planet by Carol, Nebula, and Rocket, one that was blasted on every news station for weeks on end, and that earned a permanent place with a countdown clock in the corner of the screen on every single one: July tenth, 2023. 

(In a more perfect world, it was exactly one month before Peter would’ve turned twenty-one.)

“Surprised you didn’t go for the fourth,” Steve said the evening after the briefing, sitting on the floor in front of the couch in Tony’s cabin, letting Morgan twist strands of his hair into barrettes and clips.

“I considered it,” Tony replied. 

“I told him it’d be a bit odd, considering this is a worldwide thing and not an America thing,” Pepper said.

“It’s a universe- wide thing,” Tony corrected, “And it wasn’t about America. It was about Capsicle over there.”

“I think that makes it worse,” Pepper said.

Tony laughed, and Steve rolled his eyes, and Natasha, sitting next to his daughter on the couch and brading some of Clint’s hair (which was likely half of a ploy to get him to get rid of his stupid haircut), passed Morgan another clip from her pile of red-white-and-blue ones.

Thor showed up in mid-May, looking a million times better than the last time Tony had seen him, just about a year before.

“Didn’t know you’d been working out, big guy,” he said, doing his best to not sound harsh. 

“Yes, well,” Thor said, “Turns out all it took was something to fight for.” He looked tired, far more tired than Tony had ever seen him, even after the Decimation, but there was a steel to his eye that looked as if it could cut through diamond.

Finally, July arrived.

The morning of the tenth, Tony woke in the lake house alone. He drifted downstairs to find Pepper just about done making breakfast.

They ate. Tony kissed Morgan on the head and brushed a strand of hair behind her ear before she ran off to play.

Pepper walked him to the car. She wrapped her arms around him, and the two of them stood there for a long moment.

Finally, she pulled away, pecked him on the lips, and said softly, “Bring him home.” She paused, and then said, “Bring all of them home.”

The plan was simple, but it was solid. 

Rhodey and Nebula would go back to 2014 and get the Power Stone from some planet called Morag. Clint and Natasha would go to the same year, but would break off and travel to Vormir, where they would get the Soul Stone.

Thor and Rocket would go back to 2013 and travel to Asgard, where they would remove the Reality Stone from Jane Foster’s body.

Steve, Scott, Bruce, and Tony himself would all travel to 2012, where they would gather the Mind Stone, the Space Stone, and the Time Stone, all in one go.

It was exhausting, and it was confusing, but it worked.

As they reappeared in the present, Tony caught the glint in Steve’s eye, and resolved to speak to him later, once everyone was back, once they’d fixed their mistakes .

Then, though, when they grouped back up, Clint was alone.

Oh, Tony thought.

He supposed it had been naive to think that nothing bad would come of this plan.

They mourned, but they had to move on. Tony sent out a mass alert to all the governments of the world to be ready (something that he would never stop priding himself for having the ability to do), and received a message from Carol letting him know that she was on her way, as well, having spent the last month jumping from planet to planet, trying to make sure that at least some of the more major players in the intergalactic scene were prepared. 

Throughout the world, people were told to stay at home. It was like a global lockdown. Only emergency vehicles could be out, the streets were meant to be as clear as possible. If someone that you didn’t recognize appeared in your house because, five years ago, it was theirs , explain calmly what had happened. Every home had the news on.

“Looks ready,” Rocket said, standing across from Tony. He gently cupped the gauntlet, one that looked as if it belonged on an Iron Man suit. Rocket looked up, eyes flicking around the room. “Question is who’s gonna snap their freaking fingers.”

Thor surged forward. “I’ll do it,” he said. His eyes were wide, a bit manic. Tony wasn’t sure what it was that Thor had seen in the past, but the fact that he had traveled to Asgard, his destroyed home that he had never even gotten the chance to avenge, gave him a pretty good idea as to the god’s mental state. 

“Excuse me?” Scott asked, voicing the thoughts of everyone.

“It’s okay,” Thor said.

Chatter broke out, people indistinguishably saying, “No, no, no, wait a sec, just wait.”

“Wait, wait, Thor, just wait,” Steve said, that air of command in his voice managing to silence everyone. “We haven't decided who's gonna put that on yet.”

(Whenever he pulled out that voice, Tony understood why he had been so good at making propaganda back during the second World War.)

Thor let out a harsh breath. His voice was a bit hoarse as he spoke. “I'm sorry. What, we're just sitting around waiting for the right opportunity?”

“We should at least discuss it,” Scott said, rocking back and forth on his heels. He looked as if he was holding himself back, and Tony tried to think of how the other had made it through the last six months without breaking down. Scott had come back after five hours in the Quantum Realm to find that four-and-a-half years had passed, and, even worse, that all of the people he cared about were gone.

Even more than that, his daughter was gone.

Tony didn’t know how he’d survive something like that.

He had no idea how Scott had.

“No, no, sitting here staring at that thing is not gonna bring everybody back,” Thor said, his voice sounding as firm as he could make it. He sucked in a breath. “I'm the strongest Avenger, okay? So this responsibility falls upon me. It's my duty.”

Tony stepped forward, interrupting Thor as he began to ramble. “It's not about that-”

Thor continued anyway, raising his voice a bit. “It’s not that-” 

Tony went to say more, but Thor shushed him, the sound strangled and desperate. 

“Stop it! Just let me!” His voice broke, and the room fell silent. Thor grabbed at Tony’s shirt, gaze locked with his. Thor had tears welling up in his eyes, and Tony’s own burned, just a bit. “Just let me do it,” Thor whispered, holding Tony’s hand. “Just let me do something good.” He was searching for something in Tony’s face, desperation and despair weaved into his features. “Something right.”

And damn could Tony understand that feeling .

“Look,” he said, staring meaningfully at his friend,”It's not just the fact that that glove is channeling enough energy to light up a continent, I'm telling you, you're in no condition.”

Thor laughed, a miserable sound. “What do you-” His breath was more like a gasp. “What do you think is coursing through my veins right now?” His grip on Tony’s hand tightened. “ Lightning. Why do you think I…” He cut himself off for a moment. “Why do you think I did all of this? Why do you think I let Val drag me away from the TV to whip me into shape? Why do you think…” Thor was crying now, it seemed. “Why did I come all this way, if not for this?”

Tony’s mouth was a bit dry. Instead of saying anything that meant anything, he just nodded and said, “Yeah.”

“Lightning won't help you, pal,” Bruce said, drawing the attention to himself. He was human, at the moment, but he looked almost larger than life as he spoke. “It's gotta be me.” His voice was low, and firmer than Tony had ever heard, a far cry from the soft-spoken gentleness that was normal.

Thor squeezed his eyes shut and released Tony, something shattered in his face. 

“You saw what those stones did to Thanos,” Bruce said. Tony had, though only in pictures, which were often more focused on the lack of a head on the Titan than the burned arm. “It almost killed him. None of you could survive.”

“How do we know you will?” Steve asked. There it was again, Mr. We-Don’t-Trade-Lives.

(Tony loved Vision, but he often couldn’t help but wonder what would’ve happened if Steve had just let Wanda destroy the Mind Stone from the start.)

( Too late to wonder, now. )

“We don’t,” Bruce replied, moving to stand in front of the gauntlet. “But the radiation’s mostly gamma.” His brow furrowed. “It’s like… I was made for this.”

  I got low. I didn’t see an end, so I put a bullet in my mouth and the other guy spit it out.

Tony knew that Bruce was not made for this . The accident that had created the Hulk was precisely that: an accident. Tony also knew that Bruce knew that. It didn’t matter much, he supposed. A purpose was a purpose, whether you stumbled across it or molded it yourself.

Bruce turned into the Hulk (and Tony wondered if it would ever not be weird to hear his friend’s regular voice coming out of the Hulk’s body, rather than roars of rage.) He took the gauntlet, held it in his hands, and glanced up as Tony said, “Good to go, yeah?”

“Let’s do it,” Bruce replied, with just a bit of lightness to his voice.

Tony sucked in a breath and fully faced the Hulk. “Okay, remember- everyone Thanos snapped away five years ago, we’re just bringing them back to now, today. We’re putting them somewhere safe, so no… no midair because they were in a plane or in the middle of a vacuum because they were in a spaceship, but… here, now, today.” He tried to keep the desperation from his voice. “Don’t change anything from the last five years.”

Bruce stared down at the gauntlet, nodded, and said, “Got it.”

Suits activated, everyone standing on guard, preparing for the Stones to be used. “FRIDAY, do me a favor and activate Barn Door Protocol, will you?” Tony asked.

“Yes, Boss.”

The Compound went on lockdown, metal doors sliding over the walls and door and windows, darkening the room.

Bruce took a deep breath. Tony wondered if his heartbeat was audible to anyone else. “Everybody comes home,” the Hulk said, and pulled the gauntlet on.

Immediately, his knees buckled. Bruce grunted in pain, small yells managing to make it through, and Tony grit his teeth as Thor said, “Take it off. Take it off!”

“No, wait,” Steve said, holding a hand out. “Bruce, are you okay?”

“Talk to me, Banner,” Tony threw in his own words.

Bruce was gasping for air, but finally replied, “I’m okay. I’m okay.”

They all leaned back a bit at the statement. Talking was a good sign.

Tony hadn’t been there when Thanos snapped the first time, nor the second time. He had never seen the Infinity Gauntlet with all six Stones inside of it. It was a bit of a marvel to behold.

The power that coursed through the metal and over Bruce’s skin looked painful. It burned through the fabric of his shirt, made his veins pulse with light. Electricity danced over the gauntlet, snaking up Bruce’s arm, leaving raw, singed flesh behind.

And yet, it was also beautiful, in a way. The colors were bright, and they were violent . The lines that they formed along the skin almost made it look like the energy was tearing him apart. Tony’s heart was in his throat.

Bruce’s other hand came up and supported the gauntlet, forcing up the arm that was becoming more burned by the second. Tony tried to imagine for a moment what that amount of power must feel like. Bruce screamed, something deep and visceral, and they all watched as he snapped his fingers.

There was a quick burst of light, the Stones shining as bright as stars before abruptly dimming, and the gauntlet fell to the ground as Bruce collapsed.

“Bruce!” Steve exclaimed, rushing over.

“Don’t move him,” Tony commanded, quickly icing the burned arm. 

“Did it work?” Bruce asked, breathing heavily. His voice was strained, as if every word was a greater effort than the last.

“Worth a shot,” Thor said, which didn’t really answer the question, but somehow seemed reassuring anyway. “It's over. It's okay.”

Tony looked up from where he stood over Bruce to see Clint drifting toward his phone, vibrating with a call.

Clint answered it.

“ Honey? ” He asked, as if he couldn’t quite believe what he was saying. “ Honey. ”

Something warm threatened to burst in Tony’s chest.

Scott, by the windows, staring out at the birds that hadn’t been there moments before, said, “Guys…” He let out a breathy laugh. “I think it worked!”

The world exploded.

Tony made it out with Steve. Thor was already there, gaze locked firmly ahead of him.

Sitting in the rubble, as calm as the dead version of him had been, was Thanos.

He spoke, his voice serene, sounding almost loving , and for a moment, Tony could understand how this man had been able to do the things that he had to Nebula and still have her desperate to call herself his daughter.

(God, he hoped Nebula wasn’t dead.)

(Morgan loved her.)

“I will shred this universe down to its last atom,” Thanos said, “And then, with the Stones you’ve collected for me, I will create a new one, teeming with life, that knows not what it has lost but only what it has been given.” He smiled. “A grateful universe.”

“Born out of blood,” Steve said firmly.

“They’ll never know it,” Thanos replied easily. He fell into a stance. “Because you won’t be alive to tell them.”

The fight was dirty. It was hard and dirty and desperate, filled with righteousness on both sides, one tinged with the wild effort to not lose everything again, and one painted in poisonous belief. 

Thanos, with his venomous ideals, was winning easily. Tony went down, used as a shield against Thor’s lightning before being thrown back and out of the fight.

When he came to, he could barely move. 

His helmet retracted, Tony blinked the ash out of his eyes. 

In the distance, against an army that Thanos had managed to get while he was passed out for all of two minutes, stood Steve Rogers. His shield broken, his skin smeared with blood, Captain America stood utterly alone against an army he could never hope to defeat.

Tony couldn’t get his body to listen to him. God , did he want it to listen to him. 

(Sacrificial plays were supposed to be his thing. Did Cap remember nothing of the Battle for New York?)

Then, there was a twinge of static in his ear, where his comm still was.

“ Hey, Cap, you read me? ”

His blood turned to ice. Tony knew that voice. He watched Steve pant, just trying to breathe, and he was sure he was doing the same. 

“ Cap, it’s Sam. ”

It was Sam.

“ On your left. ”

Behind Steve, a circle of sparks grew. Tony recognized those sparks. They were the same ones Strange used, the same ones that Wong had used when he had used a portal to come to Pepper and Tony’s wedding. 

The portal grew, and it looked like a circle of golden light, until three figures walked out. As the glare from the light faded, Tony felt his breath hitch.

King T’Challa, Princess Shuri, and General Okoye.

Two of whom had been dead the last time Tony checked.

They seemed to nod at Steve, before Sam Wilson soared out with the Falcon wings, looping through the air.

The sky filled with golden light.

Portal after portal opened, people pouring out. Tony’s gaze flicked from group to group. He couldn’t distinguish one person from another. There were so many , half of them with faces that he’d seen over and over right after the Decimation, when they were still trying to figure out who was still around.

“ Boss, Rescue armor incoming .”

Tony could hear his heartbeat.

Pepper touched down, wrapped in the armor that she had swore only two weeks ago she would never touch. Her faceplate flipped up, and the fire in her eyes made him wonder how many times one could fall in love with the same person.

Out of the ruins of the Avengers Headquarters, Scott Lang erupted, larger than he had been even at the airport in Berlin. Bruce, Rhodey, and Rocket hopped from his open palm onto the ground.

Tony forced himself to his feet, and blasted over to Cap’s side, eyes only on his teammate. He touched down on the ground, people around him settling into battle positions.

“ Avengers! ” Steve yelled, just two feet away from him, and Tony couldn’t help but grin. He breathed it just as Cap said it.

“ Assemble. ”

Thor let out a battle cry, and they charged.

The fight was a whirlwind. Tony was fighting alongside Pepper, and then she had blasted off to help someone else. People soared through the air, and it was only FRIDAY’s lightning-fast analysis that let him know whether he was aiming at a friend or a foe.

Tony landed among a group of aliens and greeted each one with a blast to the face. Suddenly, he was knocked to the side, smashing into a pile of debris. He flipped over. 

Cull Obsidian, one of those Children of Thanos . The biggest one, he was pretty sure, and strongest to boot. Tony fired bursts of electricity at him, and felt his breath hitch as a sword that looked sharp enough to cut right through him descended.

The arm was pulled back, though, yanking Cull Obsidian away from Tony. The alien fell on his back, and before he could get back up, Scott’s foot, currently the size of a small classroom, came down and crushed him.

Scott stepped away, and it felt a bit like a dream.

Haloed by the sunlight, standing at the top of what was once the Compound’s foundation, was the Iron Spider suit.

Tony’s helmet retracted as the suit bounced toward him, and then, just as it landed in front of him, the mask pulled back, and Peter Parker was there, helping him up.

“Hey!” Peter exclaimed, as if nothing was out of the ordinary. “Holy cow. You will not believe what’s been going on.” He pulled Tony to his feet. “Do you remember when we were in space?”

How could he not .

Tony did his best to steady himself, only half-listening to the kid’s words.

“And I got all dusty? I must've passed out, because I woke up and you were gone, but-” Peter gestured vaguely. “Doctor Strange was there, right?” Tony let out a breath, setting his jaw to keep from crying. “He was like, ‘It's been five years. Come on, they need us.’”

Tony really couldn’t care less about what Peter was saying. He just stood there, drinking in the sight of the kid, real and tangible and alive , oh, he was so alive .

Pieces of Peter’s hair clung to his face from the sweat, he had a cut on his cheek, and dirt across his chin. His eyes were wide and bright, and they were the exact same shade of brown Tony remembered them being. 

Peter was sweaty, and dirty, and bloody, and bright-eyed, standing in the ruins of the Compound during the biggest fight any of them had ever been in, and there was nowhere else that Tony would rather be. Just the image of his kid, standing there, the back of his head looking almost gold from the sunlight, was the most beautiful thing Tony thought he had ever seen.

He stumbled toward Peter without even quite realizing he was doing it.

“And then he started doing the yellow sparkly thing that he does all the time-”

“He did?” Tony asked vaguely, not actually looking for an answer. He just had to say something . “Oh, man.”

“What are you doing?”

He wrapped his arms around Peter, and the kid cut himself off.

They didn’t really hug often , and Tony had never regretted that as much as he did when Peter was gone. Still, that didn’t seem to stop the kid from melting into it, hugging Tony back almost immediately.

Tony tightened his grip on Peter. God, he was alive . He wasn’t shaking, he wasn’t crying, he wasn’t turning to dust beneath his fingers, he was gloriously alive. Tony’s hand drifted to the kid’s head, fingers twisting in the curls as he held Peter just a bit closer, and the kid let out a breath.

“Oh,” he said, breathy, almost like a laugh. “This is nice.”

It hurt to break away from the kid, but they had to. Tony did not get Peter back just to lose him all over again. He did not work his ass off inventing time travel, making plans with the U.N. and the governments of the world to make sure that they could keep their current timeline and also ring everyone back, just to lose everything because Thanos didn’t know when to quit.

Thanos knocked him out, and when he came to, his eyes found Strange. The man looked a bit like he was going to be sick. Without saying a word, the sorcerer raised a single, trembling finger.

Oh.

How many did we win?

One.

He knew what he had to do.

Tony nodded.

(Hundreds of feet away, a sixth sense went off.)

Thanos dropped the Power Stone into the gauntlet. He raised his hand.

Tony blasted forward and grabbed the gauntlet, pulling with all of the strength he had. The nanobots worked quickly, transferring the Stones from Thanos’s hand to his own. It took everything in Tony to not scream out at the burning pain that erupted up his arm, even without the Stones’ power flaring.

“ Mr. Stark! ”

Tony was tackled away from Thanos just before the Titan could bash his head in and knock him away himself.

There was a pressure on his good arm. Tony glanced down to see a pile of webs.

Peter, who had tackled Tony, was a good fifteen feet away, lying on the ground.

It took a moment to register the fact that the burning had stopped.

Tony’s blood ran cold.

No.

The Stones were gone.

No.

He wanted to speak.

He wanted to move. 

He wanted to do something .

He couldn’t do anything.

Thanos chuckled, a deep, satisfied sound. 

He raised his hand.

“I am… inevitable. ”

He snapped. 

The scraping sound of metal-against-metal rang out. Nothing.

Fifteen feet from Tony, and yet also worlds away, Peter Parker got to his knees. The nanobots of the Iron Spider shifted to accommodate the Stones.

The kid sucked in a breath as the power of the Infinity Stones coursed over his body. 

Then, though, amazingly, he smiled.

“Oh, yeah?” Peter Parker, ever the snarky, bright-eyed, incredible kid, asked. His grin was wide, cheeky, impossible. “How’s that working out for you?”

Snap.

As the light faded and Thanos and his army turned to dust, Tony had eyes only for the kneeling form still fifteen feet away from him.

He went to move, and found he couldn’t. The webs locked him to the ground.

“FRIDAY, disengage glove,” he commanded, words low.

“ Boss, if you give me just a few moments, I can- ”

“ Disengage! ” 

His hand slipped out of the glove and he got to his feet, nearly tripping as he sprinted to the kid’s side.

“Mr. Stark?” Peter asked, voice weak. He was still sitting up, both hands by his sides. He stared off into the distance, eyes glassy.

“Hey, bud , c’mon,” Tony said, ignoring how hoarse he sounded. “Let’s go sit down over here, okay?”

He supported Peter, walking him toward a pile of rubble a half-dozen yards away. As they neared it, he was all-but-carrying the kid.

When they finally reached the rubble, Tony paused for just a moment.

“Mr. Stark?” Peter asked. “Can I sit?”

That was the thing.

Tony knew , no matter how much he wanted to convince himself it wasn’t true, that once Peter sat down, he wasn’t getting back up. He pushed those thoughts away. The kid was strong. He would be fine. Tony did not do all of this just for Peter to not be fine.

( He knew, he knew, he knew. )

The kid leaned against the rubble. Tony breathed in, and Peter did the same, copying him. They sat there for a long moment, just breathing together. Peter’s arm was basically gone. The burns from the Stones stretched up across the side of his face, just barely stopping before his eye. Tony cupped Peter’s face, and the kid let out a small sigh, just barely leaning into the touch.

There was a rumble, a few feet away. Tony didn’t turn to look, but he did recognize the voice.

“Tony?”

Rhodey.

“Hi, Colonel Rhodes,” Peter breathed. 

“Hey, kid,” Rhodey said. His voice was strained. “How’re you doing?”

The corners of Peter’s mouth twitched. “We won.”

“You know it, Spidey,” Rhodey nodded. 

“All thanks to you,” Tony added, brushing a finger over Peter’s cheek.

Peter managed to nod his head just a bit, a movement that was more like a tiny jerk than anything.

There was more crunching of rocks and metal and debris approaching. Rhodey stood, likely to keep anyone from getting too close. In the back of his mind, Tony appreciated it.

“Mr. Stark?”

“Yeah, kid?”

Peter took in a shuddering breath. “I think I’m dying.”

Tony’s breath hitched. “You’re gonna be perfectly fine, Underoos. Don’t even worry about it, okay?”

Peter laughed, though it sounded more like an exhale. “C’mon, Mr. Stark. You’re usually better at lying.”

He didn’t have much of a response for that.

They sat there for another few seconds. Then, all of a sudden, Pepper was there.

“Pep,” Tony whispered, and felt something in his chest give a pang. 

“Hey, Miss Potts,” Peter said. 

“Hi, Peter,” Pepper replied, a gentle smile on her face. Her voice was so steady that if it wasn’t for the shine in her eye, he would wonder if she was even upset. “How do you feel?”

Peter shifted and let out a small grunt of pain when he did. “Been better,” he said. He licked his lips. “I think…” There was a beat of silence. “This could…” Another pause. “I think this might be it,” Peter finally managed to say. His eyes were getting glassier by the minute.

They sat there for a long moment, Tony holding one hand while cupping Peter’s face still, Pepper clinging tight to the other.

Then, Peter spoke again. “I’m cold,” he said faintly. “Mr. Stark, I’m so cold .”

In another time, in another life, Tony may have hesitated, but he had always regretted those hesitations with the kid before, and so he did not stop himself this time. Tony shifted forward, moved Peter a bit, and leaned back against the rubble himself. Something sharp dug into his hip uncomfortably, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. He let Peter rest his head on his shoulder, and it took only a few seconds for the kid to curl closer, both hands now wrapped around Tony’s one.

His other arm wrapped around Peter, holding him close and holding him steady. Pepper’s hand that had been holding the kid’s moved to rest on his shoulder instead. He knew from experience how grounding that could be.

“Where’s May?” Peter asked after a long moment. “Why… is she here?”

Pepper let out a small breath. “No, honey, she’s not.”

“Oh,” Peter said. “We… tell her to hurry. We need to… We’ve gotta wait for her.”

“We’ll wait, Peter,” Pepper said. “We’ll wait.” When she looked up and met Tony’s gaze, though, she just shook her head.

“Good.” Peter twitched a bit. “That’s good.” Then, after another few seconds, he said, “In case I… can you tell her some things, please?”

“Of course, kid,” Tony said. “Anything.”

Peter nodded. “Anything.” His breathing was labored. “Can you… tell her I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to… I know that she still thinks about everyone else, and I just… I didn’t wanna be another on the list.” He shrugged, and let out a whine. “Tell her I love her. Please tell her I love her.” He sniffed. “I love her.”

“We know, sweetie,” Pepper said, reaching forward and wiping a tear away from Peter’s cheek. “We’ll tell her.”

“Ned and MJ, too,” Peter said. “They’ll be sad. Tell them too.”

“We will.”

Peter made a high-pitched sound in the back of his throat. “Thanks, Miss Potts,” he said softly. “Love you.”

Pepper let out a sharp breath. Her eyes stayed firmly on the kid as she replied, “I love you too, Peter. You’re so, so incredible. The best hero. The best kid.”

Peter smiled just a bit. “Best hero,” he repeated. “Best kid.”

As the seconds drifted by, feeling both like individual eternities and yet as though they were passing far too quickly, Peter’s eyes, which had been resting resolutely on the sun in the distance, began to droop.

“Mr. Stark,” Peter breathed. “We won .”

“We did, kiddo. We won.”

“Don’t tell anyone,” Peter said. “About the whole… the spider thing. People’ll…” He stopped to gasp for air. “They’ll go after… they’ll…”

“We won’t do that,” Tony assured him immediately. “Not if you don’t want us to. Secret identity stays secret. Swear it.”

Peter hummed. He closed his eyes for a moment and pressed deeper into Tony’s side, despite the burned half of his body being the one touching the most.

Tony’s ears were ringing.

He felt as if he was going to be sick.

His vision was fuzzy, except for the form of his kid, curled up against him.

Peter’s eyes were open again as he sighed. “Mr. Stark,” he said, muted, “Are you… can you hear me?”

“Loud and clear, kid,” Tony replied. His voice was choked. “Loud and clear.”

Peter tilted his head upward and met Tony’s eyes. 

They stared for a long moment. “I just…”

Then, Peter broke both the silence and Tony’s heart with a single statement.

“Wanted you to… to know, I…” Peter’s breathing was shallow. “I love you, Mr. Stark.”

Tony didn’t have time to dwell. He ran with it.

“I love you, too, kiddo. I can’t even tell you. Honestly, it’s a bit confusing sometimes. I’m supposed to be the smart one.”

Peter didn’t laugh the way he normally would. In fact, he didn’t even move.

Beneath his fingertips, Tony could still feel the kid’s pulse.

Pepper’s hand on Peter’s shoulder was shaking, but she remained steady. Her other hand was pressed against her mouth, as if trying to stop the tears from coming.

Finally, Peter blinked his eyes open again.

They were glossed over. There was no light left in them. The bright eyes were gone.

Peter let out a small breath, almost like a sigh.

“I’m tired, Dad,” he mumbled. Tony’s grip tightened. “I’m really, really tired.”

Tony had to stay silent for a moment to avoid allowing a sob to escape rather than words. “That’s okay,” he said finally. “Close your eyes, kid. You can rest.”

Peter’s breathing was soft. Shallow. It was a wonder he was getting any air in at all. 

He blinked slowly. His eyes met Tony’s one more time, and Peter’s grip on his hand tightened just a bit. 

“Stay?”

Tony nodded, and squeezed back. “We’re not going anywhere, Pete. We’ll be right here when you fall asleep, and we’ll be with you when you wake.” He bit his lip hard enough to draw blood before repeating, “We’re not going anywhere.”

A tiny hum.

“Go ahead and rest, Pete,” Tony said, keeping his voice soft to try and avoid having it break. “It’s okay. We’re right here.”

Peter closed his eyes.

A long moment later, his breathing slowed.

Tony continued to hold the pulse against his fingertips.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

…

..

.

Gone.

Pepper must’ve realized when he did, because she took in a strangled gasp and hung her head.

Tony felt as if he wasn’t in control of his own body. Moving slowly, as if he was underwater, Tony tugged the kid a bit closer, hand tangled in his hair. He pressed a kiss to Peter’s forehead on instinct, as easily as he did with Morgan, and then stayed there for a moment.

Then, suddenly, he was sobbing.

The world around him was nonexistent. It was just him, and the tears, and his kid . Still clinging to Peter’s suit, the Infinity Stones looked like regular, colored rocks.

Instead, they were the things that had gotten his kid killed.

It wasn’t like with the Decimation, either, was it? This was it. This was the plan. This was the outcome. The one time they won. There was no hope of reversing, no hope of going back and just changing a few things, and then hoping it had the right effects. 

There was just Peter Parker, dead.

And Tony Stark, somehow, inexplicably, was still alive .

Tony sobbed, and sobbed, until there were no tears left for him to cry.

Then, he transitioned into screams.

He screamed and screamed and screamed, and he wasn’t quite sure if he ever stopped.

Maybe he never did.

Maybe he had just died on that battlefield, clinging to the kid that he had risked it all for. 

Maybe that would've been for the best.

Chapter Text

Tony wasn’t quite sure when he awoke.

He wasn’t quite sure where he was.

All he knew was that one moment he was holding his kid, screaming, because there was nothing else he could do, and the next he was in a bed, fluorescent lights shining overhead, accompanying the sterile smell of a medbay. The most lucid he had been during the in-between was as he thought of Peter: bright-eyed, skin smudged with dirt, heartbeat slowing to a stop.

There was the lightest pressure on his hands, a warmth that wrapped around it.

Something nudged at his shoulder lightly, before Pepper’s voice cut through the din.

“Tony,” she said, and it sounded as if she were underwater. “Say hi to Morgan.”

His gaze was blurred, but it moved slowly toward the voice, eventually stopping when it landed on his daughter. He swallowed painfully, and managed to say, “Hi, Mo.”

She tilted her head, lips pulling down. “What’s wrong, Daddy?”

Pepper cut in, then, and her words never quite landed in his mind.

Tony was drawn back to reality by Morgan’s voice. “-Where’s Peter? Is he here? Didn’t you say you were bringing him home?”

Something painful stuttered in his chest, worse than the shrapnel had ever been, and Tony squeezed his eyes shut to distract himself from the way they stung as he leaned his head back and tilted his face toward the ceiling. The lights above him, harsh as ever, somehow felt like they burned against his skin.

Morgan’s exclamation managed to filter in once again, indignant in the way only a child could be. “I thought you were bringing him back!”

“I thought so, too,” Tony said, and he could muster up nothing more. His voice failed, and the words came more as a breath than anything, faint in the way a candle’s flame was just before it flickered out. He wondered if he could put it out sooner, snuff out that sputtering fire and make it all end.

By the time he remembered where he was, Morgan was gone.

He wasn’t quite sure how long he was in the hospital for until he left. It didn’t feel like any time at all, and once he was home, he could barely remember it, as if it had all been a dream that he had just woken up from. He wished it had been a dream. Maybe then there would still be a chance that he could bring his kid home.

The day that he was released, though, Morgan was being watched by Happy at the cabin, while Pepper and Rhodey were there to keep Tony company. His best friend did most of the work while his wife just stayed by his side.

“I saw May, you know,” Pepper mentioned, soft. “The day after. Had her stay in the Tower for the night and then headed over after Morgan left here. I… told her everything. What I knew, at least.”

There was an emptiness in his gut. “Send her the suit footage,” he said roughly.

Pepper’s thumbs, rubbing slow circles over the back of his hand, stilled. “...What?”

“The suit footage,” he said. “Of the battle. Of the–the end. Send it to her.”

“Are you sure that’s the best idea?”

“She deserves to know,” Tony replied, nearly snapping. “She couldn’t even be there, when it… after I…” He couldn’t finish.

“All right,” Pepper finally said after an indescribably long silence. “I’ll send it to her.”

Tony let out a shaky breath, sinking back into the pillows. “Thank you.”

She gave him a smile, but it was more sad than anything. Pepper’s throat bobbed, then, and she looked away. Normally, Tony would pester her about it, keep asking until she told him what was wrong. He couldn’t find the strength in him to do it, though, and so he remained quiet until she spoke again.

“The funeral is tomorrow.” He jerked, aggravating his arm and causing pain to flare through his body. “At the lake house.”

His breathing was a bit ragged. “The lake house?”

“May asked to have it there, since it’s out of the way. Private, which is good for a gathering with so many Avengers.”

Tony felt as if he was in the backseat of his own mind. He managed to ask, “Who’s coming?”

Another smile appeared on her face, just as sad as the last, and he wondered how long it would take for her to stop looking at him like that. “Everyone. They all want to thank him. He saved the universe, Tony.”

He wished that he hadn’t. In saving the world, Peter had destroyed Tony’s. How was the earth meant to keep turning, knowing that all those who were lost had returned, bar one? Bar the only one that would have made all of it worth it. He supposed that was selfish. He didn’t care.

“Okay,” he said instead.

Pepper didn’t reply for a long moment, and he didn’t turn his head to look at her. Finally, she asked, “Are you all right, Tony?”

His heart stuttered in his chest. “No.”

Something in her face crumpled, but something else looked almost resigned, as if she had already known the answer to her question before she had even asked it.

When he finally got home that evening, Pepper forced him to take a shower. The moment he was out, he went straight to bed. She came in when he was still half-conscious and asked him if he wanted dinner, and his lack of response must have been enough for her, as she left soon after.

In the morning, she just barely managed to catch him and force him into a suit before he retreated to the garage. The jacket was discarded over a stool almost immediately as Tony all but collapsed into a chair.

Even as he sat here, people would be arriving for the funeral. For Peter’s funeral.

There was nowhere in the world he wanted to be less.

A funeral felt too final, too much like an acceptance. There was nothing that would ever convince Tony to simply accept Peter’s death, to move on and pretend that he hadn’t lost his kid and found his kid and lost him all over again.

Tony yanked the tie around his neck loose, finding it suddenly difficult to breathe.

The monitors were still open to the dozens of spreadsheets and notes he had made while trying to figure out how to time travel. The test that finally worked was front and center, almost proud.

He wanted to be sick.

How funny was it that he had done the impossible, had come up with a way to slip between the threads of time and space and bend them to his will, only to lose the one person he did it for?

Tony wasn’t quite sure how much time he spent staring at the screen, eyes wandering over every variable, every measurement, every detail of the technology that had saved Peter and doomed him, all at the same time. Was there something he could have done differently? Some alteration he could have made to prevent Thanos from following him, to catch him before it was too late? Something that could have sent the Stones back on their own, before they could be harnessed for any more destruction?

Was there anything he could have done that would allow him to have his kid safe and sound, bright-eyed and laughing, with a steady heartbeat in his chest?

When the door to the garage opened, Tony didn’t turn to look. His gaze stayed locked on the screens, searching for something, some sort of explanation that must be there.

“Tony,” Pepper said, and he couldn’t bring himself to face her. His jaw was set, fingers knit tightly as he rested his chin on his fists. “Tony, please.”

He shook his head.

“This isn’t doing anyone any favors,” she whispered, coming up to his side. “Just… Come out, please. We won’t start without you.”

“You should,” he murmured, not at all a reflection of the storm that raged away in his mind.

“We won’t,” she said, leaving no room for questions. “So, please, Tony. Just come outside.”

He tuned her out, after that, and couldn’t quite bring himself to feel bad about it. He loved Pepper, more than even he could imagine, but this was something that—no matter how hard she tried—he knew she would never quite get. Maybe one day she would have, maybe one day a connection just as bright as Peter and Tony had would have sprung up between her and the kid. She had loved Peter, he knew that she had. He’d been told enough times throughout the five years after the Decimation. Still, she had never quite found her stride with the kid the way that Tony had, and now it was just another thing to mourn: a connection, already filled with so much greatness and so much love, never to reach its true potential.

Pepper had left at some point, she must have, because the door opened again and she was standing on the other side, even though he could have sworn she was just talking to him.

She moved aside, then, and ice flooded his body as May stepped into the room.

“Thank you,” May murmured to Pepper, and his wife nodded, glancing at him for a moment before shutting the door behind her.

Tony wasn’t quite sure how long they sat there. His eyes were trained on the ground before May, but he could sense her own gaze boring into his skull. His stomach churned, and he could feel vividly the way the fabric of his shirt shifted every time he managed to breathe.

Finally, May’s voice broke through the silence. “Tony.” He was surprised that she could even speak. The air was so thick that it was choking him.

He blinked and she was in front of him. He had to turn his eyes up to look at her, and a burst of surprise shot through his heart. There was none of the fury, none of the disgust, none of the resentment he had expected. Instead, her eyes were deep and warm and kind, with the same compassion swimming within them that he always saw in his memories of her. It had been five years, but May Parker hadn’t changed.

(That had been the problem, hadn’t it?)

May kneeled so that she was just a bit below him, now, and a shock of lightning rocketed through him as she gently took his hands in her own.

The two of them stared at each other for what felt like forever. Tony had no idea how long they actually sat there. However long it was, an eternity could have fit inside of the space. In fact, he was sure that it did.

He hadn’t even realized just how loud the silence was until he shattered it, the quiet crumbling of a star collapsing under its own weight as he croaked, “I’m sorry.”

Her grasp on his hands tightened, and her smile wasn’t much of one, far too sad and strained for that, but she replied softly, “I know.”

He wasn’t quite sure how, but they ended up on the floor, backs pushing against a cabinet and shoulders pressed together. They didn’t look at each other, but May was still holding Tony’s hand in a death-grip, their joined fingers resting partly on his knee and partly on hers.

“You saved Peter, you know,” May finally said. There was a pang in Tony’s chest.

“Not when it mattered,” he replied.

She continued on as if she hadn’t heard him. “At the Stark Expo, the one that was attacked. You… stopped him from getting killed. Told him ‘Nice work, kid.’”

Tony’s breath hitched. “I remember that,” he said. “That was him?”

She chuckled, a wet sound. “It was.”

Silence fell again, and Tony tried to pull the memory of the Stark Expo from the depths of his mind. He saw a kid, fluffy brown hair, skinny as anything, wearing an Iron Man mask and facing off against one of the drones. For a moment, Tony wished the kid had flipped his mask up, wished that he could see the bright eyes hidden just behind it.

“You were his hero,” May said, and Tony didn’t move, but he was sure that she knew he’d heard her. “And I’m not talking about Iron Man.” Her words were stern. “You were his hero. Tony Stark. There was nothing that he wanted more than to be able to use his brain to help people, and that was exactly what you did.”

“I hurt people,” Tony breathed. “For so long. All the weapons, the bombs, the guns.”

“And you saw what they were doing,” May said. “I’m not—Tony, I’m not trying to excuse what happened... To absolve you of the things that you did. What I do know is that Peter wouldn’t have looked up to you if he thought that your inventions were getting people killed. He admired you for the clean energy, for the medical breakthroughs, for the billions of dollars you spent trying to improve the lives of others, whether you were to blame for their struggles or not.”

Tony’s mouth had been dry for days, but it was shockingly noticeable now. “He was my hero,” Tony said. “The best one. He—All he ever wanted to do was help others.” The corners of his mouth tugged up a bit despite himself. “Did I ever tell you what he told me, when I asked him why he did it?”

She shook her head.

“He said that… if you can do the things he can, and do nothing, then when the bad things happen, they happen because of you.”

May stared at him for a long moment before a smile appeared, fond and a bit incredulous. “What an idiot,” she murmured, and the word was soaked in so much love he could almost taste it. A shaky breath fell from her lips. “I never—He was good. He was so good. Always put others before himself, even when it hurt him. I almost wish I’d managed to drill more self-preservation into him. Maybe—Maybe then he…”

Her voice failed before she could finish, but she didn’t really need to. He understood exactly what she was trying to say.

A new wave of pain swept over him at the reminder. It was as if, for just a moment, he’d forgotten that the kid they were talking about was gone. His kid was gone.

He barely managed to breathe in, and his next words came out as more of a gasp. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I—I wanted to do it myself, I did, I swear.”

Her eyes were impossibly sad, a sort of grief that he wasn’t sure he would recognize if he didn’t feel it settled so solidly into his own bones.

“Tony,” she said. “I—I saw it. I watched it. I know.”

“You should hate me.” His nails were digging crescents into his skin, close to drawing blood, and yet her hand stayed on his knee, gentle and grounding.

“How could I?” She asked, as if the answer wasn’t clearer than glass. “You love him, Tony, and he loves you.”

“Loved,” he interrupted, bitter and pained.

“You really think love ends with death? That if you died, you would have stopped loving him? No. He loves you,” she insisted, and he found that he had no real way to argue with her. “And I saw what happened Tony, I did. You had them, you wanted to do it, and he stopped you. I don’t—You fought it, I know you did. He took them because he wanted to save you.”

“He shouldn’t have.”

She snorted. “Try telling him that.”

It was as if the past week was finally settling into place for him. Or maybe it was falling apart. He was back on the battlefield, in the ruins of the Compound, frozen as colorful lightning rippled over his kid’s skin. There was a flash of a smile, the glint of bright eyes, and then everything was gone.

There weren’t any tears left for Tony to cry, but it didn’t stop the sobs from wracking his body. His fingers tried to tangle in his hair, and steady hands worked to stop them.

“They’re waiting.” May’s voice was soft in his ear. “Tony, he’s waiting.”

Somehow, it worked. Tony was on his feet, May at his side. At some point, his jacket had ended up back on, his tie secure around his neck. Her hand was around his wrist, grip so tight it would hurt if he wasn’t so numb, and for a moment he wondered who would fall apart first if she let go.

He was only vaguely aware, half lost in memories that he hadn’t dared sort through until now. As he did, May murmured reassurances to him, as if forgiveness was something he deserved.

“I was there. I had them.”

“I know,” May said. “I know.”

“I swear I wanted to do it.” He needed her to know that. For someone to know that he didn’t mean to be here, now. “I did. I wanted to do it, I never wanted him to be the one to do it. I was going to do it, I was.”

“I know,” she said again, and squeezed his wrist. “I know, Tony. It’s okay. I know.”

His throat ached, and his voice broke as he said, “I did it for him. All of it. I did it for him.”

May’s words were quiet, and it sounded almost like she was talking to herself as she replied, “I know.”

When they’d made it to the living room, Tony kept his eyes trained resolutely on a point in the distance. He wasn’t sure he could bear to look at Pepper, or Rhodey, or Happy, or, terrifyingly, Peter’s friends. He didn’t know what he’d see in any of their eyes, but he didn’t particularly want to find out.

He jolted a bit as a pair of skinny arms wrapped around his legs, and looked down to see Morgan clinging to his side. A small rush of warmth managed to sweep over his heart.

“Hey, Maguna,” he said, bending down and pulling her close to him. He tucked her head into the crook of his neck and let himself dwell in the feeling of his daughter in his arms for a moment. “How’re you?”

“Are you sad, Daddy?” Morgan asked, because she always had been more perceptive than most.

Tony swallowed, ignoring how much it hurt, and breathed slowly so as to not accidentally mess up her hair with his tears. “Yeah,” he finally said. “How’d you know?”

“You look tired,” she replied simply.

“I’ve been tired before.”

“Not like this.” She looked rather insistent as she pulled her face away to give him a scrutinizing glare. “This is sad-tired.”

He hummed. It was a weak little thing, like the sound someone made when they didn’t have the energy to say anything else. “I guess I am sad-tired.”

“Why?”

Pepper, as always, saved him from a question he had no idea how to answer. “I already told you, Morgan,” she said firmly. “Remember?”

Tony had no idea what it was that Pepper had said, but Morgan simply screwed up her face before nodding. “Oh. Yeah.”

Happy took over, next, finally drawing Tony’s attention to him as he spoke. “C’mon kids. Let’s head on outside.”

Ned and MJ, Peter’s friends, looked utterly destroyed, but Tony supposed that he likely didn’t look much better. The two teenagers seemed almost like they wanted to argue, but thought better of it, simply standing slowly and walking out the door. Rhodey followed, giving Tony a solid pat on the shoulder as he did, and he wished that he had the power to say anything.

“We’ll go outside,” Pepper said once the four of them were left alone. Morgan drifted toward her mother. “If you two are ready?”

“I don’t think I’ll ever be ready,” May said, and the words rang so true within his own chest that, for a moment, he felt as though he couldn’t breathe. She released his wrist suddenly, as if she hadn’t realized she was still holding it. With no small amount of desperation, Tony followed her hand, grasping it in his own, a hold that she quickly tightened. He was glad she didn’t let go. He was sure he would fall apart if she did.

“I don’t—” His breaths were shaky, as if his lungs couldn’t quite remember how to take them. “It feels like letting go. I don’t—I don’t want to…”

“You’re not letting go,” Pepper said. “But you’re allowing yourself to move forward.”

The thought of moving on, of leaving Peter behind, was something that he had never even considered. He couldn’t. “I don’t want to move on.”

“Not move on.” Her smile was sad, but the love in her eyes was unmistakable. “Move forward. He’ll always be a part of you—of all of us—and you know that he would want you to keep living.” It didn’t feel right, because he was sure that nothing ever would, now, but it was better in a way few things had been.

“I can never seem to stop losing.” May made a sound that could be called a laugh, if it wasn’t for the fact that it sounded nothing like a laugh at all.

“He knew what he was sacrificing,” Pepper said, and despite the fact that he couldn’t understand it, he knew that she was right. Peter was smart, he had known exactly what would happen if he used those Stones. That was probably why he had done it. “He understood as soon as he put those Stones on. He still did it, and he did it for you. You said the same thing to Ned and MJ. He did it for all of us.”

For a long moment, there was only silence. Then, May said softly, “He always was the best of us.”

In a voice barely there, Tony echoed, “The best.”

It must have satisfied Pepper in some way, because she took in a deep breath, visibly steeling herself before she said, “C’mon, Morgan. Let’s go outside.”

“What about them?” Morgan asked as Pepper ushered her toward the back door.

“They’ll be out in a minute.” They slid through the door, Pepper closing it behind them, and it was just Tony and May, alone again.

There was silence for a long minute. Maybe two. The only thing that Tony could bear to focus on was May’s hand, calloused from years of work, held firmly in his own.

“This isn’t going to be it,” May finally said. Her voice was level, surprisingly so. “No… sweeping it away. I’m not going to let you forget him.”

He let out a stuttering huff of air. “Wasn’t planning on it.”

A flash of a grin, incredible, given everything. “I didn’t think so.”

The wreath was on the dining room table, flowers of vivid blues and reds curling around one another. Small white blossoms were weaved between them, reminiscent of a web. Peter sat engraved on the top of the metal disc resting between them, Parker along the bottom. Between the two names, a spider was carved into the middle.

May reached forward and brushed a thumb over the engraving. They stayed quiet for a few moments longer before she carefully took the wreath, pulling it toward her. Without a word being exchanged, Tony went to help, and a moment later the wreath was held between the two of them.

Perhaps it would be more comfortable if they weren’t holding hands still, but Tony didn’t know if he could bear releasing his grip on her. She made no move either, and when they approached the door, FRIDAY set to open it for them, Tony felt the tears begin to fall without him even realizing.

They came to a stop for just a moment, and Tony tightened his hold on May’s hand. “Don’t let go,” he said, more of a plea than anything.

She squeezed back in response as the door slid open.

“Never.”

It was a promise, and Tony had never known May Parker to break a promise.

As one, they stepped outside.

Tony kept his gaze forward. Out of the corner of his eye, he just barely recognized people he called his friends. Perhaps once he would have been ashamed to cry in front of them, but these tears were for Peter, and so he held his head high.

He and May stepped in tandem, as if neither one of them could move without the other making to do so first. They drifted onto the docks, passing by Happy and Rhodey, Ned and MJ, and still he looked forward. As they stepped by her, his eyes finally moved to meet Pepper’s, rimmed red, and she gave him a smile that didn’t even look as though it deserved to be called one. Smiles were not meant to be so sad.

At the end of the docks, they stopped, bending down together as if they had done this a million times before. They laid the wreath onto the water, more still than he had ever seen it. Tiny ripples fanned out from it, but it remained still as May reached forward and grabbed the disc in her hand.

Tony watched as the stoicness she had managed to hold onto for so long shattered. Tears streamed down her face as she pressed the metal against her chest. It was as if she was trying to change things through her grief alone. He understood. In a way, it was exactly what he had done, what had brought them to this point.

She pressed her lips to the name before passing the disc over to him. Tony took it with a hand that, somehow, didn’t shake. For a long few seconds, he could do nothing but stare at it, tears slipping down his chin and onto the metal, mixing with May’s that had fallen there too. Finally, he pressed a kiss to Peter’s name as well, as if he could pour all of his love for the kid into one singular moment. He couldn’t, of course, but that didn’t stop him from trying.

When he pulled away, he offered the side of the disc back to May, who took it. Together, they placed it back into the wreath, secure in the same way that Peter always should have been.

As one, they pushed the wreath away, standing to watch as it drifted off into the lake, gleaming in the sunlight that bled through the trees.

They stayed together during the reception. Tony’s hand felt as if it belonged in May’s, for the time being, and so there it stayed. They remained off to the side, and though every person came by once to give their condolences, it was never further than that. It was as if everyone there knew that there was nothing they could say that could make it better.

Pepper, Happy, and Rhodey stayed with them, too. The three talked together, mostly leaving Tony and May to themselves, and for that he was grateful. He and May generally spent their time thinking of stories to exchange, ones that the other might not have heard yet. May swore to dig out an old photo album she was sure was still in a closet in her apartment somewhere. Tony offered to help her look, and then they had plans for the following weekend. That was probably good. Pepper would be proud.

At some point, a few hours in, Steve drifted over.

“Rogers,” Tony said, and it carried none of the derision it once had. Five years of mourning could do a lot to something like that.

“Tony,” Steve replied. There was a distant look on his face. His eyes landed on May, and he inclined his head. “Mrs. Parker.”

“May, please,” she said, as she had when he came by earlier, too. Steve nodded, as if it was something he’d manage to remember next time.

“You need something?” Tony asked, hoping that Steve would ignore the croak in his voice. Thankfully, he did.

“I just… wanted to thank you.” Steve’s words were a bit airy, but carried a weight to them different from what was normal with him. May must have felt it too, as she squeezed his hand once, almost alert. Tony shifted his stance just a bit, on instinct.

“Thank me? For what?”

Steve sighed. “I’ve done wrong by you in the past, Tony,” he said. “And yet, you’ve always been there, when it really came down to it. You’ve… I never thought I’d get another chance to…”

“What are you on about, Rogers?” Tony asked, eyes flicking up and down the super soldier as if it would reveal anything.

“I’m bringing the Stones back, tomorrow,” Steve said after a long moment. “To Morag, Vormir, Asgard, New York…”

Tony blinked as understanding settled in like an unwelcome blanket. “No, Steve.”

“Excuse me?”

“No,” Tony said firmly. “You want to stay in 1970 when you bring the Space Stone back, I’m telling you: No.”

Steve looked almost indignant, as if he had any right to be. “No? Tony, all I’ve ever wanted is to have another chance to—to live my life! I was dragged out of it, and now I finally have the opportunity—”

“You were dragged out of the forties, Steve, not the seventies,” Tony said sharply, cutting him off. “What you want to do is go back and insert yourself into the life of a woman with her own family who, for all intents and purposes, was never really with you to begin with.”

“Tony, the thing with Peggy and I, we just never got the chance—”

“And it’ll stay that way.” It was almost funny, how Steve spoke as if Tony himself didn’t know Peggy Carter better. “She was my godmother, you know. Basically part of the family. She had a husband that she loved, and kids that she loved, and she told me stories about you like you were an old friend. You’re not mourning what you had with her, Steve, you’re mourning the life that you lost when you were stuck in that ice. The thing is, no matter how much you might hate it, there’s no getting that back.”

Steve was silent, and Tony took the opportunity to continue.

“For just about the whole time that I’ve known you, what you have wanted is not your old life back. What you’ve wanted has been to help your friend.”

Steve jolted, as if just remembering that Bucky Barnes existed. In the back of Tony’s mind played the image of Steve and Barnes stumbling away from him in Siberia, looping over itself as if mocking him.

“I don’t like Barnes all that much-” Not actually the fault of the guy, but Tony had never known him as anything other than the Winter Soldier, not really- “But what I do know is that you spent most of the time that I knew you prior to the Decimation doing whatever you could to help that man. Breaking international law. And now that you have the chance to go back and get with a girl who had her own life without you—who was never even yours to begin with—you’re ready to just throw him out without a second thought?”

The discomfort on Steve’s face was obvious, now, as if Tony was pointing things out that he had thought about but hadn’t wanted to actually consider.

May—ever one of the smartest people around—cut in, “What about everything that happened? The Invasion in 2012? Ultron? The Decimation? You wouldn’t be able to change anything. Are you sure that you’d really be willing to just sit back and let all of that happen, let all of those people die?”

Steve’s throat bobbed, and he looked suspiciously like he wanted to cry. Tony placed a hand on his shoulder. “Maybe think some things over, Rogers,” he said. “You’re one of the Avengers, one of our first. We already lost ‘Tasha. I don’t know if we can take losing you, too.”

May’s grip on his hand tightened again, and Tony pushed away from thinking about the reason why they were all gathered here, now. The loss that it was for.

Steve stared at him for a long moment before he squared his shoulders and stepped away. Tony didn’t bother watching him go.

Something in his stomach stirred, and he felt for a moment like he was going to be sick.

“Tony,” May said after what felt like forever had passed.

He glanced at her.

She offered a smile, soft and knowing. “Go get some rest.”

“What?”

She pulled her hand from his and, somehow, he managed to stay standing. “I know you’re not going to sleep,” she said. “Lord knows I won’t. But go inside, sit down, let yourself just…”

Even though she didn’t finish, he understood what she was trying to say well enough.

“What about you?” He asked.

“I’ll be all right.” At first glance, he would have believed her. “Eventually.”

“If you need anything—”

“I know,” she said, looking almost amused. “I already got the talk from Pepper.”

He swallowed, hard.

“I’ll be back in a few days,” May added. “We need to—Pepper said that there have to be talks about… what to tell everyone. The public, I mean.”

Tony hadn’t really thought about it, but it made sense. It also made his heart hurt. “Okay.” He glanced toward the water. “We should take a walk around the lake, then. It’s nice. You’ll like it.”

“I’m sure I will.” She eyed him for a long moment before laughing. “These five years have been good to you, Tony.”

Cold snaked through his chest. “Not totally.”

Her smile faltered a bit. “No, I suppose not.” Her arms were around him, then, and he returned the embrace quickly, in a way he never would have before. “Still,” she said when she pulled away, “Good.”

She gave him a squeeze on the forearm, followed by another smile. Somehow, it was the last bit of encouragement he needed. Without saying a word to anyone else, he kissed Pepper on the cheek and went back inside the house. In the living room, alone, he stood for a singular moment before moving to go back into the garage. The jacket thrown over the chair, the tie discarded, it was almost as if he’d never left, if not for just the slightest bit of weight lifted from his chest.

The following days slipped by in a blur, though not as much as the ones prior to the funeral had. The afternoon following it, Tony sat on the deck and watched as, in the distance, Bruce, accompanied by Barnes and Wilson, sent Steve back in time.

He gripped his mug just a bit tighter as Steve didn’t come back when he was meant to. Bruce and Wilson panicked, and the resignation on Barnes’s face was so painful that Tony almost wanted to go and pat the guy on the shoulder, guide him away.

Then, though, abruptly, the time machine activated again, and Steve was standing there, the Infinity Stones nowhere to be found, looking more at peace than he had in all the time Tony had known him.

There was a figure beside him, and as yells erupted from the others gathered, rushing forward to offer support, Tony took a sip from his coffee before pushing himself to his feet and moving toward Natasha.

As people rushed around, he got just a moment where he was able to stand next to one of his oldest friends.

“I’m sorry, Tony,” she said, her voice rough. Her eyes were glassy, but they focused hard on him. “About the kid.”

His breath hitched. “Did Steve—”

“No.” She shook her head. “But he didn’t have to. I knew right when I saw you.”

“How?” He asked.

Natasha smiled. It was sad, though, in a way he hadn’t often seen from her. “Clint looked the same way.”

Pepper invited them all to stay for dinner, and that evening, as she put Morgan to bed and everyone else mingled about, Steve came up to Tony’s side.

“Thank you,” he said, not meeting Tony’s eyes. “For what you said yesterday.”

“Yeah?”

Steve nodded. “I never—I knew the things you said…That they were true. I’d just—I wanted—”

Tony cut him off easily. “Don’t worry about it, Spangles,” he said. “I get it.”

There was a moment of silence, filled only by the din from the others talking, before Steve broke it. “I danced with her.”

Tony jolted. “Pardon?”

“Peggy.” Steve had always had a sort of whimsical look on his face when he talked about her, but now it reminded Tony strikingly of his godmother. Like remembering an old friend. “Right before I went under the ice, we… I’d promised her a dance. I never got to, before.” He chuckled. “She thought I was a ghost at first, but… Well, working in SHIELD, founding it, she understood the kind of powers that could be at work better than most. She didn’t really ask any questions about it. I told her that I was alive, but not where I was, and, I mean…”

“She never gave up looking for you, anyway,” Tony said. “All you really gave her was more conviction.”

Steve snorted. “Like she needed more.” He sighed. “So, we danced. And then we just stood there, for a long time, until she finally… She was the one who told me I needed to leave. Not because she wanted me to, but because I did.”

“Aunt Peggy always was smarter than anyone else.”

“That she was.” Steve’s head was down, toward the floor. “So, I left. Came back here.” He met Tony’s gaze, finally, eyes shining. “Guess you’re not getting rid of me yet.”

Tony hummed. “Barnes certainly thought you were gone for good. Seemed convinced of it, even if you hadn’t said goodbye.” He nudged Steve in the side. “Maybe you should spend a bit more time with your friend. Stop pretending you didn’t go to the ends of the earth just for a chance at saving him.”

Steve’s face then—incredibly—grew a bit red, and Tony almost burst out laughing as understanding settled in around him. Oh.

This asshole.

“Take some time, Steve,” Tony said. “I don’t know if the world will ever stop needing you, but just… take some time to yourself. Rest. Be with the people you care about.”

Steve smiled at him, then, softly, in a way that he rarely did at Tony. He found that it was something he liked to see. “I already am.”

While the others headed out, Natasha stayed the night, set up in the guest room on the first floor. Tony, emerging from the garage hours after everyone else had left, ran into her in the kitchen, long after he thought she had gone to sleep.

“Hey, Nat,” he said, making his entrance as obvious as possible. She still startled a bit, which was odd to see, with her. “You looking for something?”

“Hot chocolate mix,” she replied. The cupboards were all thrown open, though mostly shrouded in darkness. Only one lamp was on.

“Pepper gets this artisan kind from a farmers’ market near here,” Tony said.

Natasha’s face scrunched a bit. “So, you don’t have any of the cheap stuff?”

Tony stared at her for a long moment before he moved forward, shifted aside two containers of granola and a pack of apple juice, and pulled out a box of Swiss Miss. “Oh, my dear Miss Romanoff, of course I do.”

A smile pulled at Natasha’s lips, and a small chime rang through the room as FRIDAY turned on the electric kettle without being asked.

They found themselves on the deck soon after that, staring out at the lake. It was late, long past midnight now, and so no fireflies were out, but they were far enough from the city that the stars were striking against the night sky.

Natasha hummed as she nursed her cup of hot chocolate, made with cheap mix and boiling water. Pepper, a self-proclaimed hot chocolate connoisseur, would lose her mind. Tony took a sip of his own drink, identical to his friend’s.

“It’ll hurt forever,” she finally said.

“Yeah?” Tony asked, not quite sure what she was talking about, but willing to listen.

Natasha nodded. “Steve—He had to convince the Powers-That-Be, I suppose, that it was a fair trade, delivering the Stone and getting me back in return. They agreed, eventually, but… You don’t just come back from Death perfectly fine. I’ll hurt, forever, and my—” She cut herself off with a sniffle, and it hit Tony just how devastating this all actually was for her. “My back breaking was what killed me, originally.” She said it so casually it nearly knocked the breath from him. “It’s fixed now, but it’s not like it was before, and I don’t think I’ll ever be able to do the things I once could.” She let out a shaky sigh. “That’s all… it’s done now. I won’t ever be able to get it back, not really.”

“There’s nothing we can do?” Tony’s mind was already trying to flick through possibilities.

“No,” she said, with a shocking amount of conviction. “This isn’t like Rhodey and his legs. It isn’t like Clint and his hearing. It isn’t something Helen could fix. This is a price that I am paying to sit here, now. That’s just how it is.”

Tony took one hand off of his mug to pat her shoulder. “Nat, what you did saved the world. Or, well, actually, the universe, which is arguably even more impressive. I don’t know what the future is going to look like, or what you want it to look like, but you’ve got people there every step of the way, and we’re going to help you, all right? You’re not alone. You’ve got us, and we’re gonna make you happy whether you like it or not, because you deserve it.”

She let out a little huff of air, more a breath than a laugh. “So do you,” she said.

“Excuse me?”

Her gaze turned to him, and it was still foggy, despite being sharp. He wondered if it would always be that way. “Pepper told me what happened. I know you blame yourself. I’m telling you, it wasn’t your fault.”

“You weren’t there,” Tony ground out. “You didn’t see, don’t act like you did.”

It was mean—incredibly so, given the circumstances—but Tony had spent most of his life being mean, and Natasha, for the entire time she’d known him, had always handled it with nothing more than a raised eyebrow. That was what she did, now, the judgment nearly palpable as she looked at him. “You’re right,” she said. “I wasn’t there. But I didn’t need to be for what I’m saying to be true. It wasn’t your fault, Tony. And it wasn’t the kid’s fault, either. It was Thanos’s fault, and no one else’s, because without him none of us ever would have been lost in the first place. You need to get that through your head now, before you spend the rest of your life punishing yourself over something you’re not to blame for.”

“Natasha,” Tony said, voice strained, “You don’t understand.”

“What don’t I understand, Tony?” She pressed.

He grit his teeth, fingers tightening around his mug. “Thanos is already dead.”

She was silent for a moment before she breathed, “Oh.”

“He was dead first,” Tony continued. “Before Peter, he was already—” A sound tore from his throat, something between a cough and a sob.

“You don’t have anyone you can take your pain out on,” she murmured. “Because by the time Peter died, all of them were already gone.”

Tears streamed down his face, and he said nothing more. He didn’t have to.

Natasha sighed. “I’m sorry, Tony. For all of this.” She took a sip of her hot chocolate. “You never said it to any of us, but I always knew why you did it. Why you agreed to.” Her gaze turned back to him. “It was because of him, wasn’t it?”

His throat hurt. He nodded.

“You didn’t deserve this,” she said. “Neither of you. You put in months of work, invented time travel, just so that you could save him, and then he’s the one that was lost for good. He was just a kid, he deserved the chance to graduate, go to college, spend time with his friends and family. Both of you deserved more time together than you got.” She chuckled, humorlessly. “I almost want to apologize for coming back when he can’t.”

Tony jerked. “Nat, no—”

“I won’t,” she interrupted him easily. “Because there is no reason to. Me being here, me not being here, it doesn’t change what happened. It’s not my fault.” Her eyes were imploring. “In the same way that it’s not yours. And I didn’t know the kid very well, but I’m certain he would agree with me, if he were here now.”

“He would,” Tony admitted. “If he could stop fanboying. He always thought you were one of the coolest.”

She cracked a smile. “I’m flattered. Were you at the top of the list?”

He snorted. “Of course not. He always thought I was lame.” He paused for a moment. “May said I was his favorite. Me, not Iron Man.”

Natasha didn’t ask who May was. Perhaps she already knew. “Of course you were. He was your favorite, wasn’t he? Peter, not Spider-Man.”

Tony said nothing in response, but he didn’t need to for Natasha to understand. It had been upsetting, once, but it was comforting now. Still sipping her hot chocolate, staring out at the stars, she pressed herself against his side, as if reclaiming her place in his life. Somehow, she fit better now than she ever had before.

The following weekend, Tony made his way to Queens, feeling inexplicably more weighed down than he had while talking with Natasha. May was already waiting for him in her apartment.

“I can’t believe you bought this entire building,” she said in lieu of a greeting, stepping aside to let him in.

“Well, they wouldn’t let me buy just the one apartment, so…”

May scowled, but there was little malice behind it. “It’s ridiculous.”

“Which you should be used to from me by now.”

“You would think,” she muttered. “I’ll be ready in just a minute. Make yourself comfortable, I guess, but not too comfortable.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, giving her a mock salute that she shook her head at—fondly—before moving back into her bedroom.

The apartment looked almost exactly as it had when he’d visited in the days following the Decimation. A few things had been moved, but otherwise it was the same. That was good. He hadn’t paid for a cleaning service to dust it for five years just for May to come back to a dirty home.

Tony heard the door to her room open, but May didn’t come out. Instead, her voice rang through the apartment. “You have a way to copy something, right?”

He blinked. “Like, a book?” At her confirmation, he said, “Yeah, FRIDAY can scan it and do it. Why?”

She hummed and, rather than responding, closed her door again. A few minutes later, she emerged for good, a bag stuffed with what looked to be old books at her side. It was a bit odd, seeing May in such a dark color palette, all maroons and navies and blacks rather than the brighter yellows and reds she had always seemed to prefer. It made sense, though, he supposed, and she looked more put-together than him, in a gray t-shirt and dark jeans. To be fair, it wasn’t a hard feat.

“Let’s go,” she said, rather than offering an explanation about the books, and, given the look in her eye, he knew better than to ask.

The drive to the Tower was easy. It hadn’t even been three weeks since everyone had been brought back, and the world was still quite a ways away from getting up-and-running again. Every country had their own plan, but in America, at least, they were focusing on getting people adjusted to the changes first. Emergency services were the only things really running, right now, with a few necessary shops open. Some businesses had started opening their doors again, too, but even then only people who hadn’t been victims of the Decimation were allowed to work, and so most were at home.

It was odd, driving some of the streets that they did as certain areas were shut down to function as facilities for displaced Decimated, or to help count them, or work on the millions of other tasks that the government was trying to delegate. Apparently, most of those Decimated that had already been processed were either sitting at home or trying to make themselves useful by volunteering.

“They tried to fast-track anyone they had on record as an emergency worker,” May said as they turned to follow another Detour sign. “We’re not allowed to work right now, because even getting processed doesn’t mean you’re not still considered gone, but volunteering is perfectly allowed, and it’s…” She sighed. “It’s something to do.”

Tony hummed and pressed his foot on the gas to make it through a yellow light.

Still, the drive was easy, despite the detours, because barely anyone was on the road. They pulled into the garage below the Tower and made for the private elevator toward the back that would take them straight to the penthouse.

“Who’s going to be there?” May asked as they rapidly ascended.

“Pepper, of course,” Tony said. “And… I’m not sure who else. Rhodey wouldn’t surprise me.”

As it turned out, he was nearly spot-on. Nearly because, in addition to the two he’d mentioned, Nick Fury was also lounging in one of the armchairs. Men in suits dotted the room, sunglasses over their eyes, which made even more sense when Tony’s gaze landed on the woman sitting on the couch next to Pepper: Isabella Rivera, the current President of the United States.

She had quickly risen to prominence in the political world in the wake of the Decimation, especially considering how it was in shambles with half of the people missing. Following the deaths of many of the political icons, including both President Trump and the Speaker at the time, people had been desperate for leaders. After a jumble of hundreds of special elections across just about every state, Isabella, being one of the foremost people responsible for getting the nation functioning again after having essentially taken charge in the chaos, was elected Speaker of the House by a relatively decent margin.

Around six months after, almost a year post-Decimation, President Pence, appointed after the former died, resigned in the face of overwhelming pressure from both sides of the aisle. He had no Vice-President, never having the chance to appoint one that Congress would confirm during the mess, and so Isabella, the next in line, was sworn-in instead, as the first woman to sit in the Oval Office.

Ironic, considering her two predecessors.

She used her new position swiftly and effectively, and easily won the election in 2020 when it rolled around, and it wouldn’t be a surprise if she won next year, either.

Her gaze was always sharp when they met, a bit critical, but there was a mutual respect between the two of them that Tony had never really enjoyed with the three that came before her.

Though they ignored him—doing wonders for his ego—the Secret Service agents quickly closed in on May, who clutched her bag tightly, as if she would rather die than relinquish it.

“C’mon guys, leave her alone, she’s with me,” Tony said.

They didn’t, moving closer until Isabella herself said, “For God’s sake, leave the woman be.”

The agents backed off and Tony guided May into the main sitting area.

“Izzy,” he said, grinning, “Good to see you. Surprising, too.” His gaze shifted to the Director of SHIELD. “Can’t say the same for you, though, Fury.”

Ignoring his last statement, the president gave him a nod. “A pleasure, as always, Tony,” she said. Her eyes flicked to May. “Care to introduce us?”

“Of course, of course, what kind of man do you think I am?” Tony asked. He nudged May to the empty sofa. She took the corner closer to the couch Pepper sat on, while he took the side nearer to Rhodey, in the other armchair. “Izzy, this is May Parker. May, this is Isabella Rivera, the president of the United States.”

May inclined her head respectfully. “It’s an honor to meet you, Madam President,” she said, her words sounding surprisingly natural.

Isabella nodded to her in return. “Please, just Isabella will do.”

“And May will work fine for me,” May said.

“What is it that you do, May?” Isabella asked easily. Her skills with people had always impressed Tony, even when she was barely a blip on the radar. “Do you work with Tony?”

“Oh, no.” May shook her head. “I’m a nurse. Or, I was, before the Decimation. I plan to be one again soon, once it’s possible. For now, I suppose I’m a hospital volunteer, if not a high-ranking one.”

Isabella furrowed her brow. “How is it that you two know each other, then?” She asked, eyes flicking from May to Tony and back again.

“Friend of the family,” Tony replied. “That’s… probably the best way to put it.”

May hummed. “Co-parents might be better,” she said quietly, though clearly audible for the president, who only looked more confused.

Before any more questions could be asked, Tony waved his hand in the air flippantly. “All right, I say we get this show on the road.”

Isabella nodded. “Indeed. Even if the vaguest of details were provided prior to the plan being executed, the vast majority of the world is still scrambling to find out what actually happened when everyone was Returned.”

“Is that what we’re calling it?” Tony asked, sensing the emphasis on the last word.

She shrugged. “Some were trying to call it ‘the Blip,’ but, well…”

“That sounds stupid, yes, carry on.”

“Yes, well, it’s rather clear that things did not go exactly according to plan, considering the near-complete destruction of the Avengers Compound,” Isabella said. “I don’t find it unreasonable to request that I am among the first to know the details of it all?”

“I suppose,” Tony said. “The main gist of it is this: when the Power Stone was grabbed in 2014, the Thanos of that time, still alive and kicking in all the worst ways, noticed. He snatched up our Nebula and, once he’d learned what we were doing from her, had his own replace her. Evil Nebula then activated the time machine again and brought Thanos from 2014 to now. We had just enough time to complete the Snap that brought everyone back before he started bombing the Compound.”

“Thanos returned?” Isabella asked. Her face was pale, as if the very thought made her sick. Considering what Thanos had done the last time he was on Earth (any version of him), it was rather understandable. “Given that we’re all still here, I presume he was defeated?”

Before he had a chance to respond, May stood up suddenly. “Tony,” she said, voice level, “I would like to go get those copies started if you don’t mind.”

He easily let her take the opening. “Yeah, yeah, go right ahead, miss out on my incredible storytelling skills. Head to the elevator down to my lab. FRIDAY will help you out, won’t you girl?”

“Of course, Boss.”

Without giving anyone another glance, May strode stiffly from the sitting area to the elevator doors, which opened as she approached.

“She’ll be back,” Pepper said once May was gone. “She just needs a moment. She won’t be missing anything she doesn’t already know.”

Isabella was silent for a moment, before she gestured for Tony to continue. “You were saying that Thanos was back?”

Tony nodded. “He intended to get the Stones back from us and use them to tear the universe back down to its atoms and rebuild it from there as he saw fit.”

Isabella’s right ring finger tapped rapidly against the side of her knee. It was a nervous tick that very few ever got the chance to see. Tony was one of the lucky ones then. He’d seen that knee tap almost every time he’d ever talked to the president.

“And you stopped him,” she said.

“Well, we were really just trying to send the Stones back before he could get a chance to use them,” Tony said. “Eventually, though, he managed to get his hands on them. He—” Tony’s throat was clogged, suddenly, and he cleared it. The sound was rough. “He went to use them, and so I threw myself at him. Held his fingers back, so he couldn’t Snap. While he was distracted, the nanobots of my suit transferred the Stones from him to me.”

Tony rolled back the sleeve of his jacket so she could see the scars that snaked up his arms. They were odd scars. They had healed far faster than they should have, even with the technology that he had at his disposal. The skin was a bit mottled with burns, and the lines that the energy of the Stones had followed seemed to almost have a tint of color to each of them. Dull red, purple, orange, blue, yellow, and green, the color of each Infinity Stone clear if one only took a moment to look closer. He wondered if the hues would ever truly fade.

Isabella stared at the scars with slightly-wide eyes. Her gaze flicked up to meet his own. “So, it was you?” She asked. “You used the Stones to stop him?”

Tony’s entire body felt as if it was buzzing as he shook his head. “No,” he said, and his voice sounded a bit muffled even to himself. “No, anyone less than the Hulk using those Stones would be destroyed by their power. These scars are just from me wielding them for a few seconds.” He swallowed, and his throat hurt worse than it ever had before. There was a burning behind his eyes. “I had them, I planned on using them, but Thanos went to essentially bash my head in. The only reason I didn’t die was because someone tackled me out of the way.”

Isabella raised an eyebrow. Out of the corner of his eye, Tony watched Fury straighten just a bit, as if in anticipation, despite it almost certainly being information he already knew. “Someone? Who?”

Tony’s eyes were stinging. He glanced up, noted the agents around the room, and asked, “Any chance we could get a little privacy in here, Izzy?”

She was silent for a moment before nodding, waving her hand to send the men away. It was probably made easier by the presence of two superheroes (and Nick Fury, loathe as Tony was to admit it.) Isabella’s attention turned back to Tony once the room was clear and she prompted, “Who stopped you?”

Tony’s nails were digging into his palm as he said, “Spider-Man. He tackled me out of the way, webbed me to the ground, and took the Stones from me before I could even realize he was doing it.” He was speaking quickly, now. More rambling than anything. He couldn’t stop, though, because if he did, he might not be able to start again. “Thanos went to Snap, but the Stones were gone, and then Spider-Man—” His breath hitched. He cleared his throat, and for some reason it made his head pound. “Spider-Man sat up, and he—he smiled, and he Snapped instead.” His shoulders shuddered as he exhaled. When he breathed in again, it was like no air had entered his lungs. “He made Thanos—Thanos and his entire army—turn to dust. And then he—he was on the ground, and the Stones were killing him, and I held him but there wasn’t anything I could do—”

There was a hand on his knee, then, and one on his shoulder. He startled at the abrupt presence, but reveled in the way it grounded him. He blinked past the tears welling up and was somehow unsurprised to see May sitting on the couch next to him.

She didn’t say anything, but she smiled at him, despite the red that rimmed her eyes.

“Lo siento,” Isabella said, concern painting her face, breaking past the mask of relative coolness she often wore professionally. “But I feel as though I’m missing something. So, Spider-Man used the Stones, saved the universe, and then… died because of them?”

Tony managed a shaky breath. “His—His name was Peter. Peter Parker, son of Richard and Mary Parker.”

Isabella blinked. “Parker?” Her gaze shifted to May. “Mierda, was he—?”

“My nephew,” May said. Her words were low, a bit scratchy, but there was that same unmistakable fondness that could be heard any time she talked about Peter. “His parents died when he was young, so my husband and I raised him, and after Ben passed some years back, it was just me.”

“He was fifteen.” The tears were slow down Tony’s cheeks, and boiling hot. They were sharply salty, and yet somehow his mouth was filled only with ash, as if he was still on Titan, slumped against the ground, the sky burned gold. “He wanted Star Wars LEGOs for his birthday, and he knew all the words to Hamilton, and he was still afraid of spiders. He was—He was the best kid.”

Isabella’s eyes flicked between Tony and May. “You—You joked that you were like co-parents, earlier.”

May nodded when he couldn’t find it in himself to respond.

Isabella inhaled sharply. Then, her voice shockingly distressed, she breathed, “Ay dios mío, Tony.”

“What we are here to figure out,” Fury cut in, staying leaned back in his chair, elbows propped on the armrests, “Is what the public is going to hear about all of this. How much of the truth is going to be revealed.”

“The circumstances leading up to Thanos arriving here can stay relatively the same,” Rhodey said, finally speaking, “If watered down a bit. It’s the end of the battle that we really need to address.”

“Peter said he wanted his identity to stay a secret,” Tony said. It was closer to a croak, really, but no one commented on it. “It was one of the—the last things he said. I promised him.”

Fury sighed. “If these were any other circumstances, Stark… But I get it.”

Tony blinked. “That easy?”

“He was a kid, Stark,” Fury said, looking distinctly unimpressed. “A kid who we owe the universe to. If one of the last things he asked was that his identity remains secret, well… That we can do, I suppose. The question now is who is credited with the Snap?”

“Spider-Man is the easiest option,” Isabella said.

“But it wasn’t Spider-Man who saved the universe.” Pepper’s voice was firm. “It was Peter Parker.”

It took some time, but they eventually agreed upon a story: Peter, being Tony’s personal intern, had been brought in under emergency circumstances to help with the battle against Thanos in 2018. He’d been in the Compound when the Snap had happened, meaning that he was Returned there when it was reversed. After managing to survive the destruction of the Compound, he snuck his way through the battle using some Iron Man tech he’d been able to salvage, until he saw Tony and Thanos facing down with the Stones. He tackled Tony out of the way and the Stones automatically transferred to the gauntlet he was wearing. Realizing that he had the chance to save everyone, Peter had Snapped, destroying Thanos and his army once and for all, and then dying a hero.

A story was invented for Spider-Man, too, one of heroics. It was said that he survived, giving an easy reason for why his identity was not revealed. He would just be one of those many heroes who, after the Battle for Earth, planned to put down the mask for good.

“We’ll need to plan a press conference,” Pepper said. Her phone was in her hand, as if she was already trying to figure out the best time.

“Hold it for two months,” Tony stated, and all eyes turned to him.

“Two months?” Fury repeated. “The people of the world are restless, they can’t wait two months.”

“They can,” Tony said firmly. “That’s what Peter would want.” May seemed to understand, but at the questioning looks from the rest he continued. “August is gonna be spent processing kids back into the school system and forcing them to spend days testing to see if they can graduate into the next grade. September is gonna be the first proper month back to school, then.”

“There wasn’t much Peter loved more than his friends,” May nodded. “When this news breaks, those two are going to be mobbed like no tomorrow, regardless of how prepared they are. He would want them at least settled into classes again before that happens.”

Fury didn’t look happy about it, but Isabella inclined her head. “We’ll schedule it for the end of September, then. Release small bits of information—very controlled—before that, to keep the media satiated as much as possible.”

“Mrs. Parker,” FRIDAY’s voice rang out from the ceiling, giving everyone pause. “Your copies are finished. Would you like me to send them up?”

May blinked. “Uh, yeah, sure. Thank you, FRIDAY.”

As they closed the meeting up, the elevator doors opened and Dum-E rumbled into the room, moving toward May. Its single arm reached out and offered her a book, the top one of a stack that sat on its back.

“Thank you,” May said. She took the book, the cover rather bland considering the fact that FRIDAY probably manufactured it in the lab, and flipped it open. Her eyes softened at whatever she saw. “Perfect.” She set the book back on the stack and asked, “Can you hang out here for a few minutes?” Its arm moved up and down in an approximation of a nod. “Thank you.”

“Well,” Isabella said, patting both of her knees and getting to her feet, “This has been quite the… productive meeting.” She straightened out her pants. “May, it has been an absolute pleasure to meet you, and… on behalf of the entirety of the United States of America, thank you. And I am sorry for your loss.” Her gaze turned to him. “Yours, too, Tony.”

He stiffened a bit, but forced a smile. “Thanks, Izzy. We should get lunch sometime soon. Your place?”

She laughed. “I don’t think I could stop you if I tried. Bring Pepper and May, sí? Always nice to have someone around who can temper you, even better to have two.”

As May and Pepper chuckled along with her, Tony raised mock protests. Isabella, once more accompanied by her mass of agents, left soon after. Fury had disappeared at some point. Rhodey went with Pepper when she headed down to her office, giving Tony a pat on the shoulder as he passed.

Then, it was just him and May.

“So,” he said, breaking the silence, “You gonna tell me what those books are about, or am I just gonna have to wonder forever?”

Without saying a word, she bent down and grabbed one of the books. Meeting his eyes with a stern, solid gaze, she pressed it against his chest.

“Ooh, I’m so excited,” Tony said, a grin on his face. “Tell me all your secrets, book.”

He pulled back the cover, flipped to the first page, and froze.

It was a picture of a baby in a cradle. The eyes were screwed shut, the tiniest tuft of light hair on the head. It was wrapped in a blue blanket. It looked just like any other baby, if not for the caption written below the picture.

‘Peter Benjamin Parker, (08/10/2002)’

His heart in his throat, Tony turned to the next page. The baby in a crib, whacking at planets spinning over his head. The baby on the floor, staring intensely down at an open picture book. The baby in a little lab coat, a headband designed to look like fake goggles tucked behind his ears. Beneath the picture it read, ‘A Scientist in the Making!’

Tony turned the page again, and his breath stuttered in his chest.

There was Peter, maybe a little over a year old by that point, with two adults. One, the woman, held him, while the man stood just behind them. The man had dark hair, flat on his head, a pair of glasses on the nose that matched Peter’s own. The woman had the same brown curls as the kid, tied back behind her head. Peter was the only one looking at the camera, reaching out toward it. His eyes were bright, like they’d always been, and Tony wondered if he’d been born with stars in them. The other two had their gazes aimed at him instead, their smiles soft and their eyes full of so much love that Tony swore he could feel it through the pages.

Beneath the picture, written in swirling black ink, were the words, ‘Mom, Dad, and Peter at the Zoo!’

“What–?” Tony looked up at May, eyes wide.

She smiled at him and gestured back at the pile of books. “Photo albums,” she said. “Every one I have of him. Ben always loved taking pictures, and after he passed I kept it up. We didn’t want to forget a single moment.” Her smile grew even more sad. “I’m glad we did, now.”

Tony gripped the edges of the album, staring down at Peter’s young face, frozen in time. “But… May, why—”

“You weren’t there for any of it,” she said firmly. “And now you… Neither of us will get a chance to—to make more memories. Another album. I just—You deserve them, all right? It’s like I told Pepper.”

“Like you told Pepper?” He echoed.

May sighed. “What you and I are going through—It’s incomparable, Tony. Regardless of who has known him for longer, who has raised him, it’s—you can’t compare one to the other.” She met his eyes. “We are grieving all the same.”

Tony, without looking, put the book down on the couch behind him. Without saying a word, he surged forward and wrapped his arms around May. She returned the embrace quickly, and he wondered in the back of his mind just what Tony from 2017 would say. He found that he didn’t particularly care.

“Thank you, May,” he murmured, and her arms around him tightened.

They stood there for quite some time, because neither of them were willing to let go.

That night, while Pepper was tucking Morgan in, Tony sat alone in their bedroom, staring down at the picture of Peter and his parents.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispered down to them. “I tried to save him, really, I did.” He leaned back so the stray tears wouldn’t hit the paper. “He was the best kid. The best.”

A few minutes later, he tucked the book away in a box to be brought to the lake house when they returned the following weekend, and tried to push from his mind the image of a family, together, all so very happy and so very dead.

The weeks passed, as they always did, and Tony tried to soldier on. It was hard, with the constant reminders of the kid everywhere he looked. Morgan would ask for stories about him, like the ones he used to tell her, and he would force himself to stumble through a story about Spider-Man. When she asked for one about Peter Parker, he would pretend he didn’t hear her. Probably not the best route, but he couldn’t find it in himself to do anything else.

On September twenty-fourth, two-and-a-half months after the Battle for Earth, Tony stood on a stage with Rhodey and Isabella Rivera, addressing the world and finally explaining how the fight with Thanos had ended.

“-fought for our universe’s continued existence, there was one unaccounted for,” Isabella said, addressing a sea of reporters and citizens alike. It was like an inauguration speech in scope. In fact, Tony wouldn’t be surprised if the crowd was larger than that, stretching out down the road and out of sight. “A high-schooler by the name of Peter Benjamin Parker.”

Murmuring rose up from the crowd before it quickly fell silent. The confusion was clear, though. Isabella ignored it, and continued.

“Mr. Parker, the personal intern of Tony Stark himself, had been at the Avengers Compound prior to the Decimation, helping with the emergency however he could. As a result, once it was reversed, he was Returned there. Using Iron Man technology he salvaged in the ruins, he managed to make his way across the battlefield to where Iron Man was facing off against Thanos alone. As Iron Man managed to take the Infinity Stones from Thanos, Mr. Parker saved him from getting his skull crushed, and took the Stones for himself in the process. Realizing this might be their one chance to save everyone, he Snapped, destroying Thanos and his entire army, and saving us all as he did.” She cleared her throat. “Unfortunately, using the Infinity Stones is not something that a human is capable of surviving. Held by those who cared for him, Mr. Parker passed away, looking out at the sunset that all lived to see only because of him.”

Isabella paused to gather herself. The silence, though, remained unbroken. It was as if every person was holding their breath. Finally, she spoke again. “The world—nay, the universe—owes itself to Peter Parker. Though nothing we ever do will be enough to thank him, I believe I speak for all of us when I say that we will never forget him, nor the sacrifice that he made so that we may all be with the ones we love. Now, I invite Dr. Tony Stark to say a few words.” She gestured to Tony and backed away from the microphone.

Feeling a bit like he was underwater, Tony stepped forward.

He stared out at the sea of people, all listening, and he couldn’t help but appreciate it. If anyone deserved the respect of the world, it was Peter.

Tony stood there for a moment, saying nothing, simply stewing in his thoughts. Then, he took a deep breath and spoke. “Peter Parker was incredible,” he said. He could almost feel the way he held everyone’s attention. “Smart as a whip, and three times as kind. He wanted nothing more than to make a difference in the world, and he spent every day doing just that: working to improve the lives of others.”

He swallowed, fingers tightening around the edges of the podium. “Some time after his passing, his aunt told me that his favorite superhero was me. Not Iron Man, but Tony Stark, because of the way that I’ve spent the last decade working toward the same goal that Peter always had. A better world.” Tony’s jaw trembled just a bit, and he forced himself to continue. “If anything, though, Peter Parker was my hero, and far more deserving of the title. He didn’t have state-of-the-art labs, or an endless pool of money, or a name that could get him through just about any closed door. Peter had a little apartment in Queens that he lived in with his aunt and uncle after his parents’ deaths when he was young. His uncle was a cop. His aunt was a nurse. He had a scholarship to one of the best high schools in the country, and he had it because he worked for it, because it was the best chance he would have to reach more and more people, to help more and more people.”

The clouds passing overhead cast shadows over the crowd, patches of light swaying across the landscape.

“That wasn’t all Peter was, though,” Tony said. “Not even close. He was a nerd, in all the ways that you’re thinking. He loved to build LEGO sets with his best friend. He called Star Wars ‘old movies.’” A chuckle raised from the crowd, then, and Tony couldn’t help the hint of a smile that appeared on his face. “He knew all the words to Hamilton off the top of his head. He was allergic to peppermint and somehow always managed to forget it until after he had eaten it. He memorized all the zodiac signs and what they meant just to tease his friend who thought they were stupid.” Tony felt a need, a desperate need, to make the crowd understand just what made Peter Parker so easy to love. “He’d cry at a missed field goal because the kicker looked sad. He always picked misshapen fruit at stores because he didn’t want it to feel like it was worth less for being different. He knew all the constellations and would wave to them at night, so that they wouldn’t feel lonely.”

He swallowed, hard. He wouldn’t be surprised if the lump in his throat stayed there forever.

“Peter Parker wasn’t great because he just happened to be. He was great because he chose to be. He believed that when you have the ability to help someone, you should do it, because it’s the right thing to do. He never wavered from that, never backed down, no matter how much the world seemed intent on breaking him. He kept moving forward, in spite of everything, and he did it all with a smile on his face.”

Tony paused, and took just a moment to feel the gentle afternoon sun on his skin. “That is how you should remember Peter Parker,” he said. “And that is how you should honor him. He believed that every person, every one of you, has greatness inside of you. So find it, use it. Help others, just because you can. Even if you don’t think you have what it takes, try it anyway. Remember that Peter Parker was a fifteen-year-old kid, who loved LEGOs and Hamilton and the stars, and remember that he saved the universe.” Tony let out a small breath, and stared out at the crowd, trying to impress his message onto the entire world. “Make it mean something.”

He stepped back, almost as if he was stumbling out of a trance. Isabella moved to take over, but whatever she said was surely not the focus as May, on the balcony with them, stood to pull Tony into an embrace. “Thank you,” she breathed into his ear, and he nodded, wrapping his arms around her in return.

A moment later, they mutually pulled away and sat back down, but May held Tony’s hand tight, as tight as she could, until she herself had to stand up and receive an award on Peter’s behalf from the president. Gratitude from the whole of the United States of America, Isabella had called it. It was the first such award May was given.

It was nowhere near the last.

The last week of September and the first two of October, Tony spent with May flying all over the world to different ceremonies. She hated it, she said, from the bottom of her heart, but they were for Peter and so she went.

“You don’t have to come,” she said as he picked her up only a day after they got back from their last trip.

“Yes, I do,” he replied, and that was that.

Some days, they would be in five countries in a single day. Others, May would be accepting ten awards in a single ceremony. After each was done, she would hand them to Tony, and he would have them tucked away to go into special storage once they made it back.

On the last weekend of October, Tony found himself alone in the lake house as Pepper took Morgan out to the last local farmers’ market of the year. He had been imagining a nice, quiet afternoon, but those hopes were quickly dashed when he spotted sparks through the window, accompanied by FRIDAY’s voice. “Boss, Doctor Strange has just arrived on the property.”

“I see him, Fri,” Tony said, pushing himself off of the couch and over to the door. “Sorry, we’re not interested,” he said the moment it was open.

“Funny,” Strange replied dryly. “But I’m not selling cookies. Can I come in?”

Tony groaned, dragged a hand down his face, and stepped aside.

Strange gave little time for pleasantries.

“This wasn’t meant to happen.”

Tony blinked and snorted. “Hello to you too, Strange. You know, you really should consider bringing Wong with you whenever you go out. At least ask him for some pointers on polite conversation. He is much nicer to talk to.”

Though he didn’t let it show in his voice, Tony faltered a bit at the stern look on Strange’s face. There was a desperation there, one that he didn’t like.

“Tony,” Strange said firmly. “I’m sorry. I should have told you this sooner, but there was never a good time. I don’t suppose now is a good time, either.”

“When is a good time, then?” Tony asked, rather unsure of what they were talking about.

“Never,” Strange said, and wasn’t that just so very comforting?

“Well, then, don’t leave me in suspense.” Frankly, it was a stupid thing to say. Tony hadn’t talked to Strange that much, all things considered. Still, he knew that when the man had something this serious to say, it often wasn’t anything good.

“I looked into the future, on Titan,” Strange said. Tony’s heart leaped into his throat, and he nodded. “I saw over fourteen million possibilities, and we only won one.”

Tony knew that.

(He had spent months agonizing over it.)

“Lucky us, huh?” Tony’s words were weak.

Strange pursed his lips. His throat bobbed. “We only won once,” he said. “In a world where Tony Stark was the one who saved us.”

His mouth flooded with ash. He was back on Titan, dust on the air, on the ground, on his skin. The sky was burned gold, and the light might be setting his flesh ablaze.

(Peter was gone.)

“...What?”

Strange took in another breath. “This future, one where Peter Parker was the one to Snap, was not one that I observed.”

Somehow, Tony managed to speak. “On the battlefield, at the Compound,” he said breathlessly. “When you—you held up your finger, you—you told me that this was the one, that was you telling me that I—that I was supposed to—” His voice broke.

Strange’s lips were pressed into a thin line. He nodded.

Tony wasn’t in his body. Not anymore. “Get out,” he said.

Strange took an aborted step forward. “Tony—”

“Get out!”

He didn’t remember throwing anything, but when his eyes came into focus again, there were shards of glass scattered across the floor, and Strange was gone.

Tony sank to the ground, ignoring the small flares of pain from the stray pieces near his feet, and sobbed.

Pepper found him like that. She was alone, having left Morgan with Happy after getting FRIDAY’s notification. She didn’t say anything as she guided him off the floor and to a chair. As she wiped away the blood smeared on his cheeks from burying his face in cut hands, she said, “He told you.” Her voice was level.

“You knew?” He asked hoarsely.

“He wanted to tell you at the funeral,” she replied easily. “I said no. I was wondering when he’d come back. Now he has, and now you know.”

“It was supposed to be me,” he said brokenly.

“In one future,” Pepper murmured. “Perhaps in another it was Rhodey, or Steve, or me. None of those matter, because in this one, it was Peter.”

Tony’s breathing was shaky. “The worst one.”

Pepper chuckled. There was no amusement in it. “I suppose we’ve never been known to have the best luck.”

He let her guide him to bed. By the time Morgan got home, he was already asleep.

(The next time May came over, he told her as they did their walk around the lake.)

(She stayed silent as he did. When he was done, neither of them spoke. She simply squeezed his hand tighter and continued on.)

It was a breaking point, in more ways than one

FRIDAY, bless her coded heart, didn’t quite understand how Tony was feeling. She knew her programs, first and foremost, and she followed them.

Tony had dealt with them, but Strange’s reveal had finally shattered something within him that had already been fractured for so long.

“Boss,” FRIDAY said one night, “It has been approximately four months since the Iron Spider Armor was last online. The Spider Check-Up Protocol deems I inform you once again.”

The notification came up every two weeks, and every two weeks Tony brushed it away. This time, his hand trembling, he said, “Fri, stop giving me these updates, please.”

A pause. “Of course, Boss.”

That wasn’t it. Far from it.

“-Spider-Man for approximately two—”

“-until Thanksgiving, the Family Turkey—”

“-since Peter Parker—”

“Stop it!” Tony finally exclaimed. It was early December. The ground was coated in frost. He was in a t-shirt. His blood was ice. “Stop it, FRIDAY!”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand, Boss,” she said slowly. There was an air of guilt to it, but somehow it just made his stomach churn. She felt bad because she had said something wrong, but she didn’t know what it was.

(JARVIS never would have had to ask in the first place.)

Tony didn’t have the energy to go through each protocol. There were hundreds of them, possibly even thousands, because the longer he had known the kid, the more he had cared and the more paranoid he had become. He couldn’t just wipe them, because he’d put fail-safes in.

There was something else he could do, though. For now, at least, until he could get around to the rest.

“FRIDAY, activate the Shut Your Yapper Protocol.”

“Activated. What would you like to apply it to?”

“All mentions of Peter Parker or Spider-Man. I’ll let you fill in the blanks.”

A beat. “Phrases muted.”

“Great. Deactivate the protocol, Fri.”

“Deactivated.”

It fixed little. In fact, it probably didn’t fix anything at all. It would probably be better for Tony to just go through and take all of them out, not use the muting protocol at all. He couldn’t bring himself to, though.

He wondered why things were different this time. Five years ago, after the Decimation and Thanos and Titan, FRIDAY had done the same thing: talked about protocols with Peter even though there was no one to fulfill them. He had lasted through then. What was so different now?

(Perhaps it was because this time he had a body to bury. There was a funeral, and memorials, and a true grave with a coffin beneath it, and rather than losing everyone , the only person Tony had really lost was Peter.)

(Perhaps it was because this time it felt final in a way that, even with the Stones gone, the Decimation never felt.)

(This time , it felt real.)

Christmas was celebrated twice. The first time, a few days before the actual holiday, was at the Tower. Everyone attended, even those who rightly should not have made it.

“C’mon, man, it’s been years since I got to have a real Earth Christmas!” Quill exclaimed when Tony raised an eyebrow at the rickety spaceship that had touched down on the Tower’s roof.

Nebula brushed past him on her way off of the ship. “You’ve also forgotten most of the traditions,” she said. “I enjoyed myself much more at Tony’s celebrations than the one time I attended one you threw, Quill.” She was always careful to not call him ‘ Peter’ when she was near Tony. It was something that he couldn’t help but appreciate.

“I still can’t believe you came to five Christmas-es on Earth before I even got to go to one,” Quill grumbled as Nebula wrapped Tony in a hug. She did that with few people. He felt quite lucky that he was one of them.

“Roll of the dice, pal,” Rocket snorted. “Let’s go, Groot. I swear, you’re gonna love this.”

The spaceship creaked as they all walked down. Tony scrunched his nose. It might be a good idea to send a suit or two up to help keep it in place, especially if another few landings were meant to be made. He shot a text command to FRIDAY as Pepper directed the Guardians inside.

The Wakandans hadn’t been certain they’d be able to make it, but it was nice of them to express interest, and even nicer to see their plane shift out of camouflage and touch down on the roof as well.

“King T’Challa, Princess Shuri, General Okoye,” Tony greeted, inclining his head respectfully. His eyes landed on the last member of their group, a woman at T’Challa’s side that he was sure he recognized from somewhere.

“Nakia,” she said before anything else could be. She extended a hand, which he easily shook.

“Head of Wakanda’s Social Outreach Department,” he nodded.

She hummed. “I was. I will be again, once we get our bearings once more.”

That was fair. Wakanda’s international initiatives had fallen to the wayside a bit following the loss of their King and Princess in the Decimation, not to mention half of the population.

“Well, I look forward to seeing you back in action,” Tony said, even though Pepper was far more likely to. He clapped his hands. “Regardless! Welcome to Stark Tower, formerly Avengers Tower until, well, circumstances demanded change, I suppose. Pepper can show you inside. Make yourselves at home, chat it up, whatever.” He forced his smile into something more genuine.
Glad you could come.”

When the next jet touched down and Steve emerged with dirt along his side and his Captain America uniform gleaming in the winter sunlight, Tony crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow.

“Retired, huh?” He asked.

“Before you say anything,” Steve said, “I swear I wasn’t looking for them this time. It was just supposed to be a nice, relaxing trip to Germany. How was I supposed to know there would be HYDRA there?”

“Because it’s HYDRA, dipshit?” Barnes snarked, stepping out from behind Steve. He was dressed in a simple sweatshirt and jeans, hair tied-back. His metal arm was nowhere in sight, and it almost pained Tony to admit how much that relieved him. “You’re lucky I was close enough to pick you up.”

“Please.” It was Wilson this time, still in the Falcon uniform. “You were hovering.”

Barnes’s face flared red, but he shrugged, a pleasant smile on his face. “Not my fault you’re in such constant need of a babysitter.” His gaze flicked to meet Tony’s, but the ice that he had come to associate with Barnes’s eyes in his nightmares stayed oddly absent from his veins. “Hey, Stark,” he said, and then cleared his throat. “Er, Dr. Stark?”

“Stark is fine,” Tony said. “Where’d you get the ‘Dr.’ from?”

Barnes scrunched his nose. “’S what Shuri says,” he said, half-under his breath. “Uh, anyway— Thanks for having us. All of us, I mean. Me, specifically. ‘S been a long time since I got to have a real Christmas with Stevie, or, well, anyone, and—” He cut himself off. He looked immensely uncomfortable, but Tony supposed he wouldn’t really know how to thank someone whose parents he murdered while brainwashed either, so he would give Barnes a pass. “Just—Thanks, Stark. That’s all.”

Tony’s throat was a bit dry as he swallowed, but he waved Barnes off. “You know what? I’ve changed my mind. No ‘Stark ,’ just Tony is fine. And it’s not a problem, Barnes. Any friend of Rogers’s is a friend of mine these days, for better or worse.”

It was an olive branch, and a rather obvious one. He didn’t think it was possible for someone to look as grateful as Barnes did. “Then I’d prefer Bucky, if you don’t mind.”

“I suppose I can manage.”

He scoffed at Steve’s utterly overjoyed expression. “What’s with the face, Capsicle? Never seen two well-adjusted citizens have a friendly conversation?” Before anything could be said in response, Tony continued, “C’mon. Most everyone else is already inside, it’s cold enough out here that an arc reactor might freeze, and two out of the three of you definitely need a shower.”

Pepper pressed a kiss to his cheek when they reached her, sliding into step with him. It said what she did not. I’m proud of you.

“Thanks, Pep,” he said, and she understood, because she always did.

Morgan enjoyed the few days even more than he had been expecting her to. It was her first Christmas with the children of the other Avengers, and she hadn’t stopped talking about it for a week. Apparently, while Tony and May had been doing their dozens of trips around the world, Pepper had been setting up play-dates with the Barton family, as well as Cassie Lang, whom Morgan had taken an immense liking to after only one meeting. The children all generally stayed together, even as Clint’s oldest son Cooper acted resentful at the idea of having to watch over the kids. The boy was only fourteen, but Tony remembered what Peter was like at that age, and it seemed as though fierce independence was a trend with the kids around here.

Thor was there, Bruce and Valkyrie in tow, arriving above on the roof in a burst of thunder that shook the whole Tower. Carol’s arrival was much easier, just a simple knock on one of the windows as the younger children squealed at the bright light around her. Tony never saw when Natasha got there. One moment she was absent, the next she was sitting in an armchair like she’d been there all day. Tony had learned a long time ago not to question her.

Wanda had arrived with the Bartons, but Tony had seen very little of her since they had all scattered upon entering the Tower. He had never had the best relationship with her, he understood that, but he also understood that there was probably no one who had been closer to Vision than she and Tony had. He’d had years to mourn, though. Wanda had only had a few months so far.

The thought lingered in his head throughout the night, and sometime after dinner, when things were calming down and people started drifting off to the different guest floors to go to bed, Tony found her. Wanda sat in front of a window, legs crossed beneath her on the floor, gazing through the window at the endless lights of the city, the buildings dusted with snow.

Her expression was unreadable, but something in her eyes was fractured. Tony steeled himself and moved toward her.

He didn’t say anything as he lowered himself to the ground next to her. She stayed silent too, and for a while they simply sat there, staring out at the skyline.

Then, quietly, she said, “He was my everything. My whole world.”

Tony’s mouth was dry. “I’m sorry.”

“I did it, too, you know.” Her tone was flat. “I destroyed the Mind Stone. I killed him.” Her fists clenched. “ Thanos brought him back, and killed him again , right in front of me. I couldn’t do anything .”

Tony didn’t say a word in response, but some part of him understood how she felt. Peter had died in his arms not once, but twice . Once he turned to dust, and once his life-force was burned through, the power of the universe at his fingertips being too much to bear.

“I hated you for a long time,” Wanda continued. “Even after learning you hadn’t sent those bombs, I hated you, because you were just so above it all . There wasn’t anything that could hurt you. You were barely even a person in my mind, because part of being human is caring , and you just didn’t care .” She let out a shaky breath. “Vision tried to tell me otherwise. It was hard to believe him though, knowing where he came from.” She paused. “He was right.”

Tony’s heart was pounding, but he stayed silent.

“When that boy—your Peter—took those Stones, when he—he saved the universe, they—they were killing him. We all knew it, and he knew it too, and he was so scared, but you just—you just held him, and kept him safe, and told him it would be all right. You did exactly what he needed you to—you loved him right up to the end. I remember—I was thinking, how can he be so calm, and some part of me thought perhaps it was an act, because—because with Vis, I couldn’t even see through the tears, so how could you—” Her words caught in her throat. “He—He called you ‘Dad,’ though, and you—when I looked at you, I thought you might fall apart, but you didn’t, and you stayed there with him, until the end, and then you—” She swallowed. Her words were low, when she spoke again. “I’ve never heard someone scream like that. I could go my whole life never hearing it again, and it will still haunt my dreams.”

Tony’s eyes burned. His nails carved crescents into his palms. “I don’t remember what happened after,” he said. “Every time I think about that time—about the end— all I can see are his eyes going dim, his breathing getting slow, his pulse getting fainter and fainter— until it’s just gone . There’s—I can’t even remember anything else.” He exhaled. “I still think about him. Not a day goes by that I don’t. Sometimes the ache is dull, like a memory, and other days it’s as fresh as the day I lost him. Grief does odd things to you.”

Wanda hummed. “Vis and I had a talk about grief, once. It was when—It was right after Ultron. After I lost Pietro. I was all alone, and he was the only one there, and he didn’t really understand what it was to love someone and then lose them, but he knew that I was hurting, and he knew that he wanted to help, so he did.”

“What did he say?” Tony asked.

Wanda closed her eyes, and when she spoke, he was sure that they were the exact words Vision had once shared with her.

“’I have always been alone,’” she breathed softly. “’I don’t feel that lack; I’ve known nothing else. I have never experienced loss because I have never had a loved one to lose. And what is grief is not—’” She choked. Tony, without even realizing it, allowed his hand to drift over to hers, resting on her knee. He wrapped his fingers around her palm, and she twisted her hand to squeeze back. “’And what is grief,’” she continued, “’What is grief if not love persevering?’”

Tony’s breathing was shallow. “I loved him, too, you know,” he said. “ Love him. Not in the way that you did, not even close, and not in the way that I love Pepper, or Morgan, or Peter, but I do love him.”

Wanda’s eyes were wet, shining in the city lights below. “Then I have one request of you.”

“Ask.”

“Let me bury him.”

Tony’s heart skipped a beat. “ What? ”

“He was a person .” Her voice was strained. “He was my person. He died, and he did nothing to deserve it, and he was ready to sacrifice himself for the world, and he—just, please . Let me bury him. He is owed that much.”

“Wanda,” he said gently, “What are you talking about?”

Her brow was furrowed. “He has no grave. No true one. You could not have cremated him, so he must not be buried. I would like to bury him. Frankly, for someone who claims to hold any amount of love for him, I am surprised you have not already.”

“No, Wanda, you don’t understand—he’s not buried because there’s nothing to bury. Thanos destroyed him to get the Mind Stone.”

“The Mind Stone was in his head , Stark.” Her words were cold, though her hand stayed in his. “There was a hole left behind, but I assure you, there was a body as well. Lifeless and gray, but a body nonetheless. Trust me, it has made a home in my nightmares.”

“I got back to Earth weeks after the Decimation,” he said, voice hushed. “I was told there was no body.” His mouth tasted of ash. “I would have buried him if there was, I swear I would have.”

Wanda’s grip on his hand tightened. “How is it that an entire corpse goes missing?”

“I’m not sure,” Tony said, “But I intend to find out. Give me a few days. I’ll call you.”

She finally turned to look at him, and her gaze was piercing. Then, though, she sighed and nodded. “Very well. Come along, Stark. I heard that you have hot chocolate?”

As Wanda looked through the frankly obscene number of cocoa blends they had, Tony’s eyes met Natasha’s glazed ones. She still sat on the armchair, but he was sure she had been listening anyway. She inclined her head to him, and offered a small smile. When Wanda finally settled on a hot chocolate mix, some spiced one, Tony set out three mugs instead of two. Natasha’s eyes gleamed, just a bit more clear than they normally were these days, and he moved to help her rise from her seat and take one at the kitchen island instead.

They did presents the following evening, everyone a mix of annoyingly-humble and exceeding-smug whenever their own gifts were well-received. Fury had arrived at some point, and somehow Tony couldn’t find it within himself to be upset about the man’s presence. Maybe he was going soft.

Morgan squealed at every gift she got, running to whoever had given it to her and tackling them in the fiercest hug a five-year-old could give, regardless of how well she knew them. Tony sat on the couch next to Pepper, a Santa hat snug around his head, and tried not to think of the piles of presents in the attic of the lake house, wrapped and labeled and ready for opening by someone who would never get the chance. When his daughter scampered up to show him the Paw Patrol watch Fury had gotten her, Tony ruffled her hair, gave a wide smile, and pushed the musings of Peter out of his mind.

(He also made a note to take that watch into the workshop the next chance he had to hack the tracker he was sure rested beneath the surface. If it was going to be there, it would be sending him signals, thank you very much.)

Everyone left slowly over the following three days, and when they finally headed back to the lake house on the 23 ^rd , a Saturday, Natasha was with them.

“-And you can meet Gerald , even though you’ve already met him, ‘cause he probably forgot, but that just makes it more fun— ” Morgan rambled through the drive back, leaning over the middle of the car to get even closer to Natasha. It was likely quite a lot to be on the other end of. The ex-spy simply smiled softly, though, and stayed enraptured with Morgan’s words. Tony wondered if her training prepared her for something like this. Honestly, though, Natasha really was just like that . As Morgan started talking through the latest Magic Tree House book they’d read, Tony let a small smile grace his lips, readjusted his hold on the wheel, and continued driving.

May arrived early on Christmas Eve, having come with Happy after her shift at the hospital ended. She had no need to work anymore, not being the aunt of the kid who had saved the world, and she knew that just as well as Tony did, but she preferred to.

“I need something to keep me occupied,” she had said back in November when he asked her about it. “Something that feels worthwhile .” She had paused and then added, “It’s nice to not need to take so many overtime shifts, though. I have not missed those.”

Natasha and May hit it off surprisingly well, some level of mutual respect between them forming a solid foundation, and when the two of them dragged Pepper into the conversation, Tony couldn’t help but wonder if the world was ready for such a team.

That evening, Tony and May took their walk around the lake, lit by the small lamps he had installed along the path.

“It’s my first Christmas without him since he was born,” she murmured. “Even before Richard and Mary passed, we all spent it together. Them and me and Ben and Peter. All of us together .” She let out a small breath. “Now, it’s just me. The last Parker.”

Tony squeezed her hand. “You won’t spend another one alone, though,” he said firmly. “Not if we can help it. Not if you’ll have us.”

She smiled, and huffed a laugh. “As if I could stop you.” It was said fondly, with a warmth that he thought she must save for few. Tony forced himself to breathe, and they continued on.

The next morning, as presents were opened, he told her about things he had gotten Peter over the last five years, stockpiled just two floors above them.

“He would have loved it all,” she said dryly, “Even if it wasn’t something he liked .”

“Yeah?” Tony asked.

“Yeah,” she nodded. “Of course he would. He’d love anything , as long as it was from you.”

The others left the next day, Rhodey being the one to take Natasha back into the city. She had a blanket invitation to the Tower, and for now it seemed she would be taking him up on that.

“Try SWORD,” she said just before she left.

“SWORD?” He repeated.

She nodded. “SHIELD’s counterpart,” she said. “You’ve never trusted SHIELD all that much, for good reason. I would hope that same paranoia would hold up.”

“SHIELD’s counterpart, huh?” Tony mused. He still wasn’t quite sure what she wanted him to look for there, but he was sure he could figure it out. “Is SWORD an obnoxiously long acronym, too?”

“How’d you know?” Her eyes were shining meaningfully. “The Sentient Weapon Observation and Response Division.”

Realization dawned on him. Sentient Weapon . “Of course,” he murmured. “What else?”

She patted him on the arm. “Good luck, Tony,” she said. He nodded, though he felt he wouldn’t really need it.

SWORD was easy to hack into. FRIDAY was no JARVIS, but she was still the most advanced of her kind in existence. The firewalls on SHIELD had never really been an issue, and SWORD was no different.

It took little time to find what he was looking for. Rage ignited in his chest, and it took every ounce of self-control to avoid calling Wanda immediately. This mission needed to be low-key , and while Wanda was many things, subtle was not one of them.

As it was, it took little time. By all accounts, Vision was Tony’s property. Well, technically , he was Helen Cho’s, but it was easy to get her to sign the rights over to him, no matter how strange they were. The director, Hayward, fought hard, but he was no match for Tony Stark, and Vision was in Tony’s garage before the new year, the door locked to stop Morgan from stumbling in on the gray corpse.

Helen arrived later that afternoon, her cradle in tow, brought quickly by Wong.

“Your shadow stayed behind?” Tony asked him, noting the distinct lack of a hovering Strange.

“Considering how your last meeting went, he’s decided to give you some space,” Wong replied, words dry. “He’s become quite dedicated to the study of the multiverse, however. Wants to try and figure out why he could only see the one possibility, why that one didn’t come to pass, all of that.”

“ God ,” Helen said, stepping past the sorcerer, her wide eyes on Vision. “He looks awful .”

“Can you help?” Tony asked.

She sighed. “The cradle can renew the body using the vibranium Wakanda sent over. However, it can only heal the physical.”

“That’s what Wong’s here for,” Tony said, gesturing vaguely, “Besides transportation.”

“Thank you,” Wong said. “I can only restore a consciousness, however. Memories are disconnected from that. It’d be like a permanent form of amnesia.”

“It would be,” Tony acknowledged, “But Vision was part A.I. He was constantly connected to my servers, up until his death. All his memories are there .”

Wong raised his eyebrows. “Well, it seems you have all the components, then.”

Tony nodded. Then he paused. “This isn’t breaking some kind of...natural order thing, is it? Bringing someone back to life?”

Wong scoffed. “I’m not Stephen . I don’t just ignore the rules when it suits me. If this was a normal person, I would not have even agreed to transport this here-” He gestured at the cradle- “Let alone the rest of it. As it is, though, we are talking about an android . The rules get a bit... iffy , here.”

“Good enough for me.”

The process was nothing exciting. More than anything, it was just a lot of waiting. Waiting for the cradle to do its job, waiting for the memories to transfer from the servers into Vision’s waiting (empty) mind, and then waiting for Wong to pull the threads of reality until they bent to his whims. Truly, nothing thrilling in the slightest.

Tony had done the calculations, he was certain this would work, but he still felt his heart pounding as Wong pulled his fingers from the body’s temples and stepped away. There was a beat of silence, and then the eyes shot open.

“Whoa, there, bud,” Tony said, hopping in to steady Vision as the android immediately sat up, only to sway at the movement. “Take it easy. Resurrection’ll take a lot out of anyone.”

Vision’s eyes narrowed. “Tony?” He asked. “Where’s—”

“She’s fine,” he replied. “She also… doesn’t know we’re doing this. Good surprise, though, right?”

They gave him the rundown of what had happened with Thanos, as well as SWORD. Helen took over explaining the changes to his body. Vision was still strong, of course, being woven through with vibranium. However, the Mind Stone was gone, and all the reality-altering powers with it. He ran a finger over his forehead and chuckled. “Feels odd,” he said after a moment, “Though pleasantly so. I must say, I will not miss the headaches.”

When it came to the Decimation, Vision simply scanned through the information that was available to him on his Stark Industries server. FRIDAY had sent over relevant articles and reports to help catch him up to speed. Vision closed his eyes, presumably retreating to process all the data. When he reopened them, his gaze fell on Tony.

“I’m sorry,” he said, voice soft.

Tony’s throat hurt abruptly. “Thanks,” he said, tone clipped. Vision didn’t say anything else about the matter, and for that he couldn’t help but be grateful.

Vision took some time to recuperate, and Tony contacted Wanda, vaguely mentioning that he had news.

“I don’t know how quickly I can get there,” she said, her voice a bit tinny. Despite how often she’d been offered anything newer, she seemed to insist on using technology two decades out of style.

“Does right now work?” He asked, eyeing Wong, who huffed but nodded.

“I suppose it does.”

She barely blinked as the portal opened in front of her, only clicking her phone closed and stepping through.

“What have you found?” She demanded the moment she was through. “Do you know where he is?”

“As a matter of fact,” Tony said, watching Vision emerge in the doorway behind her. “I do.” She opened her mouth, but he continued, “You might wanna turn around.”

He didn’t stick around to watch the reunion. It was something private, obscenely so, and the two of them deserved to be respected that much. Still, an hour later, after Helen had been delivered home and Wong had been roped by Pepper into staying for tea, Wanda appeared once again, her eyes red but her powers nowhere in sight.

She locked eyes with Tony and strode toward him. Without warning, she embraced him. “Thank you,” she breathed, and he couldn’t help but hug her back.

“Anytime,” he replied easily, and when she pulled away, she was smiling.

Morgan enjoyed meeting Vision, who she had heard quite good things about, and was thrilled to be able to properly talk with Wanda.

“Are you really a witch? A real live witch?” His daughter asked, bouncing on her heels.

“Depends on your definition of witch, I suppose,” Wanda, who got her powers from an Infinity Stone, said. “But that’s what I call myself.”

“Cool!”

They decided to stay in the Tower back in New York for a while, until they could figure out what they wanted to do, and Wong, ever one of Tony’s favorite people, took them back himself.

As the portal closed behind the three of them, Tony’s hand falling from its wave once the sparks faded, Pepper came up to his side.

“Not bad, huh?” He asked, grinning.

She gave him a smile, tired but true. “You don’t need to keep doing so much, you know,” she said instead of responding.

“I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about, Pep.”

“Fixing other people’s problems isn’t going to fix your own, Tony,” she said.

He balled one hand into a fist. “It’s the best I can do. There isn’t a way to fix my problem. Not really.”

“I know,” she sighed. “I’m sorry.”

They stood there in the living room for a long moment, Tony focusing on the steady pulse in his wife’s wrist, delicate but solid, until Morgan came racing down the stairs begging for a movie night.

The new year came and went. The Tower had a great view of the fireworks, and it was nice to be back in the city for a day or two. Morgan’s kindergarten had a winter break from the middle of December through the end of January, and so they planned to spend the whole first month of the year at the lake house.

The third day of January, just the second night of being back at the cabin, they were hit with a storm. The lake house didn’t get its power from the grid, so there was never any fear of it going out, but Pepper still insisted they curl up in front of the fire with cups of one of her infinite cocoa blends. Morgan selected Frozen to watch, a thematically appropriate movie he supposed, and they stayed there together as the storm raged on outside.

In the morning, Pepper recruited them into her mission of salting the driveway and path to the door. As Morgan was sent to get the salt bucket from the shed, Tony was shoved toward the snowblower.

“I’m old, Pep,” he said, despite the way that he would argue against anyone else calling him such.

“You’re also a superhero,” she said, little remorse in her tone. “I think you can manage.”

Morgan also seemed to love the snow more than she ever had before. During the following two weeks, she spent hours each day out there, even bringing out food to eat. Tony caught her once taking a bag of chips from his secret stash in one of the closets, but the determination on her face was adorable enough that he decided to just let her be.

Pepper checked in with FRIDAY, who had eyes on the whole property, often, especially considering the fact that Morgan kept ending up playing behind the shed. Each time, though, the A.I. would reassure them that their daughter was perfectly safe.

“See, Pep?” Tony said after the fifth such instance. “Fri’s watching her. Everything’s good.”

Perhaps that was what gave Pepper enough reassurance to let Morgan run out to the shed after dark to grab her spider plush. Tony, in the garage, wasn’t quite sure how that played out. All he knew was that one moment he was crouched over a blueprint, the next he was sprinting through the house, fear gripping his heart as Pepper’s shout echoed in his brain.

A gauntlet was already formed over his hand when he skidded into view of the back door. Morgan was in front of it, sobbing, Pepper knelt on the floor before her as she looked their daughter over.

“What happened?” He asked, unable to keep the panic from his voice. “Morgan, what’s wrong, sweetie?” He was sure he sounded more frantic than Pepper did, but something familiar rang in his heart as he looked at his child, so he couldn’t really help it.

Morgan was gasping for breath as she said, “In the—In the shed! You gotta help him, he needs help!”

Tony’s eyes met Pepper’s, his own confusion mirrored back at him.

“Who needs help?” Pepper asked.

“Petey!” She exclaimed desperately. “He’s my—my friend, and he needs help!”

Tony furrowed his brow, concern growing. It was obvious on Pepper’s face as well. An imaginary friend, maybe? If so, they might need to address it, if it was causing Morgan this much distress.

“C’mon, honey,” Pepper said, and he was thankful that she was here, because he had no idea what to do. “Why don’t we get some hot cocoa and talk about this.”

“No!” Morgan screamed, wrenching away from her mother. Tony’s throat hurt. “No, I’m not—I’m not lying!”

“We don’t think you’re lying, Mo—” Tony began, but she cut him off.

“Petey’s in there and he’s dying!” Morgan sobbed. Her fingers were tangled in her shirt, yanking at it. “He’s going to die! I can’t get in, and he needs help! FRIDAY said he needed help!”

The last part made him pause. FRIDAY said he needed help? FRIDAY wasn’t the type to play into imaginary friends, especially not to such a worrying degree.

“FRIDAY?” Pepper asked, her tone carefully level.

“Yes, Boss Lady?”

Pepper glanced at him before saying, “Is there anyone in the shed?”

It was quiet for a long moment, filled only by Morgan’s quick breaths and Tony’s escalating dread. “Yes,” FRIDAY finally said.

“It’s Petey!” Morgan wailed. “We have to help him! He’s dying!”

“FRIDAY, who’s in the shed?” Pepper asked. Her voice was flooded with urgency. Morgan started batting at the two of them.

“I’m afraid I cannot answer that,” FRIDAY replied, once more after a long moment had passed. Tony’s heart was in his throat. Whoever this was must have hacked FRIDAY somehow, something that should be impossible for just about anyone to do. Pepper’s eyes were wide, her shoulders tense.

“I told you!” Morgan exclaimed. “His name is Petey! He needs help, he’s gonna die!”

“FRIDAY?” Pepper asked. They waited with bated breath. Tony kept his gaze firmly off of Morgan, not wanting to see the way her face grew red from the tear streaks.

“Baby Boss’s assessment is correct,” FRIDAY finally said. What?

“I said I was gonna help him! I promised! I promised him I’d get help!” Morgan’s little hands wrapped around his arm, tugging him toward the door. She trembled with each step. “You have to help!”

Pepper nodded firmly to Tony.

“Okay, Maguna,” he said, trying to keep the tremor from his voice. “Let’s go get this guy out of our shed. We’ll make sure he doesn’t die.” And then we’ll have a nice little chat about what happens to trespassers.

“Come on!” Morgan urged. She pulled him through the door before racing off across the yard. Tony reached out to try and pull her back, but desperation seemed to fuel her. She beat him to the shed, pounding on the door.

“Petey?” She called. “Petey, can you hear me? Are you okay?”

There was no response. The yard stayed quiet. Morgan heaved another sob, and it tugged at his heartstrings.

“Petey, I got my dad. He’s gonna help, okay?” Morgan was rambling, and he wondered if it was more to comfort herself. “It’s gonna be okay. Don’t worry.”

“He’s in there?” Tony asked, turning his wristwatch. His blood was a strange mix between ice cold fear and boiling hot fury. No one just walked onto Stark property without permission and got away with it, and no one hacked FRIDAY to do it. He had to get this solved, and he had to get this solved now.

Her nod was jerky. “Please hurry, Daddy.”

Tony drifted toward the corner of the shed, one that should be relatively clear of things. The gauntlet formed over his hand once more.

“And don’t hurt him!” Morgan added, stepping back a bit. At least the Iron Man safety training they’d given her had set in.

“Not planning on it,” Tony muttered. “I’ve got a few questions I need answered, after all.”

The gauntlet charged and blasted a hole in the shed. Before he could stop her, Morgan was running forward, using her bare hands to try and pull shards of wood away. Tony brushed past her and stepped into the shed, lit by the gauntlet’s glow and the distant light of the house.

The air was thick, and uncomfortably warm despite the winter chill outside. The acrid scent of infection clung to it, pungent and sour. Whoever was in here, they were certainly in need of medical attention.

His eyes flicked down to the heap on the floor, and he froze. His blood had turned to ice. His mind was a million miles away, and the hairs raised on the back of his neck. His heart was pounding. If he looked up, he might see Titan’s sky, burning with gold.

Tony wasn’t looking up, though. He was looking down at the floor of his shed.

He was looking down at Peter Parker.

Eyes found him, their color shrouded in darkness. The voice, though, was just as he remembered it. “Mr. Stark.”

A chill clawed at every inch of his body. The light from Morgan’s flashlight was harsh against his cheek. When he spoke, his voice broke. “Peter?”

He was moving before he even registered it. This could be a trick. It was more likely than not, in fact. However, Tony had lived through more impossible things than he could count. If there was even the slightest chance that this was Peter— that this was his kid—he was going to take it.

Tony reached out to the kid, hoisting him into his arms. It felt as easy as breathing. Peter’s face was pale in the amalgamation of lights, and his eyes were dull. Tony pressed a hand against Peter’s cheek, cupping it carefully. A thin hand—too thin—came up to grasp his wrist.

“Mr. Stark,” Peter said, words weak. “Mr. Stark, I’m so sorry.”

“Kid, what’s happening?” Tony couldn’t keep the tremble from his voice, nor the desperation. “What happened to you?”

Peter’s sweater was too big on him. He had always looked lanky, but it was closer to bony now. His face was gaunt, eyes tired in a way they never should be. Blood soaked through the fabric around his shoulder, mingled with what must be pus, and Tony yanked his gaze away to look back at the kid’s face.

“I messed up,” Peter said. His voice was choked. “I’m sorry.”

The eyes, glassy, fluttered a bit, and fear clenched his heart tighter than it had in months . Tony had watched this kid’s eyes close before. He was not going to go through that again.

“No, no, no, don’t you dare do that to me,” Tony said as firmly as he could. It was more a ramble than anything. “Don’t you fucking dare, Underoos.”

Peter’s chest stuttered, his throat bobbing with something between a laugh and a sob. “I’m sorry,” the kid whispered. His eyes fell closed again, and Tony wasn’t sure he knew how to breathe anymore.

“No, kid, don’t you dare,” Tony said, rather than trying to remember. “Peter, you listen to me, don’t you dare close your eyes.” He wet his lips. His mouth was impossibly dry. “Just...Just open them for me, okay? Keep them open, stay awake, stay with me, kiddo, please.” He might be back on Titan, back at the compound, pleading for a kid that was fading far too fast.

Not again. Not again. Please, not again.

Behind him, Morgan’s voice came, small and shaky. “Petey?”

Peter’s eyes shot open as she called his name. His grip on Tony’s wrist tightened, and he seemed to use it to pull himself up. His gaze met Tony’s, wide and frantic.

“Mr. Stark,” Peter gasped. “Mr. Stark.”

“Yeah, kid.” Tony had no clue how he was still able to speak. His words were reverent, though. A prayer that he knew by heart, despite never voicing it before. “Yeah. I’m right here. I’m right here.”

Peter blinked rapidly. When their eyes met again, Tony’s breath was taken away. In the shaky flashlight beam, Peter’s eyes were just as bright as he could remember them being. “I am Peter Benjamin Parker,” he said, voice firm, as if daring the world to say he was wrong, “And I exist.”

Tony opened his mouth to say something, anything , but then Morgan was screaming and Peter’s eyes were rolling back in his head, and his kid was limp in his arms, and oh God, not again.

They were off across the yard. Peter was lighter than Tony could remember him ever being, even after the end, and yet every step felt heavier than the last.

“Oh, my God,” Pepper breathed as they entered. “Is that—” Tony didn’t answer her. He didn’t even let her finish. He simply moved toward the garage, tightening his grip on the kid as he went.

FRIDAY talked him through it, using Helen’s notes from working on Cap to try and account for the quick metabolism and strong healing factor. For a moment, he considered calling the woman herself, but he had no idea what was really going on here, so unless he hit a bump that he couldn’t get over, he would handle this alone.

He plucked a thin hair from the kid’s head, making sure to get the root so there would be enough DNA, and let FRIDAY get to work analyzing it.

Tony’s hands were shaking, and for a moment he thought he was drowning, unsure of what to do, unable to breathe. Gold burned behind his eyelids.

The kid’s chest shuddered with a breath, though, shallow and weak, and he knew he had to move. Work now, questions later.

He shoved his emotions aside, instead focusing on the task at hand as if it was just another equation to solve, another code to write, another law of the universe to break. His vision was a blur, and he blocked out the stinging scent of infection as he peeled the sweater away.

The healing factor that was supposed to be there didn’t seem to be functioning. Peter wasn’t supposed to be able to get infected wounds, especially not ones this bad. He barely even got sick, his powers able to burn through any illness that came knocking. Tony’s heartbeat was audible in his ears as he continued cleaning the wound. He kept his eyes trained away from the kid’s face, not willing to see the same slack, peaceful expression that haunted his nightmares.

Tony thanked his paranoia, not for the first time that night, as he happened to have medicine that would work on Peter already stocked. After August, he’d always told himself that it was in case someone like Steve was injured and happened to be there. Whatever the excuses, he was glad to have it now.

“Boss,” FRIDAY eventually murmured. “It’s done.”

“What?” He managed to say, looking up from the bandages.

“ All that can be done to help the patient has been done, ” she replied. “ Rest is recommended now. ”

Tony let out a shaky breath and pressed the back of his hand against Peter’s head. It was still warm, but he supposed there really wasn’t anything to do about the fever at this point other than hope that he burned through it.

“Okay,” he finally said. “Okay. How’s that DNA analysis coming?”

“ 43% complete, Boss. ”

“Great. Sounds like enough time for you to tell me why you never said anything .” Tony’s fists clenched. “How long was he out there?”

“ Two weeks, sir. ” FRIDAY’s words were a bit muted, as if she was ashamed.

“ Two weeks! ” Tony parroted. “So, why did you never say anything? Did you not sense him entering the property?”

“ I did ,” FRIDAY said. “ I did not alert you because he is on the bypass list for the alert system. ”

“Either way, this is still something that you should have informed me of ,” Tony pressed. “Bypass list or not, you tell me when someone who is meant to be dead waltzes onto the property. Frankly, if you spot them anywhere , you tell me. You should know that, Fri.”

“ I do, Boss. ”

“Then what happened?”

“ The Shut Your Yapper Protocol, sir. ”

A shock of cold ran down his spine.

“ If I may, having it deactivated may assist in the rest of the explanation. ”

His tongue felt like lead in his mouth. “FRIDAY, deactivate the most recent use of the Shut Your Yapper Protocol.”

“ Yes, sir. ” A pause. “ Deactivated. All mentions of ‘Peter Parker’ or ‘Spider-Man’ were banned. As you informed me to ‘fill in the blanks,’ many alternative ways of mentioning him were also banned. I could not find a way to inform you without violating the protocol, which is not on the bypass list in cases of emergencies. Mr. Parker also demonstrated elevated levels of stress, and I did not wish to further those by speaking to him. I only engaged once Baby Boss directly addressed me, and even then I was only capable of doing so as a result of her claiming him as her brother. ”

Tony, for a moment, thought of JARVIS, who he was sure would have found a way around the protocols before the first night had passed. He banished those musings quickly. It wasn’t FRIDAY’s fault that she followed her code more strictly than JARVIS did. It was just something that he would continue to have to work on with her. Clearly.

“Analysis?”

“ 57% ”

“Okay.” Tony pushed himself off of the desk that he was leaning on. “Be a dear and ask Pep to grab some clothes for the kid and bring them here. Preferably without Morgan.”

“ Yes, Boss. ”

Pepper must have been waiting for him to call her, as she was in the garage less than two minutes later. “Morgan’s in bed,” she said as soon as she entered. Her gaze found Peter and her jaw clenched. “Is it him?” She asked. Her words were quiet.

“Not sure yet,” Tony replied. “FRIDAY’s doing the analysis right now.”

She hummed and set the pile of clothes on a table. It looked to be a t-shirt and sweatpants. Good. Those would be easy to navigate into. “How is he?”

“Stable.” They, as one, moved to pull the jeans off the kid. The pants were ripped and patched together, though it didn’t seem to be a stylistic choice; rather, one born of need. Tony’s throat ached. “He’s been in the shed for two weeks.”

Pepper choked. “Two weeks? Why—”

“Shut Your Yapper Protocol,” he replied before she could ask. Her mouth set into a grim line. “I had it on for—for any mention of him. Happened a little after Thanksgiving.”

“Tony…”

“I know.” He let out a shaky breath. “I know, Pep. I’m sorry.”

She sighed. “Not sure I’m the one you should be apologizing to.”

His eyes were stinging, and he blinked rapidly to get the feeling to fade. “FRIDAY, analysis?”

“ 68%, Boss. ”

The jeans went into a pile on the floor with the sweater. Pepper tied the strings of the sweatpants while Tony replaced the kid’s ratty socks with a new pair of soft ones. They worked together in getting the t-shirt on, one of the stupid science pun ones that were introduced to Tony’s wardrobe around the same time Peter became a staple in his life. There were more scars on the kid than Tony remembered, but he looked to be relatively the right age: just a few months past sixteen.

“FRIDAY?”

“ 81% complete. ”

“Let’s get him upstairs,” Pepper said softly. “To the room.”

It made Tony’s heart ache, the thought of opening up that room that had been set aside for Peter since their first day at the lake house. It had never been used, and after August, he had been certain it never would be. He had resigned himself to passing by a closed door, never opening it because the person it was meant for would never be there to use it.

Now, though? What if that changed? What if this was real?

“Deep breaths, Tony,” Pepper said, drawing him from his rampant thoughts. “One step at a time, all right?”

Tony was able to carry the kid alone, allowing Pepper to go forward and open the door to the room, making sure that Morgan stayed outside.

“I wanna see him! ” She exclaimed, trying to peer past Pepper’s legs.

“He’s exhausted , Morgan,” Pepper replied. “And hurt . Let him rest for now.”

She pouted, but slouched back to her room at her mother’s nudging.

Tony laid the kid down on the bed. The decorations were neutral, since they’d always wanted to leave it for Peter to decide. Would he get a chance to, now?

“FRIDAY, analysis?” Tony asked as the thought rang in his head.

“ 92%, Boss. ”

He let out a shaky breath, eyes focused on the shallow movement of the kid’s chest. Up, down, up, down. He had to hold himself back from reaching out for a wrist to feel the thready pulse beneath.

He wasn’t sure how long he sat there on the edge of the bed, Pepper hovering in the doorway, but eventually FRIDAY announced, “ Analysis complete. ”

Tony reached out for his wife’s hand without even looking, and her fingers entangled with his. His heart hammered in his chest, almost painfully. “Read the results, Fri.”

“ DNA Analysis of the sample has resulted in a 99.74% match for Peter Benjamin Parker, with an error percent of 0.4. ” Tony couldn’t breathe . “ The genetic mutations owed to Mr. Parker’s radioactive spider bite are also perfectly represented at 99.67%, with an error percent of 0.5. Boss, I feel it prudent to mention that there are traces of some unknown force. To the best of my knowledge, they are doing nothing to alter the sample, but they are present. As time goes on, the strength of these forces are decreasing at a rate of approximately 8 % per hour. They should reach negligible levels within the next two weeks. ”

“ Forces? ” Tony echoed. “What kind of forces?”

“ Uncertain, ” FRIDAY replied. “ I have compiled all available data thus far for you to look over at the first opportunity .”

“Okay,” Tony said. He glanced at the kid on the bed. His face was dirty, blood and grime stuck to his skin and in his hair. He’d need a shower once he woke.

FRIDAY’s results set in slowly, and then all at once. 99.74%, with an error of 0.4%? Even more than that, the spider powers were present, too. Those weren’t things that could really be replicated on their own, but together? It would be a statistical wonder if this was anybody other than Peter.

And that meant—

“Pep.” Her grip on his hand tightened. “Pep, it’s Peter .”

“I know, Tony,” she said softly.

“ It’s my kid ,” he breathed.

“Should we…” Pepper glanced toward the open doorway. “Should we call May?”
His eyes burned as he shook his head. “No.”

“ No? ” Pepper looked scandalized. Fair enough. “Why not?”

“We don’t know what caused this , Pepper,” Tony replied. It hurt to say, but he knew it was true. “He was dead , and now he’s not, but what if it’s not permanent. We’d bring him back to her just for her to lose him all over again. We need to figure out what this is first. Once we do -” He raised his voice as she opened her mouth to respond- “She will be the first person to know. I swear it.”

Pepper stared at him for a long moment before she heaved a sigh and nodded. “Fine,” she conceded. “Fine. We better get this solved soon, then.”

“I wanna let him rest, get some food in him, and then we’ll call Wong,” Tony said. “He’s probably our best bet. No way this isn’t something to do with wizardry. ”

“You know he hates when you call it that.”

“Oh, what’s he gonna do?” Tony asked. “ Curse me?”

She rolled her eyes, but there was a smile playing at her lips, and for a moment it felt as though things might turn out all right.

The next morning, Peter hadn’t woken yet. Tony went down to the garage to look over the data on the DNA Analysis from FRIDAY, while Pepper stayed upstairs doing chores and keeping an eye on both kids.

“Tell him I wanna see him,” he told her as they sipped their coffees. “Once he wakes up, I mean.”

“I’d probably tell him that anyway,” she said. Pepper threw a dash of cayenne into her black coffee and Tony wrinkled his nose.

“I can’t believe you drink that,” he muttered.

“You don’t add anything to yours, dear,” Pepper replied easily. “Forgive me for wanting a little spice .”

“It’s eight in the morning, Pep,” Tony said. “The only spice you should want is some hot sauce with your eggs if you’re feeling fancy.”

“Oh, good idea,” Pepper said, and moved toward the fridge.

The data from FRIDAY made little sense. The DNA that she had analyzed looked normal, and functioned like normal. The only problem with it was the way that it seemed to almost vibrate . Now, molecules moved. Tony understood that. It was what they did. These strands weren’t moving of their own accord, however. Rather, it was like FRIDAY had described. They shifted with some force outside of themselves.

“It’s slower than it was last night?” Tony asked.

“ Yes, Boss, ” she replied. “ Further observation has shown the effects of the unknown force decreasing at an exponential rate. Now, the strength decreases at a rate of approximately 14% per hour. At the current trends, the effects should be negligible in about ten days. ”

“Great, thanks Fri,” Tony said. “Keep monitoring it. I have a feeling whatever this is will be helpful come our chat with the wizards.”

“ Of course, Boss, ” she said. A moment later, she added, “ Mr. Parker has awoken. He is speaking with Baby Boss. Boss Lady is on her way to intercept them. ”

Tony startled. There was a light buzzing in his ears. Rather than responding to FRIDAY, he simply pushed himself away from the desk and departed from the garage.

He was a bit detached from his body as he climbed the stairs. He passed Pepper in the hallway, ushering Morgan into her bedroom despite her small protests. A kiss was pressed to his cheek, followed by a soft, “ Good luck, ” and then he was alone.

Tony stood in front of the door. Just on the other side was Peter, was his kid , and no matter how long he got to keep him this time, it was still more than he had thought he would.

Taking a deep breath, Tony steeled his nerves and opened the door.

The kid wasn’t on the bed. Rather, he was turned away, stood in front of a window across the room. The air was a bit crisp from the winter breeze streaming in.

“ Peter ,” Tony said, because there was nothing else he could say.

Muscles tense, the kid turned around. His eyes weren’t bright now. They looked dull, glazed over. His skin was a shade too pale, just a bit sickly. Grime still clung to him. Most of the lean muscle Tony could remember him having was gone, and he was far too skinny. The shirt and sweatpants, which really should only be a bit big on him, seemed to swallow the kid, especially now that he was standing. They hung off his frame almost pathetically, his shoulders hunched and expression guarded.

Tony took a step forward. “Peter—”

“Don’t come closer.” The kid’s voice was hoarse. His words were choked.

Tony stopped moving. Peter looked almost like a cornered animal, something primal and terrified in his gaze. “Kid, take a breath,” Tony said, as softly as he could manage. “You’re okay, just relax.”

Peter screwed his eyes shut, turning his face away a bit. His jaw trembled. “Don’t come near me,” he said. “Don’t.”

The kid’s breathing was getting faster, and even more shallow than it had been before. It would not do well for him to hyperventilate.

“Kiddo, listen to me,” Tony said, trying to push through whatever haze was shrouding Peter’s mind. “Just breathe. Everything is fine.” He wet his lips. “How about we just sit down and have a talk, okay?”

“I don’t want to talk to you, Beck.”

Tony furrowed his brow. Beck? Who was Beck? Peter’s words had sounded tired, but he had spit the unfamiliar name out as if it was poison.

The kid’s eyes were on him, and whatever he saw, he must not have liked, his features shuddering. Tony took a step closer on instinct, and Peter hurled himself through the window.

Tony let out a yell of surprise before he could even stop himself. “ Peter! ”

“ He’s heading into the woods, Boss, ” FRIDAY said overhead.

“Keep an eye on him, Fri, for as long as you can,” Tony said, wrenching the door open and sprinting for the stairs.

“What’s going on?” Pepper asked. She was in the kitchen now, watching with wide eyes as he rushed by.

“Kid jumped out the window,” Tony replied. She sucked in a breath, and he said, “I’ll get him.”

The Iron Man suit wrapped around him, and Tony let FRIDAY take control of it, her autopilot following the path she had tracked from the kid, and then her algorithms taking over to predict where he was.

It didn’t take very long. Peter was curled up against a tree, trembling slightly, head turned toward the sky. His hands were on his ankles, digging into the exposed skin below the sweatpants.

Tony stepped out of the suit as it touched down. “Peter,” he said gently. His throat ached.

“Please, stop,” the kid whispered. His eyes closed tightly. “Stop showing him to me. Please.”

Tony frowned. Stop showing him to me? What did that mean? He stepped closer.

“Beck, please ,” Peter breathed, his words tinged with desperation, “I don’t know what else you want from me.”

Tony crouched, ignoring the flair of pain in his lower back. “Kiddo, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said. “C’mon, catch me up, get us on the same page.”

“I don’t have anything else to give you,” Peter rambled. His voice was scratchy. “You already took everything. I don’t...I don’t have anything else. Please . Please stop showing him to me. ”

Tony was silent for a moment, his lips pursed together. Whatever Peter thought was going on, whoever he thought Tony was, it was someone who must have used images of the people the kid loved against him. A magician, perhaps? He’d have to ask Wong, preferably not when Peter was halfway into a panic attack.

An illusionist wouldn’t know about the times they’d shared, would they? Tony wracked his brain for a memory.

“March thirteenth, 2018,” he finally settled on. Pi Day . As he made his way through the story of Peter’s first post-spider bite allergic reaction, and the way he’d wanted more pies from that bakery anyway, the kid’s eyes slowly opened. They were red, and they were shining, and they weren’t bright in the way they were meant to be, but they were there , and it almost made Tony choke on his words. Instead, he continued, until the story was finished, and the only sound was that of Peter’s harsh breathing.

“I… You can’t…” Peter cut himself off with a sharp whine. His teeth clamped down on his lower lip, something that Tony had always worked on training him out of.

“Hey, no, none of that,” he said, waving to the kid’s mouth. “We’ve talked about that. Better to just let it out than have to deal with cleaning blood off your face.”

Something shifted in Peter’s eyes, and he ducked his head, his jaw clenched. His shoulders shook, and Tony felt it mirrored in his own hands. He forced them into fists, taking the growing panic out on his palms instead of letting it swallow him whole. He couldn’t afford that. Peter needed him right now.

“You’re dead,” the kid finally said, tears still streaking down his face despite the way his eyes squeezes shut. “You’re dead. ”

“I’m not,” Tony said, even though he had no idea why Peter thought that. What had his kid been through? “I’m not.” A sob tore from Peter’s throat, and Tony asked, “Can I come near you?”

He expected to be rebuked, or to not be answered at all, which was why he asked. He was even more shocked when the kid managed to say, “ Please. ”

As another sob fell from Peter’s lips, Tony wrapped the kid in his arms. Peter’s head rested just above his heart, and Tony let a hand come up and card through dirty hair. It was filthy, and he couldn’t care less, because he was holding his kid again .

“It’s okay, kid,” Tony said as hitched breaths stuttered against his chest. “You’re all right. I’m right here, and I’m not going anywhere.”

“You did,” Peter croaked, “You did .” His body trembled, and he continued, “You died . How are you here? You died .”

Tony had no idea what the kid was talking about. That didn’t matter right now, not when Peter seemed to be fighting to separate dream from reality. “I didn’t,” he replied, keeping his tone even. “I’m right here with you. I’m alive, you’re alive. We’re both alive.”

Peter keened. “ How are you here? ”

Tony let out a wet chuckle. “I feel like I should be asking you the same question.”

“I…” The kid trailed off.

“You don’t need to answer,” Tony said, continuing his steady run through of the kid’s hair. “You don’t need to say anything. Just breathe, kiddo. It’s all right. Everything’s all right.”

Whether from the comfort or the exhaustion or both, Peter began to sag against him. The kid had always been a bit on the light side from his excessive metabolism, but now Tony was sure that he wouldn’t have even noticed the shift, were it not for the extensive training that came with being a superhero. Peter’s breathing calmed, drifting into something steadier, and his pulse felt stronger than it had before.

“I am Peter Benjamin Parker,” he exhaled, “And I exist. ”

Tony swallowed past a lump that was suddenly in his throat. “That’s right, kid,” he said after a moment. A tear crept its way from his eye. “You are Peter Benjamin Parker, and you exist.”

Peter hummed, a slightly broken sound, but he was smiling, and the smile stayed even after he had fallen asleep.

They made it back to the lake house, and Peter stayed unconscious. Tony settled the kid back into the bed, Pepper already waiting there with a soft blanket to drape over him.

“Have you eaten yet today?” Pepper asked.

He didn’t answer. He didn’t need to.

“C’mon, then,” she sighed. “Let’s get some food in you while we can.”

Tony didn’t protest. He followed her downstairs and sat at the island as she heated some leftovers.

“What happened?” She finally asked. “With Peter?”

“He didn’t think I was real,” Tony replied. “He thought I was some sort of… illusion, I think. I’m not sure.”

Pepper hummed.

“He was convinced I was dead , Pep.”

Concern grew on her face, but she set his plate in front of him and made her way around with her own.

“How is he? From what you saw?”

It was a difficult question to answer.

“Not...Not good .” Tony poked at the pasta with his fork. “He’s hurt, and he needs a shower, and God, Pep, he’s so thin . It’s like all the muscle he had is just gone , and he just looks so tired , and I just—” Tony cut himself off by burying his face in his hands, food forgotten. “I don’t know what to do,” he finally said.

“Be there for him, for now,” Pepper said softly. “Stick to that plan of yours. Get him cleaned up, get some food him, let him get some rest, and then figure it out from there. Wong will help, right?”

“I don’t doubt it,” Tony said, because for all that Wong pretended to act a bit exasperated with him, he had never once not come through. “I’m gonna go to the garage. Fri, let me know when he wakes up?”

“ Yes, Boss. ”

“Good girl.”

Pepper forced him to take his plate with him, with stern instructions to finish it, and he conceded. The pasta was good enough at least.

The hours slunk by, and it was early evening when FRIDAY finally alerted him. Tony was rather relieved, considering he was getting absolutely nowhere with the anomalies in the DNA Analysis.

“How is he?” Tony asked as he climbed the stairs. The house was quiet.

“ Far less distressed, ” FRIDAY replied. “ Mr. Parker requested I prove that his surroundings were real, which I did. He appears tired, but he has not moved from the bed. ”

“An improvement, then,” Tony muttered. He stopped in front of the door and, rather than barging in, he knocked.

“ Come in ,” a voice called out from within. Peter’s voice, still hoarse, but also still his kid.

Tony twisted the handle. The door opened, and closed, and their eyes met.

Peter’s eyes still seemed dull. That brightness that he had always loved about them was missing, and his heart ached with a need to get it back. That was for later, though. For now, he stood in the silence and allowed himself to drink in the sight of his kid, here and breathing and alive, oh so alive .

“Can I come closer?” He asked.

Peter’s throat bobbed, and his hands were shaking, but he nodded.

Tony sat across from Peter on the bed, his legs folded in the same way. His eyes were stinging, but no tears fell, and in a strange, morbid way he appreciated the fact that the kid in front of him looked so different from how he remembered. Somehow, it made it easier to to know that there was ceiling above him rather than sky, choked with smoke or burned with gold.

He found himself blinking little. What if he closed his eyes, and when he opened them, Peter was gone again? Unlikely, but his whole life was unlikely. He wasn’t sure he wanted to risk it.

Tony wanted to reach out, but the kid was still stiff, poised to jump away if even a single wrong move was made. So, instead, he thought about the few times he had seen Peter in a state before and asked, “Can I touch you?”

Peter nodded jerkily, and Tony shifted forward. The kid jolted as their knees touched, but he remained shockingly still as Tony took his hand. There were small marks across Peter’s skin, fresh red that must have come from beneath newly-fallen scabs. His hands were cold, and far too bony, just like the rest of him. Still, Tony held it in a firm grip, hoping that maybe it would ground the kid. After a long moment, he received a hesitant squeeze in response.

Peter’s gaze was firmly on their clasped hands, and so he startled a bit when Tony’s other one came up to cup his face. The kid’s eyes were wide and wet, but his free hand rose to cover Tony’s resting on his cheek, and his shoulders shook with his harsh breathing.

Tony offered a smile, and couldn’t help but laugh as he said, “I’m so happy to see you, kiddo.”

Peter’s cheek pressed harder against Tony’s hand, as if trying to absorb the contact. In response, Tony pulled Peter into a hug instead.

The kid didn’t return the embrace, his hands limp in his lap, but that was all right. Tony let Peter’s face tuck into the crook of his neck, ignoring the way the tears wet his skin and his shirt.

“It’s all right, Underoos,” Tony murmured. “Everything’s all right. You’re safe, I promise.” He swallowed. “I’m right here.”

He let the kid cry. It was clear that he needed it. Tony needed this too, to be fair. Had needed it, for nearly six months, for over five years, for his entire life, even when he hadn’t known it .

“Pete,” he finally said when the kid’s tears seemed to slow a bit. He pulled away to look Peter in the eyes, and his hand came up to press against the kid’s forehead. It had a sheen of sweat, but it was barely warmer than usual. His fever had broken. “What happened to you, kiddo?”

“I…” Peter’s voice was barely there. “I messed up, Mr. Stark. I messed up really, really bad.”

Tony exhaled through his nose softly but mustered up a smile. “You don’t need to tell me right now if you don’t want to. Do you remember the rule?”

“Unless it’s life-threatening, just make sure to tell you before I’m thirty.”

“That’s right.” Tony couldn’t help the way his smile widened. He had known this was Peter, but that little bit of proof went a long way in settling some strange anxieties. “Wait as long as you need, Underoos. I’m right here whenever you’re ready.” The kid’s gaze shifted away, and Tony couldn’t help his sigh. “I do have one question, though.”

“Okay.” It was nothing more than a whisper.

Tony sat for a moment, trying to find the best way to phrase his question, watching the way Peter breathed, feeling how his pulse fluttered beneath Tony’s fingers. “Pete, how are you alive? ”

Peter blinked rapidly. “What?”

Tony furrowed his brow. What was confusing about that question? “How are you alive, kid?” He asked again.

“I...I don’t know what you’re talking about, Mr. Stark,” Peter said. His teeth shifted as if to chew on his lip before he thought better of it.

“Peter, you…” If the kid had somehow forgotten from the trauma or what have you, Tony really didn’t want to remind him. On the other hand, there could be something there about how Peter came back, and whether there were stipulations or a time limit. Tony had to know. “You died, kid. Half a year ago.”

Peter shifted back a bit. “I… what? ”

“Saving the universe,” Tony pressed. “You snapped Thanos and his army away, do you remember?”

Tony remembered. Sometimes, he wished he didn’t, even though he wouldn’t trade the memories of those last moments for anything. It was the worst day of his life, and he saw it every time he went to sleep.

“What?” Peter asked. He blinked rapidly. “But...But you—”

The kid cut himself off, and then he seemed to pale even more, which was almost miraculous considering how sickly he already looked. His jaw trembled, and he leaned back, out of Tony’s grasp. Tony let him go.

“I’m not…” The kid wrapped his arms around himself. His words were shaky. “I’m not your Peter.”

Tears flowed anew down his cheeks. Tony reached forward to brush them away before pausing, letting the hand hover between them. “What are you talking about, kid?”

“I...I didn’t… I’m not…” His shoulders shook with the effort of his exhale. “I’m not your Peter.”

Tony didn’t say anything, and the kid screwed his eyes shut for a moment, grip around himself tightening before he continued.

“I...I messed up really bad, and the...the multiverse started to collapse.” The multiverse? Tony knew that it was real, Wong himself had said so, but what could the kid possibly have done to cause the multiverse to collapse? “To… Because it was my problem, Doctor Strange, to...to fix it, he had to send me to another universe. One with no Peter Parker.” A new universe, with no Peter Parker. A universe with a perfectly-sized hole to fill. “That was...here.” The kid sniffed and rubbed at an eye. Against his words, the movement was painfully childish. “I’m not...I’m not your Peter. I’m just…” His voice broke, and Peter seemed to collapse in on himself. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m not the Peter that you’re missing. I’m just… me.”

The kid’s body was wracked with tremors, and there was a ringing in Tony’s ears.

I’m not the Peter that you’re missing. I’m just… me.

This wasn’t Peter, returned from the dead. This wasn’t the kid that had died in his arms, that he had whispered reassurances to until the end, that had called him Dad. That Peter was still gone, and if there was a hole in this universe that he left behind, then it must be true that he always would be gone.

The kid in front of him, though, looked just like the Peter that Tony had lost. He was a Peter who had gotten the chance to grow older, older than his counterpart ever had been, and it seemed as if the world had not been kind to him for it. He had faced hallucinations that he couldn’t discern from reality, a multiversal collapse, and somehow, through it all, he had been alone; there was no way that a May Parker or a Pepper Potts-Stark or a Happy Hogan in any universe would allow a Peter Parker to be so hurt, so thin, so shattered.

There was no way that a Tony Stark, in any universe, would allow for a Peter Parker, from any universe, to think that he wasn’t enough.

Tony surged forward and wrapped the kid back in arms, holding him close, as if he could protect him from whatever had hurt him. Now that they were together, perhaps he could.

“It doesn’t matter,” he murmured, keeping his words as firm as possible. He would leave no room for argument. “Not at all, kiddo. It doesn’t matter where you’re from, whatever fucked-up future or alternate universe you came from, because you’re still my kid.” He ran his hands through dirty hair. “You’re still Peter.” He paused, letting the kid cry for a moment, before he asked, "Is that why you said I was dead? 'Cause in your universe, I am?"

Peter nodded against his shoulder. "You...You Snapped. To save the universe."

Tony's laugh was a bit broken. "Huh. And I thought I said never to do anything I would."

Peter didn't laugh, but the edges of his lips seemed to twitch. Tony would take that as a win.

He coaxed the kid into taking a shower. FRIDAY left on watch, Tony went back to the first floor and downed the cup of coffee Pepper had waiting for him.

“How is he?” She asked.

Tony swallowed the last mouthful of his drink and set the mug down. “Bad,” he said. “They fucked him up bad , Pep. I swear to God, I’m halfway ready to give our Strange a piece of my mind, and he’s not even the one who did whatever was—was done.”

“Strange? What does he have to do with this?”

Tony tapped his fingers rapidly against the counter. “He sent the kid here. Or, another him sent him here.” Pepper furrowed her brow, and Tony continued, “The kid upstairs isn’t Peter. Not our Peter, at least. Not the one who—who died. He’s Peter Parker from another universe.”

Pepper sucked in a breath. “From another universe? How did he get here? Why is he here?”

“Multiversal collapse,” Tony said, and didn’t elaborate. “Wong said Strange is studying the multiverse ever since his—his future-seeing fuck-up. He’ll probably know more, loathe as I am to let him near the kid.”

“So...So, the boy upstairs, that’s not…that’s not Peter?”

Tony’s nails dug into his palm. “It is . It’s not the same Peter that we buried , but he is still Peter Parker. He’s still— Pep, he’s still my kid.”

Pepper nodded, though she still looked a bit confused. “He’s from another universe, though? What do we do about that?”

Tony’s mouth was dry, despite the fact that he could still taste the coffee on his tongue. “I need to call Wong.”

He did so in the garage. His phone was already ringing when he pulled it from his pocket, thanks to FRIDAY.

“Tony?” Wong asked the moment he picked up. “What do you need?”

Tony’s laugh was strained. “What, I can’t call my favorite wizard without needing something?”

“Master of the Mystic Arts,” Wong grumbled, “And, no, not often. If it was Pepper, perhaps, but it is you, so you must want something. What is it?”

Tony swallowed, even though it hurt. “You said Strange is studying the multiverse, right?”

“Yes,” Wong confirmed. “Stephen’s been quite dedicated since returning in August. Why?”

Tony found that he couldn’t form words.

“Tony,” Wong said slowly, “Why do you need to know about the multiverse? Has something happened?”

He cleared his throat. “That’s one way to put it.”

“What is it?”

“We’ve had a bit of a… multiversal visitor,” Tony said. “Or, perhaps he’s a new resident? We’d like a bit of, er, counseling about that.”

“A multiversal visitor?” Wong repeated. He sounded stunned. “Who? From where? Do you know them?”

“It just so happens that I do,” Tony said. The coffee taste was gone, now. All that was left was ash. “Wong, it’s...it’s Peter.”

“Peter as in Peter Parker?” Wong’s words were hushed. “By the stars, Tony. Has he said anything?”

“Yeah, he said that the— that there was some kind of inter-dimensional collapse of some kind, starting back in his home universe. It was apparently something that he himself had caused, and so the Strange from there sent him to another universe ‘without a Peter Parker’ in order to—to stabilize it, I suppose.”

Wong exhaled harshly. “We’ll need to speak with him, ” he said. “ Stephen and I both, I mean. Get his story straight, determine how he got here, as well as the multiverse’s stability and the duration of his stay in our universe.”

“The… duration of his stay?” Tony asked weakly. “So, he might not be here for good?”

“That depends on a variety of factors,” Wong replied. “We won’t know for sure until we speak with him and understand the entire situation. There is a chance that he is here to stay. There is a chance that he is not. It would be best to prepare yourself for—for any possibility.”

“Okay,” Tony said, not really trusting himself to say anything else.

“Would now be a good time?” Wong asked. “Stephen should be free. If he’s not, I can make him free.”

Tony thought of the kid, covered in cuts and bruises, with thin limbs and tired eyes. “Wait until tomorrow?” He requested. “Whatever happened to the kid, it wasn’t good . He almost died last night from an infected wound because his healing seems to be on the fritz. He needs some sleep, and some food, and a bit of time to just rest. You could come over tomorrow morning. I’m sure Pep would love to have you for brunch.”

Wong sighed. “Very well. This is… certainly not what I should be doing in a situation such as this, but based on what you’ve said, I’ve a feeling we’ll be more productive tomorrow anyway.”

“I’d say.”

“We’ll see you tomorrow, then. Stephen and myself. Tell Pepper to text me the details.”

“Oh, Wong, do you truly not want to work them out with me?” Tony jabbed.

“When your wife is an option?” Wong asked dryly. “No way in hell. I’ll see you tomorrow, Tony.” He paused. “We’ve no way of knowing how this will go, but enjoy your time for now. You deserve it, for however long it lasts.”

Tony’s throat hurt, and his eyes were burning. “Thanks, Wong,” he managed to say. There was some sort of response, but he didn’t really hear it. When the ringing in his ears died down enough, the call had already ended.

“Boss,” FRIDAY said. Her voice was a bit muffled, but he latched onto it. “Boss, Mr. Parker seems to require some assistance.”

“What kind of assistance?” Tony asked, already moving toward the door.

“It appears he has punched the mirror.”

Tony stopped in his tracks for a moment. Punched the mirror? “Fri, be a dear and tell Pep to meet us upstairs, would you?”

“Consider it done.”

He took the stairs two-at-a-time and pushed open the bathroom door. He bent down a bit to try and meet Peter’s eyes. Glass was scattered over the counter and the floor. Blood trailed sluggishly down the kid’s arm.

“Hey there, kiddo,” he said. “What happened?”

“I...I just…” The kid’s voice was choked. “I didn’t mean to—”

“All right, kid, it’s okay,” Tony said. He patted Peter on the shoulder, trying to provide a bit of reassurance without jostling the kid. “C’mon, let’s get back to your room.”

He guided Peter back to his bedroom, carefully stepping around the glass shards on the tiles. He sat the kid down on the bed, feeling a wave of relief as Pepper appeared in the doorway.

“Hey, honey,” he said, keeping his gaze on Peter. “Mo’s good?”

“She didn’t like it, but she’s staying at a friend’s until after dinner. The Johnsons, you remember them.”

“I’m sure I do,” Tony nodded. “Their daughter’s… Mandy?”

“Maddie.”

“Maddie,” he acknowledged. He met his wife’s eyes. “Pep, could you grab the first aid kit from our closet and help Peter out? I’m gonna go clean up the bathroom.”

As she departed, Tony went to as well, leaving another pat on Peter’s shoulder before he went. The kid seemed to be trying to collapse in on himself, and Tony’s throat hurt as he went to the closet to grab the vacuum.

“Fri, can I use this for glass?” He asked as he moved toward the bathroom.

“ Boss Lady specifically had a model made that could, ” FRIDAY replied.

“Perfect.”

Tony occupied himself with cleaning, trying to be as thorough as possible. The mirror was totally shattered, and they might have to keep the kids out of here until it could be replaced. Morgan loved using the master bathroom’s shower, anyway, and he was sure Peter would agree to it.

“How’re we looking, Fri?” He asked, straightening up.

“ You’re needed, Boss, ” she replied.

“Pardon?”

“ It appears Mr. Parker may be having a panic attack. ”

The vacuum was discarded on the counter. Tony moved swiftly down the hall, skidding into the doorway of Peter’s room just in time to catch the kid saying, “ -would’ve been happy if I’d only— ”

“Pete,” Tony said, and the kid’s words died in his throat. His chest stuttered with quick, shallow breaths. Peter was pressed into a corner, Pepper kneeling on the floor in front of him. Tears were streaming down the kid’s face, and he looked smaller than Tony could ever remember him being, even during Titan, even at the Compound, even at the end.

“I’m sorry.” Peter’s words were strangled. They sounded painful as he forced them out. “I could’ve… In my world, I could’ve snapped instead of you, and none of this would’ve happened. ”

Tony was sure his heart would break in two. How else was he supposed to react? His kid, who had lost him already, was in front of him, face blotchy and eyes red, wishing that he had died instead.

(Just like Peter had.)

Tony sighed. “Peter. Can I touch you?” At the agreement, he set a hand firmly on the kid’s knee. “Kiddo, I don’t know exactly what happened to you, but I do know myself, and if your version of me was anything like I am, then I know that he would just be happy that you’re safe. ”

Peter let out another keen. Tony had never heard him do that before the Decimation. This was the second time in the last day, now. It hurt his heart in a way he couldn’t describe.

“You…” Peter gasped for air as if he was drowning. Tony understood how that felt. He wished the kid didn’t. “But Pepper. And Morgan. You left them behind, they...they needed you.”

It felt as if there was something lodged in Tony’s throat. He didn’t think he’d be able to respond, but he knew he had to.

Pepper saved him, just as she always did.

“Peter.” Her eyes were wet, her hand resting on the kid’s other knee. “I promise you, your Tony would have wanted you to live.” It took every bit of his strength to keep his breathing steady. “There is nothing worse than losing a child.”

Her words rang true. So true they burned .

Peter’s eyes fluttered, as if he didn’t quite know what to say. His body trembled. The kid was terrible at thermoregulation. Tony wondered if he was cold.

“C’mon, kiddo,” Tony said. “Let’s get to bed, all right? We can talk more in the morning.”

Pepper prepped the bed quickly as Tony helped the kid get to his feet. Peter’s clean hair, still damp from the shower, pressed against the pillow as he lay down. Tony pulled the blanket up over the kid’s shoulders as Pepper pulled the curtains closed. Without having to be told, FRIDAY dimmed the lights.

Peter’s eyes were drooping, but he seemed to be fighting to stay awake. Tony wondered if it was for a particular reason, or just because the kid didn’t know how to stop fighting anymore.

“Go to sleep, Pete,” he said gently.

Peter’s exhale was shaky . He closed his eyes, though, and Tony sat there, Pepper at his side, until the kid’s breathing evened out into something steadier. It was still shallow, and Tony was sure that Peter would be awake at the lightest startle.

“Wong will be here tomorrow morning,” Tony said quietly. “With Strange. They’ll stay for brunch. He said he’d text you to work out the details.”

“Okay,” Pepper said.

Tony didn’t take his gaze off of Peter. The kid’s face was slack, but the bags under his eyes were terribly pronounced, and there were still bruises and cuts along his skin. The healing factor should be taking care of that, and yet it wasn’t . There was a story there, there were far too many stories there , and Tony wished that he could just know them rather than having to draw them out of a kid that must have seen too much already.

Things weren’t that easy, though. They never could be.

Pepper was at the door, now. “Are you coming?” She asked gently.

He shook his head. “I think I’ll… stay here a little longer, if that’s all right.”

She gave him a sad smile. Rather than saying anything else, she simply closed the door behind her.

Tony let out a small breath. His gaze drifted back to Peter. The kid looked younger while he was asleep. It didn’t lift the weight that had settled deep into his visage—the exhaustion and the pain.

Still, it was as if, for a moment, he had some respite.

A moment of rest—of peace—before the world started up once more.

Tony shifted forward and brushed a stray curl back from Peter’s forehead. He wasn’t sure what had happened to the kid, but it was clear that he had been alone for far too long. There was no way of knowing what would come next, but Tony swore—to himself, to Peter, to the world— that he would be there, for as long as he could.

Peter needed him.

It might not have been the same Peter that he had laughed with, cried with, held as he died, but it was still Peter. This was still his kid, and Tony still loved him, with every bit of his soul that he could reach.

It doesn’t matter, because you’re still my kid.

Tony’s eyes burned.

Still his kid, indeed.

Chapter Text

Waking was sudden.

(It often was, now.)

Peter sucked in a breath, gasping for air. The ceiling was familiar in a way he couldn’t recall, his body suspended in a rare warmth.

There was a grunt to his side, and Peter scrambled up into a sit, still trying to remember how to breathe.

He blinked. Tony was sitting on the ground, head leaned against the side of the bed. Peter was under blankets, and took a moment to revel in the fact that he wasn’t cold. He was always cold these days, but for once he thought his skin felt almost damp as his toes curled beneath the covers.

Peter was still fighting to get his breathing under control when Tony stirred and turned back to look at him.

“Oh.” Tony glanced down at his wrist before giving a half-smile and saying, “G’morning, kid.”

“Morning,” Peter replied. It was quiet, but he didn’t dare try for anything louder. He didn’t think he had the strength for it.

Tony was silent for a moment, just staring at him, drinking him in. Peter couldn’t really blame him. He thought he might be doing the same. Tony’s shoulders rose and fell, and the scars on his arm were faded with time, and if Peter took a moment to listen he could hear a fluttering heartbeat in the other chest.

The lights were off, and the world outside looked dim. Through one window the sky was dark, and through another the smallest tendrils of color were beginning to crawl across the horizon. Tree branches had a layer of frost over them, and to anyone else who couldn’t see the details along the bark, it would be a rather stark contrast of white on black.

(Peter saw it, because since the Bite he’s always seen too much.)

“You hungry?” Tony asked, snapping him from his thoughts.

Was Peter hungry? He wasn’t quite sure how to answer that. It was so normal to have an emptiness in his stomach that would never be filled that Peter couldn’t remember if that was how it always was. He thought he could eat all the food in the world, and still feel just as empty at the end of it. The emptiness was deeper than any kind of starvation could touch. No number of meals would fix that. 

He shrugged.

Tony's mouth pulled into a tight line. “Well,” he said slowly, standing up, “I am, so why don’t we head downstairs and grab something to eat and we can talk about what we’re going to do today.”

Peter’s breathing was shallow, but he nodded, pushing the blankets off and taking Tony’s offered hand after a beat. He was pulled to his feet, and goosebumps raised across his skin. He didn’t say anything, but Tony noticed and nudged him toward the closet.

“There’s stuff in there,” he said. “Warmer clothes, if you want them.” Peter’s hesitation must have shown on his face, because Tony patted him gently on the arm and added, “No one else is wearing them, kid.”

The cold won out, and Peter took a moment to look over the clothes hung in the closet. They didn’t smell musty, but they’d clearly been sitting untouched for some time. He tried to ignore the fact that these clothes were likely intended for the Other Peter, the original one that Tony actually loved, who’d done the impossible by saving Tony and dying all in one go.

(That felt mean. Peter didn’t think that the ever-consuming black hole within his chest was really noticeable before the Battle For Earth, when Tony Stark, with infinite power at his beck-and-call, snapped his fingers, saved the universe, and sacrificed himself all at once.)

(Other-Peter might have wanted to live. He might have taken those Stones and done what Peter never could, and he might have done it all while his heart ached with the desire to keep going, even while his breathing grew soft and his thoughts grew slow and the world grew dark. He might have never known the black hole was there in the first place.)

(Other-Peter was better than he was, then. Peter’s own heart ached as he thought of using the Infinity Stones, but it wasn’t a longing for life to go on. Not anymore.)

He picked a sweater at random. His shoulder still twinged with pain, but it was nowhere near the level it had been back in the shed. Just a year ago, such a stab wound would’ve been healed mere days after he got it. Now, he scrunched his nose as he pulled off his shirt and tugged on the sweater instead. It was a simple gray one, adorned with a tiny image of R2D2. Drawers stared mockingly at him, but Peter thought if he tried to take off his sweatpants, he might fall over and never get back up. He closed the closet instead.

“Good to go?” Tony leaned against the doorframe. He cracked a smile. “Nice choice.”

Peter curled the edge of the sweater between his fingers. “Thanks.”

He trailed behind Tony, exiting the room and heading downstairs. The house was quiet, but his hearing easily caught the sound of a toaster popping and coffee steadily dripping into a pot.

“Good morning,” Pepper greeted as they entered the kitchen. Her smile was soft and familiar, and Peter felt a bit bad having it aimed at him when he’d done nothing to deserve it. “We’re having brunch, but I made you a little something to help get you going.” She pulled something from the toaster and dropped it onto a plate before pushing it across the island. Tony gestured Peter into one of the seats.

It was one waffle and three sausage links. Peter’s stomach growled, almost angry at him for waiting.

“Let me know if you want more,” Pepper said, also sliding him a glass of water. “But no coffee. I remember what you’re like with that.”

Peter didn’t know if his body would react the same to it anymore, but he nodded and took the fork, clenching it tightly to try and stop it from shaking.

The waffle was nothing special, but it was good, shaped like a T-Rex. Pepper must have used the same waffle-maker as the one Peter was used to from his universe, gotten when Morgan was four and went through a dinosaur phase. The sausage was good too, and Peter couldn’t really remember the last time he’d had something so fresh, served to him on a plate, that he hadn’t been forced to claw for.

“I had Happy over earlier,” Pepper said, breaking the silence. “He took Morgan out for the morning. Didn’t tell him the whole reason, just said that we had a meeting that she didn’t need to be overhearing.”

Tony nodded, and Peter swallowed a piece of the waffle before asking, “A meeting?”

“You said you were from a different universe, yesterday,” Tony said. The words were casual, as if they meant little, and Peter didn’t quite understand how he did it.

“Yeah,” he managed to say.

“Well, I called Wong about it last night, told him a bit of what I knew, and asked if he could come over today to try and figure this whole thing out. He and Strange should be here for brunch in a bit.” Tony’s eyes flicked to Pepper, who inclined her head.

“I texted him about it, they’ll be over at ten,” she said. “About…”

“Fifteen minutes from now, Boss Lady,” FRIDAY supplemented. “You also have a message from the Sorcerer Supreme confirming that they will be on time.”

“Well, there you have it.” Pepper slid another sausage link and half-a-waffle onto Peter’s plate. “I got some pastries from the bakery a town over, but you should be eating more than any of us anyway.”

“You don’t have to,” Peter said. He didn’t dare speak too loudly, lest his voice break on the words. “I’m fine.”

Pepper hummed. “Is that Tony’s shirt?” She asked. “It’s a bit big on you.”

“It’s from his closet,” Tony cut in.

Pepper pursed her lips. “Eat, Peter.”

He supposed he understood why they were concerned. The clothes in that closet would have been sized for a Peter Parker who wasn’t even sixteen yet. He shouldn’t be swimming in them, unfolded sleeves falling to his fingertips and sweatpants bunched at his feet, and yet he was. It made his cheeks burn in embarrassment. He probably looked more pathetic than he was in the tourist trap shirts he managed to get while living in the apartment or the burnt-out floor. At least those had fit.

He cut off another piece of the waffle, pressed it into syrup, and kept eating.

Tony shuffled him into the sitting room soon after, bringing him another glass of water while Pepper organized the pastries to her liking. Peter pulled his legs onto the sofa, trying his best to shove himself back into the corner as much as possible. It didn’t really do anything to help.

“Boss, Boss Lady,” FRIDAY finally said overhead. “Your guests have arrived on the property.”

Peter couldn’t see the front door, but he could hear it perfectly fine. It opened easily, and Pepper spoke first.

“Oh, Wong, Stephen, thank you so much for coming,” she said. There was the rustling of fabric, and Peter thought she might be hugging one of them. Hadn’t Wong gone to their wedding? He couldn’t really remember.

“Of course, Pepper,” Wong said. “As if we would ever miss the opportunity to see you.”

“This isn’t a social call,” Strange said sharply, and Wong scoffed.

“Obviously, ” he said. “But I can still be happy to spend time with my friends, Stephen. Perhaps if you allowed yourself a better work-life balance, you’d understand.”

Tony let out a sharp laugh. “Always good to have you around, Wong.” A pause. “And sometimes good to have you, Strange. C’mon. The kid’s waiting.”

Footsteps rang through the house, and Peter barely had the cognizance to brace himself as they appeared in the entryway to the sitting room.

Though Pepper and Tony both easily stepped down into the lowered room, Strange and Wong both paused on the landing and stared at him. Peter’s gaze flicked back and forth between them as they said nothing, before he turned helplessly to Tony. Tony stepped closer and grabbed Peter’s limp hand. It did far more to center him than anything else had.

“Stars,” Wong breathed. “I didn’t believe you to be lying, but it’s one thing to know and another entirely to see it with your own eyes.”

Pepper cleared her throat. “Why don’t you two take a seat,” she said, gesturing around. “I didn’t buy four kinds of scones for nothing.”

Tony settled in next to Peter while Wong shared a couch with Pepper. Strange sank into an armchair of his own, leaning forward on it, and resting his elbows on his knees as he observed Peter with a calculating gaze.

Finally, he said, “What is your name?”

There was a beat of silence. Peter’s throat felt clogged. “Peter,” he finally said. “Peter Benjamin Parker.”

(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)

Strange nodded. “Birthdate?”

“August—” His voice failed. He tried again. “August tenth, 2002.”

“Are you from this universe?”

Peter twisted the ends of the sweater in his free hand. “No. ‘Least I don’t think so.”

Strange closed his eyes and held out a palm. It twisted slowly, a blend of golden and green runes circling around it. Then, he nodded again. “Neither do I.”

“You seem to be from a rather similar reality, however,” Wong said. He had a blueberry scone in his hand, but left it for a moment. “Though clearly different, given your presence here. Do you know of any timeline differences that might have caused such a large ripple effect? Even small ones can have great consequences.”

“Uh, yeah.” Peter swallowed. His throat hurt. “Yeah, there’s a pretty big one.” He took a swig of water, trying to ignore the trembling of the glass as he held it. “In my universe, during the—the Battle for Earth, it was—it was Tony; Tony Stark from—from there. He was the one to Snap. He—He saved everyone. It wasn’t me there. It was him.”

Wong nodded, a sad air to his face. Strange looked deep in thought, and Tony tightened his grip on Peter’s hand.

“Why are you here?” Strange finally asked. “All we’ve been told is that there was some sort of inter-dimensional collapse, and to fix it you had to be sent here, to a universe ‘without a Peter Parker’ in it. What happened?”

Peter was silent for a long moment. His mouth was dry, tasted of ash, and whenever he closed his eyes he saw Tony’s sightless gaze staring back at him.

“About a year after everyone was Returned, after Tony—” He cut himself off before the sob building up in his throat could escape. After a moment, he continued, “I went on a trip to Europe with my class. A—A lot happened there, but the most important thing is that I had to fight this—this guy named—” Beck had worked for Tony. Beck had worked with Tony. Tony would know who he was, and that was not something that Peter wanted to deal with at the moment. “This guy named Mysterio.”

“Mysterio.” Tony said the name slowly, as if experimenting with it. He glanced at Strange and Wong. “Sounds magical to me. Either of you know him?”

“They wouldn’t,” Peter cut in before anyone could reply. “He wasn’t actually magical, he just— He used this—this illusion technology to make it look like he was.”

“Huh,” Tony said. “Like B.A.R.F.”

Peter swallowed past a lump in his throat. “Yeah. Like B.A.R.F.” He paused for a moment to gather his thoughts and then said, “A lot happened. I trusted him, thought he was like a friend—like a mentor. He lied to me, tricked me, got me hit by a train-” Tony’s breath hitched- “But most importantly, he got the whole world to think he was a hero. He—He died during our final fight. I didn’t kill him, but he died anyway, and when he did, he— The last thing that he did was tell the whole world that Spider-Man had killed him, and then tell the whole world that I was Spider-Man.”

Pepper gasped softly, fingers coming up to cover her mouth. Tony squeezed his hand.

“I was able to—to get off for the whole murder thing,” Peter said, “But a lot of people still thought that I’d literally killed this brand-new hero in cold blood, and it… I guess you could say it didn’t really reflect great on me. I didn’t… I wasn’t really sure how anything would play out, but when—when I started applying to colleges in senior year, I was expecting some of them to say no just because of all the—the drama. And, I mean, that’s what happened.”

“Oh, Peter,” Pepper breathed.

“I’m sorry, kid,” Tony murmured. The two of them knew a good deal about controversy, Peter was sure.

“I got rejected from every school I applied for,” Peter said. “Literally, every single one. Back-ups, back-ups for back-ups.” He swallowed. “M.I.T.”

“Bullshit,” Tony said immediately. “Sorry, it’s just… Their biggest pride is that I went there and graduated when I was, like, seventeen, and they denied my kid? Peter, there have been times in the lab that I’ve struggled to keep up with you. You barely even need a degree.”

“I know,” Peter shrugged. “I wanted one, though.”

Tony sighed. “I get it, bud. I’m sorry.”

Peter shook his head. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “That wasn’t the worst part. The worst part was that the same thing happened to my friends.”

Pepper furrowed her brow. “What?”

“Everyone knew I was Spider-Man, everyone knew Ned and MJ were my best friends, and half of the world thought I was a Hero-Murderer. So, even though they didn’t even do anything, Ned and MJ got rejected from every school, too. Including M.I.T.”

Pepper’s jaw visibly clenched. “What was I doing during all of this?”

“You helped,” Peter replied. “Sometimes. When I asked you to. But you—you were having a hard time with everything, and you’d already helped make sure I didn’t get arrested, I didn’t want to…” His voice fell away as Pepper’s face grew sadder and sadder. Finally, she got to her feet, walked closer, and took his free hand in between both of hers.

“Peter,” she said firmly, eyes boring into his soul. “If there is ever anything—anything—that I can do to help you, I want you to tell me. You are never a burden, do you understand me?” Peter didn’t, really, but he nodded anyway. 

(She was still thinking of her Peter when she spoke to him. He was sure of it. She wouldn’t be saying such a thing if she truly knew what a failure he was.)

Satisfied, Pepper returned to her seat and gestured for him to continue.

“It was just… Everything in my life was–was going to shit,” Peter said. “Had gone to shit. I didn’t— It was fine when it was just me, but it was hurting my friends now, and I couldn’t go to school without getting mobbed, and I couldn’t go Spider-Man without getting harassed by every person I passed, and it was just— It was awful.” 

He sniffed and took a moment to breathe. 

“I didn’t know what to do, or how to—how to fix things, so I—I went to Doctor Strange; my Doctor Strange.”

“You wanted to see if I, or he, could reverse it,” Strange said. Peter nodded shakily.

“Yeah, that’s what I was hoping for,” he said. “Forgot about the whole, you know, not-having-the-Time-Stone-anymore thing.”

“What happened instead?” Strange asked. “I presume you didn’t just leave.”

“Uh, no, I didn’t,” Peter said. “You had another idea. To not undo time, but to, well, make it so that it was like nothing ever happened in the first place. You called it the, uh… God, what was it… The runes of Camel?”

Wong made a choking noise as Strange’s eyes widened. “The runes of Kof-Kol?”

Peter nodded. “Yeah. That’s it.”

“Did I know about this?” Wong asked.

Peter nodded. “You, uh, you basically just said it was dangerous and to leave you out of it. Then you left.”

Wong ran a hand over his face. “What is wrong with these versions of us, Stephen?”

“I’m not sure, though I sincerely hope there are more unnoticeable differences than just that Tony Snapped there instead of Peter,” Strange replied. “I don’t think I can bear the thought of Stark being the only thing keeping either of us rational.”

Tony let out a laugh, though it was a bit strangled. “Love you too, Strange.”

The sorcerer wrinkled his nose and turned his attention back to Peter. “Please, go on, Mister Parker.”

Peter swallowed. “The plan was to make everyone forget that Peter Parker is Spider-Man. We went to cast the spell, and, well…”

“It went wrong,” Strange finished for him.

“It was my fault,” Peter said. “I kept— I wanted it all. The best of both worlds. I kept trying to add to it, get you to let more people remember rather than just erasing it all. I wanted Ned and MJ to remember, and Happy, and Aunt May, and it just…”

“The spell was changed too many times,” Wong said, voice grave. “It broke, didn’t it?”

“Yeah.” Peter’s voice was quiet. “It did.”

“What did it do?” Strange asked.

“I didn’t realize at first,” Peter said. “But when I said that everyone who knew I was Spider-Man before should still know… the spell kinda took that to the extreme. Doctor Strange described it like—like a homing beacon. Every being that knew I was Spider-Man in other universes was being drawn to our universe. He said the spell broke the multiverse open and allowed it to seep into our world, and so with that—that fabric so weak, all those—those multiversal entities that knew me and also kinda hated me were trying to break through into our universe to get to me.”

“Multiversal Collapse,” Wong said breathlessly. “The stars as my witness, you’re talking about Multiversal Collapse.”

Peter nodded jerkily. “Yeah. At first, it wasn’t too bad. About five villains were pulled into our universe, and I started working with Doctor Strange to capture them. Then, though, I found out that they would all die when they were sent back to their own universes. I—I couldn’t let that happen, so I fought Doctor Strange, got the spell from him, and worked to come up with cures for all of the bad guys.”

The room stayed silent, but Peter could feel the weight of their disappointment. He swallowed hard and forced himself to go on.

“I had all these villains back in Happy’s apartment, had cures for all of them, but one of them…” He let out a shaky breath, and a wheezing sound came with it, almost like a whine. “Norman. He had this—this alter-ego called Green Goblin. The Goblin took over while we were in the apartment, and he—he ruined everything. He got all the bad guys to turn on us, and he destroyed the building, and he-” A sob ripped from Peter’s throat- “He killed May.”

Pepper sucked in a breath, and he couldn’t feel his fingers anymore, and then Peter’s face was being pressed into Tony’s shoulder.

“It’s all right, Underoos,” Tony said, voice low. “Let it out. It’s okay.”

“It was ‘cause of me,” Peter said between strangled cries and even more strangled breaths. “He killed her because of me. She died because of me.”

“And what do you think May would say about that, hm?” Tony asked. Fingers ran through Peter’s hair, but he was too exhausted to even lean into the touch. “She loves you, kiddo, and she loves helping people. You were trying to do a good thing, and you got stabbed in the back for it. That’s not your fault, and she wouldn’t blame you for it. You know it.”

Peter did know it.

(Knowing didn’t help.)

It took a few minutes, but he managed to get his breathing under control. His eyes still burned, and his face was still wet with tears, but Peter leaned back into the couch cushions and forced himself to continue.

“I met these other two Peter Parkers that had also gotten pulled from their universes. They were the same ones who fought the villains that had shown up, and a lot of them were friends before the whole turning evil thing, so we worked together to make new cures. Ned and MJ helped. Ned figured out how to use one of those ring-things to make portals.”

Strange raised an eyebrow. “A Sling Ring? Your friend used a Sling Ring? Without training?”

“Yeah,” Peter said, feeling oddly proud despite everything.

“Huh.” Strange’s mouth twisted weirdly, but he said nothing more.

“We fought them over at the Statue of Liberty, while it was all under construction.”

“Under construction?” Pepper asked. “Why was it under construction?”

“You know,” Peter said. “To add the Captain America shield. As, like, a monument.”

Tony snorted. “Oh, Steve would hate that.”

Peter shrugged. “Not like he was really around to complain. So, uh, anyway. We went and fought them at the Statue, cured a bunch of the villains, and then Doctor Strange showed up. He wasn’t really, uh, ready, though. Green Goblin swooped down, put a bomb in the box containing the spell, and blew it up. The scaffolding was half-destroyed, and Peter-Three barely stopped MJ from falling to her death, and the spell was released from its containment. Doctor Strange tried to get it back under control, and Peter-Two stopped me from—from killing the Goblin. I cured him instead, and I—I went back up to where Doctor Strange was.”

The room was quiet again. Peter fiddled with the hem of his sweater. There weren’t any loose threads to pull. He couldn’t tell if he was upset or not.

“There were a bunch of—of people in the sky, trying to come through. They—They weren’t very nice looking people. Doctor Strange said that they were—they were there because of me. Because of the spell that I messed up. He—He said that casting the original spell wouldn’t fix the problem, because they—they weren’t looking for Spider-Man. They were looking for Peter Parker.”

Peter’s heart pounded, blood rushing in his ears. He might have been sweating, but his insides ran cold with ice. 

“So—So I came up with another idea: one that he said would work. He would cast a new spell, no... no conditions, to make the entire world forget me. Not—Not forget who Spider-Man was; forget who Peter Parker was. He—He would erase me from—from everything, and the multiverse wouldn’t collapse.”

Peter was pulled back into Tony’s side, and his breath shuddered in his chest. He sat for a long few moments, waiting for his ears to stop ringing.

“That was—That was in November. I— It’s harder than you think to—to exist when you don’t have any proof that you do; no—no birth certificate, no social security, no school records, nothing. I couldn’t get a job, or an apartment for longer than a month. I started—I started living in this—this burned out floor of a building, since no one was using it. I couldn’t eat, I could barely sleep, all I could do was be Spider-Man, and even that was hard because my stupid fucking healing factor stopped working ‘cause my metabolism is so fast I couldn’t get enough food for it to function.”

Pepper’s eyes were red, and Tony’s shoulders shook just a bit, but Peter thought if he didn’t finish now, then he never would.

“Eventually, in February, Doctor Strange showed up. Or, well, he kidnapped me, but whatever. He—He made me tell him what happened with the whole spell, since he couldn’t remember either. I told him, and then he told me that it—it wasn’t enough. The spell had helped, but it was only a—a temporary solution. It had helped close the gaps, but those multiversal entities were still being drawn to our universe because of my presence in it. He said we only had a bit of time before we would be facing collapse again; total collapse, this time.”

“The spell wouldn’t have affected beings in other universes,” Strange said, nodding to himself. “They would still know, and even if they were not being pulled into your universe, your enduring presence in it would still call to them, still give them a way in once they found it.”

“Yeah, that’s—that’s what he told me,” Peter said. “He said that—that killing me wouldn’t work, since it was my soul they were drawn to, and souls remain after death. He— I agreed to a new spell, one that would place me into a universe with no Peter Parker, living or dead, to help the multiverse settle back into–into stability.”

“But there was a Peter Parker here,” Pepper said softly. “Perhaps not one who was—was alive , but there was one here.”

“Technically not,” Wong said. His tone was somber. “Memories and souls are different, and separate. Either can remain while the other does not. The only thing with the power to release a soul from a universe entirely, besides moving it to another, is through it being destroyed by the direct power of one of the Infinity Stones of that individual universe. When the Peter Parker of this universe Snapped, he died not just from the burns on his body, but from the direct power of the Infinity Stones destroying his soul in the process.”

Tony went still under Peter, and he tried not to breathe. 

(He was not Tony’s Peter.)

(Tony’s Peter was gone, his soul dissolved into nothing, and he had been replaced with this beaten, battered, broken version that would never be able to measure up to the one that had come before.)

“Doctor Strange said he would send me to the universe closest to the one I was leaving behind,” Peter said quietly. “To try and—and give me a bit of—of familiarity. That was this one.”

Tony was still stiff beneath him, and Peter tried to draw away, to give him space. Instead, Tony wrapped an arm over his shoulders and pressed him more firmly against his side. His fingers played with Peter’s hair, rubbing gentle circles along his scalp, and a lump formed in his throat. He sniffled, and tears made it past his eyelids and flowed freely down his cheeks. No one said a thing, and for a few minutes the only sound was that of Peter, trying his best to keep quiet.

Finally, Wong spoke.

“Tony and Pepper, you asked us here today because you wanted us to determine whether or not Mister Parker’s stay in this universe would be permanent, correct?”

“Yes,” Pepper said. Tony stayed silent.

Wong nodded. “I’ve been observing the energies surrounding Mister Parker for most of our time here. They seem to be settling, at least from what I’ve seen. I will say, however, I am by no means an expert in multiversal matters. Stephen is far more knowledgeable in that topic than I, as of late.”

“Indeed,” Strange said. “What you’ve told us about, Mister Parker, is no small thing. Multiversal Collapse is by far the most-warned-about event in any tomes on this topic, to the point that even sorcerers with no interest have at least heard of it. To properly understand it, however, you’ll first need to understand the multiverse.”

Strange did a quick flicking motion with his hand, and strands of golden light appeared over the coffee table. They formed into a countless number of spheres floating lazily in the air.

“This,” Strange said, “Is the Multiverse. An infinite number of universes, unfathomable in size and scale.”

“Are those universes, then?” Pepper asked, nodding to the spheres.

Strange cracked a smile. “No,” he said. He waved a hand, and the image shifted, zooming in on one of the spheres to reveal more orbs within it. “This is a Harmony.” At their looks, he added, “The names for things in the Multiverse tend to follow a pretty common music-related pattern. Universe means one song, doesn’t it?”

Peter supposed that was fair, though he’d never really thought about it.

“A Harmony, in and of itself, is infinite. However, all of the universes within a Harmony have common elements between them. This could be people, places, events, even rules of reality. Some universes in a Harmony will be similar enough to have common people look like twins, while some will be so different that those with the same name share only that and nothing more. 

“Similar to a harmony as we know it, every piece is important. If a single universe within a Harmony was destroyed, the entire Harmony would collapse. If word did not get out to other Harmonies quick enough, the entire Multiverse would soon follow. That is Multiversal Collapse. The complete end of everything.”

It wasn’t a thing that Peter could really fathom. Even the end of the universe wasn’t really something he could comprehend the size of. The end of an infinite number of universes? His head hurt just thinking about it.

“Now,” Strange continued, “Fortunately, the majority of universes cannot collapse on their own. The ones that can are known as Chords. These universes are ones that you can consider to be the building blocks of Harmonies. There are a good number of them in any one Harmony, but a finite number, and therefore negligible when compared to the infinite number of universes other than them. 

“Chords are the first universes to exist within a Harmony. All other universes took elements from one or multiple of their Harmony’s Chords when they were created. Because of this, however, the walls, so-to-speak, of a Chord are much thinner than those of a regular universe. They are much more susceptible to breaking.”

“My original universe,” Peter said softly. “It’s a Chord, isn’t it?”

Strange nodded. “If a failed memory spell was enough to nearly tear it asunder? Yes, there’s little doubt in my mind.”

That was a bit funny to think about. From the way Strange was talking, if Peter’s universe hadn’t been a Chord, the spell failing never would have caused all the problems it did in the first place. Maybe it simply would have fizzled out. Maybe it would have retaliated back at him and wiped him out. Maybe it would have worked as it was meant to. 

Either way, none of this would have happened in the first place.

He snorted.

Fucking Parker Luck.

“It appears that in your original universe—that Chord—the failed memory spell caused multiversal entities with certain stipulations to be drawn to it. That stipulation was the knowledge that Peter Parker was Spider-Man. As long as an entity fulfilled that stipulation, they could find their way to your universe,” Doctor Strange said. “The new memory spell would have helped for a bit, stopping those entities from being pulled in, but any who wanted to find their way in would have a path regardless.”

“How would removing Peter help that, though?” Pepper asked. “Would they not just be drawn to this universe instead?”

“No,” Strange said. “It was not Mister Parker’s being that they were drawn to, but rather his presence in that universe. That is the one thing we can thank the memory spell for. By removing his presence from the Chord, there is nothing drawing the entities in anymore, and no pathway for them to take.”

“Great,” Tony said tightly. “So the Multiverse isn’t going to fall apart. Wonderful. What about the weird energy around him, though? What does that mean? Does he get to stay?”

Doctor Strange was quiet for a moment. He closed his eyes and twisted his hand around for a moment. “Even if this universe’s original Peter Parker’s presence is no longer here, the memory of him is. That is what the energy is. It is the universe attempting to account for the new presence with the old memory. It is simply molding Mister Parker’s being to fit in line with this universe’s.”

“Stephen,” Wong said sternly. “Speak plainly, if you could.”

Strange huffed. “No one respects my craft.” Wong raised an eyebrow, and Strange sighed. “The universe is good at taking things in stride. You may notice a difference or two, Mister Parker, but our timelines seem to be largely the same. In fact, the only true change might be that you are younger, here, the age that Peter Parker should be at the current date. Those energies are settling. You are stable.” The harsh lines of his face softened, and he offered Peter a small smile. “So, to speak plainly, yes. You get to stay.”

“Oh!” Pepper gasped sharply, relief in her voice. Tony tightened the hold he had on him.

Peter’s heartbeat was audible in his ears, accompanied by the stuttering one in the other chest, and he blinked rapidly.

You get to stay.

You get to stay.

I get to stay.

His skin was stretched thin over his bones, and cuts dotted his hands, and his soul rattled in a ribcage too young for its weariness. He was surrounded by people with memories of someone that wasn’t him, someone more worthy of the love that they felt and the love that they gave, but for just a moment, none of it mattered. 

For just a moment, Peter let himself dwell in the fact that this was where he was now, and this was where he would stay, a place where his name meant something to more than just the voices in his head.

(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)

Chapter Text

There was a thread hanging from the cuff of his sweater.

It wasn’t there earlier, Peter knew, but perhaps letting his fingers constantly worry the fabric was enough to pull it free. 

He didn’t care much to avoid pulling at it more, and rolled it in his hand—between fingertips—beneath uneven nails. The breeze drifting through the window was cold—as winter breezes often were—but he made no move to cut it off. In a way, the chill was almost grounding. It ruffled his hair, and bit at his skin, and made his eyes sting in a way that was painfully familiar. If he let his mind wander, he could almost be back in New York, sitting on the roof of that burned-out building he’d claimed, in his original universe, where everything was awful but at least it made sense.

(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)

A knock sounded at the door, but Peter made no move to answer it. The thread passed over scabs that hadn’t quite healed yet.

No answer was needed, it seemed. The door opened with the tiniest squeak, and footsteps padded toward him. 

“How are you feeling?” Pepper asked.

Peter’s mouth was dry as he ran his tongue over the back of his teeth. “Fine,” he replied. It was a lie, but perhaps not in the way she might think. He didn’t really feel much like anything.

She hummed. “Can I sit?”

He shrugged, and she grabbed the desk chair and pulled it closer to the window seat he was curled on. She sat down, and Peter carefully kept his gaze on the frost slowly melting over a branch outside.

Pepper broke the silence, likely when it became apparent that Peter wouldn’t. “Do you want to talk about it?”

(Who would listen? Who ever did?)

(He could scream, and scream, and scream, and no one ever seemed to hear.)

“Not really.”

She clicked her tongue. “Well, I do. Would you entertain me?”

He tightened his arms’ hold around his knees, and the thread rolled faster. “Okay.”

“Thank you.” Pepper took a moment to breathe, and then asked, “Is there a reason that you don’t want to see her?”

“I do,” Peter said. “I do want to see her. I just don’t— I’m not sure if I can.”

“Is it because—”

“Yes,” Peter cut her off before she could finish. “Yes. That’s why.”

Pepper didn’t respond, and Peter bit his cheek, jaw trembling a bit, before he continued.

“I didn’t get to go to her funeral, you know.” Pepper’s breath did something weird—a noise between a hitch and a choke—but Peter ignored it. He had started talking; he had to keep going, now. “She helped too many people, and there wasn’t— I wasn’t anyone special. I wasn’t really anyone at all. When it happened, I—I sat outside. They had the windows open, and there was a—a pretty big bush, right near the front. I hid there, and I listened, but I didn’t get to go.” He sniffed. “No one even knew that I was missing.”

“I’m sorry,” Pepper said, which was understandable, because Peter didn’t think that there was much else to say.

“It’s fine,” he lied, and he knew that she saw through it, but he wasn’t called out, which was a small mercy. “It’s just… The last time I saw her, she… It was when she…” He didn’t finish, but he didn’t have to. “How did you handle it?”

“‘Handle it?’” Pepper echoed.

He swallowed, hard. “Seeing someone that you watched die,” he elaborated. “Who—Who should have been dead for good? Seeing them—me—all over again?”

It might not have been a fair question to ask, but Peter needed to know the answer. He didn’t think he’d get one from Tony—not one that would help in any way, at least.

Pepper let out a shaky breath. “I wouldn’t say they’re really comparable,” she eventually replied. “We had much longer to grieve than you did, in much easier circumstances. We didn’t know that you were here—that we could see you—until it was already happening. We…We had each other, though it all; a support system.”

(“It’s just that I’ve never seen you around with her before.”)

She didn’t say it, but Peter knew what she was implying—that when May died, he didn’t have the same. It was true, he supposed. Peter lost all of his friends—lost everyone that had ever known him—less than a day after her death. There was little time for condolences, before people forgot that he even needed them at all.

(“And I don’t think she ever mentioned a Peter.”)

“What’s the plan, then?” Pepper asked. “To hide away forever? Put it off until it becomes harder and harder to ever do?”

Peter’s throat bobbed. She was right, he knew that she was right, whether he liked it or not. He wasn’t sure if he did. “Not today,” he finally said, and tried to make the words as firm as possible. “I need— Not today.”

“It’s late anyway,” Pepper nodded. “And it’s been… an emotional day. Tomorrow is probably better, once we’re all well-rested.”

The thread landed between two fingers, and the end became more frayed the longer his nails grinded away at it. “Okay,” he said. 

“Okay.” She must have been satisfied, as Pepper reached forward and patted him on the knee before getting to her feet and moving toward the door. “I’ll leave you alone, then. FRIDAY will let you know when dinner’s ready.”

His nail slipped over the thread and pressed into his skin instead, right where a scab was. Peter bit back a hiss, and asked, “Can you—Can you tell Mr. Stark ‘sorry’ for me? I didn’t— I shouldn’t have snapped at him. It was mean.”

Pepper was quiet for a long moment. “I don’t think he wants an apology,” she said. “He probably doesn’t even think that he needs one.”

His teeth ached, as if they were too hot and too cold all at once. “Can you tell him anyway?”
A beat. “Of course.” The door squeaked and closed behind her, and Peter was alone again.

It…It wasn’t as if he didn’t want to see May. He did, more than anything. But would he be able to meet eyes, when he knew what they looked like as they went dim? Would he be able to wrap his arms around her—to let her hold him as she always had—when he knew what it felt like for her pulse beneath his fingers to stutter to a halt?

He managed it for Tony, didn’t he? It should be the same.

(It wasn’t.)

The differences weren’t ones he could really articulate. Maybe it was the choice of the whole thing. He hadn’t been afforded an option when it came to the Starks—there had been no other shed to hide in, no other place to go. No, he had barged his way into their lives, in such a manner that it couldn’t be avoided, regardless of what anyone might want.

With May, though…

Wouldn’t she be better off?

It was a stupid question to ask. Of course she would be better off. No matter what she would say, Peter was quite sure that the bad he brought along rather outweighed the good. Smiles couldn’t pay bills. Laughter couldn’t shorten hours. Love couldn’t bring Uncle Ben back.

(Neither could hands pressed to a wound, fingers slipping on torn flesh.)

(Neither could tears hitting the dirt, hitting skin and stone and blood alike.)

(Neither could powers, newly obtained and ready to be harnessed, unused in the moment and useless in the aftermath.)

Would it not be better to leave her be? She never had to know, really. Peter could stay at the lake house forever, or—if they didn’t want that—he could head off into the trees and disappear like he was supposed to.

(Why would they want him to stay, to freeload, to be a burden—)

A good dream, it might have been, but a dream nonetheless. May was going to find out that he was here one way or another, and the very last thing that Peter wanted was for her to think that he didn’t want to see her—that there was any hate in the part of his heart her memory called home.

“Are you all right, Mr. Parker?” FRIDAY asked, snapping him from his thoughts. “Your breathing has picked up to a concerning degree. Do you require any assistance?”

Peter sucked in as much air through his nose as he could—cold, wintery air that made his head swim—and loosened his grip on his knees just a bit, easing up the pressure on his lungs; the physical pressure, at least. 

“I’m fine,” he said. “Just thinking. Thanks, FRIDAY.”

“Of course, Mr. Parker,” she said cheerily. “Boss Lady has also asked me to inform you that dinner is ready. She would like you to join them downstairs whenever you feel well enough to.”

Peter didn’t think he’d ever quite ‘feel well enough,’ but he certainly felt better now than he had in… He wasn’t going to think about it. Uncurling his legs and shaking his hands out to help the bloodflow, he pushed himself to his feet, shutting the window tight before heading toward the door.

The moment he stepped into the hallway, he could hear giggles coming from downstairs. Peter wasn’t quite sure when Morgan had come home, but she certainly had. The air was lighter for it.

“Petey!” She exclaimed when he entered the kitchen. Morgan bounded over to him, skinny arms wrapping around his hips so that she could hang off of him. “Mommy said that you’re staying! Did you know that? They thought you were gonna have to leave, but now you don’t gotta!”

She said it so easily—so simply—that Peter’s eyes burned. He managed to pull a smile onto his face, and found it was easier when he was looking at her. “Looks like it,” he said. “We’ll be able to finish your book afterall, huh?”

She grinned at him, laughter bubbling from behind her teeth, and swung backward. Peter grabbed her wrists to keep her from falling, and with his strength, it was easy to pull her up and set her onto her feet.

“You’re way better at that than Daddy,” she declared once she had regained her bearings. “He always groans ‘n’ stuff.”

“Daddy is a good thirty years older, sweetie,” Pepper said from her place at the counter. “Some things get harder with time.”

Morgan crossed her arms. “I’m never gonna get older, then. I’ll stay like me forever.”

Peter thought back to an argument he had heard Morgan have with Pepper once, back in his original universe, and said, “If you don’t get older, though, you’ll never be able to ride Mount Everest at Disney World.”

Morgan, who should still be an inch-and-a-half too short for Expedition Everest—Mount Everest, as he remembered her calling it—gasped, her eyes widening as she looked frantically between Peter and her mother. “Really?” She asked. “Really-really?”

Pepper raised a hand to her lips, likely to cover the smile growing there, as she nodded sagely. “Unfortunately so. It’s sad that you’ll never get taller. I was looking forward to not needing a stool in the bathroom, one day.”

“Fine,” Morgan grumbled. “I’ll get older. But not as old as Daddy! I don’t want my bones to start getting mad at me like his do.”

Pepper finally laughed, and said, “I’ll let him know. Now, come over and sit down, you two. There’s sour cream on these potatoes and you do not want to have to reheat that in the microwave.”

Morgan scrambled up into her seat at the island, emphatically patting the one next to her in invitation. Peter obliged, and Pepper slid plates in front of both of them.

For some odd reason, the meal made Peter want to cry. It wasn’t anything special necessarily—wasn’t even the first proper meal he’d had since arriving here—and yet there was a pressured sting just behind his nose, tears threatening to fall. It was a salmon fillet, baked potato, and steamed broccoli; the kind of dinner that Pepper often made when he visited—whatever protein, starch, and vegetable she could find and put together. 

His potato had flakes of cracked black pepper, just the way that he liked it. Morgan’s had no such flakes, so Pepper must have known, must have remembered—

“Peter,” she said softly, and tapped the underside of his chin with a wooden spoon. “Eat.”

He did.

Morgan babbled on about what she and Happy had done that morning—breakfast, followed by a trip to an arcade in one of the nearby towns, apparently—and she certainly made it sound more exciting than Peter would have been able to. He was happy to simply listen, as willing an audience as Pepper was, and the heartbeat he didn’t realize was still pounding calmed just a bit.

“Why’s Daddy not eating with us?” Morgan asked when her tale was finished, broaching the topic that had been carefully avoided until now.

“Well…” Pepper’s jaw shifted a bit, and she glanced toward the hallway that led to the garage, where Tony was certainly working. “Sometimes his projects get the better of him. I’ll bring him some food in a bit, don’t worry about it, sweetheart.”

Peter bit the tip of his tongue and, before he could second-guess himself, offered, “I can do it.”

Pepper’s eyes flew to him. “Are you sure?” She asked. “I don’t mind—”

“I can,” Peter said firmly. “I have— I need to tell him something, anyway.”

She surveyed him before her gaze softened. “All right, then,” she said, and gestured to a plate sitting untouched on the counter. “Go ahead.”

Peter took the plate—definitely did not use his powers to make sure that it stayed in his hands even when they shook a bit—and set off toward the garage.

Exactly as expected, Tony was there, fiddling with something that must be part of a suit, if the nanobots scattered across the desk were anything to go off of.

“I know, I know,” he said before Peter could even open his mouth. “I’ll be there in a minute, I swear, I know I’m late.”

“Missed it entirely, actually,” Peter said, and Tony’s head flew up, his hands stilling. 

For a long few moments, they blinked at one another. The garage’s constant whirring was the only sound, beyond the steady pulse in Peter’s own ears.

Peter finally broke the silence. “I brought food.”

“Uh, thanks,” Tony said, nodding toward a slightly-clear table. “You can just— Er, set it there.”

The plate out of his hands, Peter let his fingers return to the thread hanging from the sweater cuff. He needed one on the other cuff too, he thought.

“I wanted to say sorry,” Peter finally said.

Tony hummed vaguely. “Pepper told me.”

“Oh.” Peter felt distinctly out-of-his-depth. Still, he continued, “I didn’t— I wasn’t mad at you.”

The look in Tony’s eyes wasn’t one Peter could really name, but it was certainly warm, if nothing else. “I didn’t think you were,” he said. “Maybe I didn’t understand why you were upset, but I never thought that it was directed at me; not really.”

“I just…” Peter felt abruptly lightheaded, and swayed a bit. Tony flicked his hand, and Dum-E nudged a rolling chair into Peter’s reach. He sat down, and took a moment to allow his brain to stop swirling. “I don’t know. It doesn’t make a lot of sense.”

Tony chuckled. “Very little of this does.”

“I…” Peter swallowed. His throat hurt. He probably should have drank more water before coming here. “I think I’m scared.”

“‘Scared?’ Of what?”

“The last time I saw May,” Peter said, “She died.” He let out a shaky breath. “She died because of a choice that I made. Even if it—if it wasn’t my fault, it was still because of something that I did.”

Tony was quiet for a few seconds. “That hasn’t happened here,” he eventually said. “And it isn’t going to, either. You didn’t have the support that you should have had there, but you do now. No problems are ever going to get far enough to end like that, anyway. I promise.”

(Promise, promise, promise…)

(None of it meant anything at all.)

Peter’s finger slipped again, from thread to scab. He let it, and felt what must be blood prick up and smear beneath his nail. “I’m not her Peter,” he said after what must have been an eternity. “What if—What if she doesn’t want me?”

“She will,” Tony said firmly. 

Peter squeezed his eyes shut, head and heart pounding in tandem. “But what if she doesn’t?”

Hands cupped his face, and Peter looked up to meet Tony’s gaze. “Then nothing. It doesn’t matter, kid, who wants you or not, because we do. Got that?”

Peter tried to respond, but only a sad noise escaped his throat, just as a few stray tears did from his eyes.

Tony’s thumb brushed one away. “Got that?”

Rather than trying to speak again, Peter simply nodded. Tony looked satisfied, patting both of his cheeks before releasing him.

“She— I’ll see her tomorrow,” Peter said when he felt as though proper words might actually come out of his mouth. “Agreed on it with Pepper.”

“Good.” Tony seemed the smallest bit surprised, but he shook his head once and said again, “Good. I’ll work it out with her, don’t worry. Happy’s normally the one that brings her by, though, would you… Would it be hard to see him again?”

Peter didn’t think so. It wasn’t like with Tony, or with May. The last time Peter had seen Happy, the man had been alive—moving and breathing and fine—and while their final conversation certainly hadn’t been anything like what it should have been, after everything they’d been through, it hadn’t been necessarily painful either. 

(“She never mentioned a nephew.”)

(“I know.”)

He didn’t think it would be hard to see him—not like it would be to see so many others. In fact, now that he was finally letting himself think about it, Peter missed Happy—really, really missed him. 

“No,” he said. “No, it wouldn’t be. I—I think it might even be… nice.”

Tony cracked a grin. “Geez, Underoos, when you talk like that, it just reminds me of all those months he spent asking me to put anyone else on the job of watching you.”

Peter couldn’t help but return the smile, small as it was. “He just couldn’t resist my natural charm.”

Tony let out a sharp bark of laughter. “Who could, kid? Who could?”

Sleep did not come easily that night, but it stayed once it had arrived, which was a greater gift than Peter was often afforded; perhaps even his brain was too exhausted to conjure up the nightmares it was partial to. He wasn’t going to complain, either way.

Breakfast was leftover pastries. Pepper made eggs to go with them, insisting that he needed to eat something other than sugar, and Peter obliged, finishing up the offered plate before taking even his second bite of the blueberry scone she’d set out for him.

“Maybe take a shower?” She suggested once he’d finished. “Happy’ll be here with May at eleven.”

It was half-past nine now, unless Peter had forgotten how to read a clock within the last day. “Where’s Tony?” He asked. “And Morgan?”

“He’s bringing her to hang out with a friend for the morning,” Pepper replied. “We told the parents it was a family emergency. They agreed to drop her back off in the afternoon.” A pause. “We… didn’t think she needed to see this.”

She was probably right. Peter didn’t know how he would react—how May would react—but he was quite certain that Morgan had not yet been told that her original Peter was meant to be dead, let alone that he, in fact, wasn’t that original Peter at all. Having her out of the house was likely better for everyone.

The mirror was gone when Peter entered the bathroom. That was probably a good thing, considering the last time he looked at himself, he made sure that glass and his visage shattered jointly beneath his fist. Still, as he stared at the empty space on the wall, he couldn’t help but feel… angry.

Such a strange thing; what was there to be angry at? A missing reflection? A bare wall? Himself?

(Himself, himself, himself, always himself.)

(Scabbed skin and shards of glass and his fault, his fault, his fault—)

It was the reminder, he thought. The reminder made him mad. 

Peter averted his gaze, because the last thing he wanted to do was punch a hole in the wall this time, and moved toward the shower instead.

The heat tickled, but didn’t burn as it probably should. That might be a bad thing: the numbness. Peter didn’t really care, though. He tilted his head down, and as drops curled around his face, the steam made his throat hurt just a bit less. That was nice, he supposed.

He appreciated the clothes awaiting him when he finally forced himself to turn the shower off. The dark sweatpants were nothing new, but the sweater was one he’d never seen before—navy and adorned in sheep print. The fabric was soft beneath his fingers. There were already a few loose threads on the ends of each sleeve.

“Boss and Boss Lady are waiting for you downstairs,” FRIDAY said once he was dressed. She’d probably been waiting until he was done. “The time is currently 10:24 in the morning.”

He’d taken longer than expected. “Thanks, FRIDAY,” Peter said. His fingers twitched, and he curled them, uncurled them, and curled them again, before grabbing the handle and focusing instead on the cool metal beneath his skin. 

The empty wall mocked him.

(Broken mirrors and bloody tiles and always to blame, to blame, to blame—)

Peter wrenched the door open and fled the bathroom before his thoughts could get any more frantic than they already were.

“Hey, kid,” Tony said, offering a tired smile when he finally made it downstairs. “Good morning.” He reached forward and tugged at a damp lock of Peter’s hair. “You look clean. And well-rested.”

Peter couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow, because every bone still ached with an exhaustion that might reach his soul. “Do I?”

“Well, better-rested than usual,” Tony shrugged. “How’re you feeling?”

“Fine,” Peter said. After a long moment of silence, he added, “Nervous.”

“That’s understandable,” Pepper said easily. 

“We haven’t let them know yet,” Tony explained. “Either of them, I mean; May or Happy. Don’t want there to be any distractions while driving. When they get here, we’ll give a bit of a… Well, a warning, I suppose. Try to lighten the blow.”

“You don’t worry about any of that,” Pepper said firmly. “Just relax, try to breathe, all of that. Everything is going to be okay.”

The loose threads were welcome, and Peter pushed them between his fingers in a familiar, needed motion. “Okay.”

Time both flew by and dragged on, but finally FRIDAY said, “Mr. Hogan on property,” as the distant sound of a car rumbled closer.

“You just wait here,” Pepper said, patting him on the shoulder as she passed by. “Just a few more minutes.”

(Hopeful and damning, all in one.)

Tony and Pepper went to the door, leaving Peter alone in the living room. He resisted the urge to pull at the threads until the whole sweater came unraveled, and instead did his best to take measured breaths.

The door opened. He would catch all of it even if he wasn’t trying; the woes of super-hearing.

“Tony, Pepper,” Happy said gruffly. “Good to see you. Would be better if I wasn’t freezing to death.”

A snort. “Such a whiner, Mr. Hogan,” Tony teased. There was a bit of shuffling as feet moved and shoes were brushed against the mat. The door clicked closed. “I would hope that this isn’t the best ‘Head of Security’ that Stark Industries has to offer.”

“Ah, can’t pull that on him,” May said, and Peter’s heart skipped a beat. “He’ll just say he’s ‘off duty.’”
(God, that was May.)

“For shame, Happy,” Tony chided. “For shame.”

There was a bit of scattered laughter—punctuated by Happy’s grumbling—before Pepper cleared her throat. “Well, best get to business then, hm?”

“Yes,” May said. “That rather vague ‘business’ of ours. It sounded… important, but not important enough to tell me anything over the phone?”

“I’d say too important, instead,” Pepper said.

“Yeah,” Tony confirmed. “Definitely that.” He paused, and the others waited for him. 

Peter pressed too hard, and one of the threads broke off from the sweater. He scowled, and switched to another one.

“Have you ever heard of the Multiverse?” Tony finally asked.

“The idea of it, I guess,” May said. “It was the kind of thing that—that Peter was always interested in. It’s like a bunch of other universes, outside of our own, right?”

“Got it in one, Mrs. Parker,” Tony said. “Well, as it turns out, it’s real. Moreso, it can be, well, traversed, so-to-speak. There are a lot of rules for coming and going and staying and all that, but I don’t really know them in detail. I’ve just got what Strange and Wong have said.”

“Okay…” May dragged the word out. “Is…Is that all? Because, don’t get me wrong, it’s very interesting, but I don’t really see how relevant…”

Peter’s throat hurt. This time, he didn’t think that water would help much.

(That was May, that was May, that was May—)

“I’m getting there,” Tony said sharply, and then sighed. “Sorry, it’s just… It’s delicate, I guess. Wouldn’t you say, dear?”

Pepper huffed out a laugh. “Extremely delicate.”

“Right. A few days ago, we found a… multiversal visitor, you could call it; someone not from our universe. After a bit of… Well, we called in Wong and Strange, and they confirmed that this visitor is here to stay,” Tony explained.

“So, we’re here to, what, meet them?” Happy asked.

“Re-meet, actually,” Pepper said.

“Yeah. It’s, uh… Fuck, this is hard.”

“Take your time, Tony,” May said softly, in that gentle way only she could. Peter wasn’t sure if he wanted to cry or throw up—maybe both.

“Some universes are similar,” Tony said after a long moment. His words were surprisingly steady. Peter was a bit jealous. “With only a few major changes and the ripple effects from those. The people are the same, the events are the same, all of it.” He let out a sharp breath. “I don’t— He isn’t the same person. He— It’s important that you know that. He’s been through things that no one else has, and it’s been really hard, but that— He’s here now. With us. For good. That’s what matters.”

(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)

“You’re not making a lot of sense, Tony,” Happy said, and didn’t sound too upset about it, but confusion certainly colored his words.

“I’m trying to soften the blow,” Tony replied, echoing his own statement from earlier.

“Well, I’ve always been a big believer in just ripping the bandage off,” May declared, and before anyone could stop her, footsteps were striding down the hall toward the living room. More hurried after her, but her head-start was already too big.

Peter barely had enough time to get to his feet when May rounded the corner and froze in her tracks. Her eyes widened—bugged-out almost comically—and her mouth dropped open in the clearest show of shock he’d ever seen from her—even more than when she’d discovered that he was Spider-Man.

His heart was in his throat, and he was sure that it was only the day of preparation that kept him from breaking down on instinct.

What must it look like to her, seeing him now?

(This beaten, battered, broken version of him?)

Peter cleared his throat—though it was closer to a cough than anything—and worried a fresh thread between the fingers of one hand as the other lifted up in a weak wave. 

“Hi, Aunt May,” he said, and his voice cracked before he got through even a full syllable. “I— Hi.”

The silence was overbearing, broken only for a moment when Happy, poking over May’s shoulder, choked on air.

“Peter?” She asked, whispering his name as if it was something precious—something to be treasured. It was a secret brought to life, a candle flickering in the wind, a piece of shattered glass resting—waiting—on the tile; a single wrong breath might shatter it. 

(As if.)

(It was already as shattered as could be.)