4Peter woke up sitting in the dark, with a very nasty headache and his hands twisted somewhat uncomfortably behind his back. Something seemed to be tying them together, but he found that his initial instinct to immediately wiggle his wrists made the pressure loosen and some ripping sounds. The autopilot was relinquishing control in measured doses – first he regained his basic fidgeting impulses, then his fight-or-flight mechanism, then questions began popping into his mind, like – where the hell am I?
He blinked several more times and the darkness receded slowly as his eyes adjusted. A face swam into focus, uncomfortably close and unfamiliar. It was sneering at him. "You're really waking. That's rather impressive. Of course, it won't matter much here, where I hold all the power and you-"
Slamming his head forward was the fight part of fight-or-flight. The man was thrown back some five feet, and Peter only belatedly processed the horrifying possibility he might have seriously injured him – or worse. He froze, looked his captor over worriedly. "Oh my god, are you okay?!"
There was a startled, stifled snort from somewhere else in the room, but Peter's focus was only on the man scrambling back up on wobbly legs, like he could have a dozen dazed little birds flocking around him. He opened his mouth, possibly to answer, but then slumped against the nearest wall instead. Peter stared a little, struggling to adjust to both consciousness and his surroundings. He still felt somewhat discombobulated.
A whistle called his attention. A few meters away was another chair, and strapped to it-
"Kid? You back on the land of the conscious and the depressed?"
Tony didn't look too roughed up – maybe the unkemptness of his hair was a little less intentional than usual, and he had a bit of a rattled shade to his eyes, but other than that and the familiar sleep-deprived bags, he was the picture of kidnap victim health. He was also taking in Peter analytically, though it seemed obvious his vision wasn't doing nearly as well in their current environment.
Peter blinked again and ripped away from his bindings entirely. His feet, he discovered to his mild surprise, were also free.
"Maybe? I feel awake, but also, this is super weird."
Tony was still staring, but now he seemed slightly better pleased. "I don't know what they did to knock you out, but it doesn't seem to be having long-lasting consequences."
Peter moved to tear open what he now realized was duct-tape covering Tony's hands and feet. "Yeah, you can do the doctor stuff when we get out of here. You at least need internet to become the world's leading expert in concussed spider-mutants, right?"
"I do have FRIDAY." Tony tapped on the stylish glasses he was sporting, and Peter scrunched up his nose. What sort of villai- criminal would leave Tony Stark with anything that looked even vaguely technological or futuristic? "And considering you're the only one that we know fits that description, I sort of already am, don't you think?"
Peter ignored him and looked around. They were alone with a handful of chairs, a couple of busted crates, and the man he'd headbutted leaning near the only door – locked, naturally. The room they were in was all grey, floor to ceiling – concrete, probably. Peter briefly pondered his chances of punching through a wall. "Where is here, by the way? I take it we've been kidnapped or something?"
"Trust you, kid, to actually say the sentence 'kidnapped or something' out loud. I don't know that I want to laugh or cry."
Peter pulled a face at him as Tony stood and straightened his jacket, because of course he did. "That's very dramatic, Tony."
"Yeah, what was I thinking." He slapped a hand on his forehead mockingly. "I always forget to take my chill pill when I get taken somewhere against my will."
"Well, there's no time like the present," Peter suggested cheerfully, and ignored the murderous look he received in return in favor of picking at his wrists, because a realization had dawned upon him. "They left my web shooters on me?!"
Tony eyed his wrists too, surprised. "You know, I'm starting to think planning is not their strong su- Why would you have your web shooters on you, you were at school?" he demanded, changing gears midsentence.
Peter winced and risked a tiny glance up that hopefully looked as doe-eyed as he intended it. "Uh – providence? And how do you know my schedule anyway? That's honestly incredibly weird, I never gave it to y-"
Tony interrupted him, crossing his arms to demonstrate how completely unaffected he was, but he still avoided Peter's gaze. "Good try, almost convinced me to careen wildly off-subject-"
The door slammed open before Tony had to vomit any further words. Peter was about to handle it – his hands were flying up, web-shooters at the ready and well-aimed – but before he could, everything metal about the door seemed to explode into the unwitting victims running inside. Tony admired what was clearly his handiwork – Peter just stared at the doorknob, the hinges, the detailing that went flying, taking two more kidnappers down with them.
It probably felt like being shot. Peter tore his gaze away.
"That was violent," he said, trying for neutral rather than disapproving. The men on the floor gasped and cried out.
Tony waved him off. "So's kidnapping. Shrapnel's too big and slow to kill them. It'll just hurt like a bitch. I'm okay with that."
Peter pursed his lips and said nothing. "Let's get out of here."
"Probably should've gotten around to that about ten minutes ago," Tony agreed quickly, and Peter followed him out the now-open door, staring at its remains a little.
"When did you even manage to do that?"
"Are you impressed?"
"Duh."
Tony grinned. He seemed completely at ease and supremely unconcerned, but Peter knew better. There was a stiffness to his posture that didn't look comfortable on him, and the line of his back was too straight. That manufactured air of confidence would fade soon. "Good. Stay that way."
"Mr. Stark," Peter whined like he did whenever he was trying to annoy Tony into doing something. Sure enough, Tony's brow twitched at the moniker Peter had dropped months ago unless he was actively acting like a little shit. "Seriously, how?"
"Do you know how much metal there is at the bottom of kidnapping vans? Well, there's not supposed to be any, but suppose all kidnappers are this level of incompetent-"
He quieted abruptly. They'd stumbled across what seemed to be a sentry point, desk and laptop and cheap chair included – but it was empty. Peter hoped that meant that was the post of someone they'd already taken down.
"-So, I strung together a clunky electro-magnet, put a hair trigger on it. Power source barely gave out any juice, you were lucky it went off at all," Tony continued, as though he hadn't just tensed and thrown a hand on Peter, pulling him behind his back. Peter made a deliberate choice to not let that behavior get to him right then. They took up their march again, this time slower, more careful. "Slapped it on the door as soon as our gracious host closed it behind us. It's still impressive even after I explained it, right?"
"Very," Peter reassured. "But wouldn't using Iron Man have been easier?"
Tony actually stopped in his tracks to look at him, perplexed. "Iron Man is dead."
Peter blinked. He reached for Tony's wrist and pressed two fingers to it. Tony let him be a sarcastically dramatic showman for exactly two-point-five seconds before he yanked his hand back. "You're still breathing, last I checked. And I couldn't tell properly, but you either have a pulse or you're a vampire."
"Iron Man is done," Tony rephrased. "You know that."
"Okay, but the suit-"
"The suit isn't here, Peter," Tony finally exclaimed, exasperated. "I think I take back what I said earlier about no long-term consequences. You feeling alright?"
Peter was fine. Maybe a little slow on the uptake, but fine. "You don't have your suit on you?" he said, finally taking note of the lack of the telltale glow at the center of Tony's chest. "Why'd you take it off?"
Tony crossed his arms defensively. "I dunno if you've heard, like ten seconds ago, but I'm trying this new thing called retirement. Comes recommended by all the costumed freaks with a saving-people complex whose backs have started to crack after every superhero landing."
"So, just you, then?" Peter teased.
"I've always been a trailblazer."
Peter frowned at Tony's arms. "And you can't call one?"
"Had the micro-repeaters removed. I'm not cheating this time, no excuses or loopholes Pepper wouldn't think of. I'm fully offline." He sounded more worried about this than Peter felt, which should probably concern him. But really, they were on their way out with barely a hitch like this was a late-night stroll or something, and Tony had long ago crystallized 'worry' as a core aspect of his personality. Peter elected to dismiss it. "Besides, Fri's flying solo here. She can't get through the concrete walls. I'm guessing that's luck rather than providence on our hosts' part, considering this adventure's progress so far."
Peter chewed on his cheek for a second. "So – when you say Iron Man's dead-"
"Suit's been left in the dust," Tony said, cutting him off with a sense of finality. "It was always supposed to be."
Peter let the matter drop – Tony clearly wanted him to.
He thought he did know – he remembered Pepper's words, he'd overheard Tony's promise. It hadn't impacted Peter thus far, though – he hadn't had to face up to it yet. Some wires were crossed, clearly, because whatever separation Peter was making, in his head, between Iron Man and Tony Stark, it apparently wasn't how Tony saw it.
For a while, he allowed himself to be lulled by the silence. They made their way down the cement corridor and he stopped doing that just as they were about to turn the corner.
One corridor. He let the silence keep for the length of one corridor.
"Hey, Tony, how come you were already up when I'm the one with the enhanced metabolism?"
"Because I'm the one with the brains to cooperate when I'm outmatched, particularly when the kid with the enhanced metabolism has already gone down before me."
"What the- they got out," a guy brandishing a weapon said, scrambling out of a room to their right that had the door wide open. "Hey! Riddle, get over here-!"
Peter, once again, had been at the ready – tensed for a fight and prepared to protect armor-less Iron Man, too.
And once again, inexplicably, Tony shoved him behind himself. He pulled something from his pocket, mumbled something about a 'directed EM ray-trace' to FRIDAY and then threw some small object Peter couldn't get a good look at. It hit their would-be assailant square in the chest and hurled him backwards, clearly propelled with substantial force.
Peter stared at the man, who was lying on the ground, faintly twitching.
"Huh," Tony muttered, "that – packed a lot more punch than I was expecting it to. Nice. C'mon, kid, let's get out of here before whoever Riddle is shows up." Peter blinked up at him. "What? There was a lot of random trash in that van, you have no idea. A couple batteries, a lens for some goddamned reason-"
Peter's arm was still in Tony's version of a vice grip. He could remove it anytime, but making a point was more important. "Tony, could you- not?"
"When, Parker, has the answer to that question ever been 'yes'?"
Peter finally became aggravated. "What the hell was that?"
Tony narrowed his eyes at him and let go. He strode forward, making a show of leaving Peter behind. Peter resisted the urge to plant his feet like a child just to make Tony inevitably break the facade and turn around. He followed instead.
"I let it slide the first time-"
"You let it slide-?"
They were both irritated. This was – not new, necessarily, but rare. Usually, either one of them would be feeling properly chastised, however willing to show it they were (very, in Peter's case, and barely, in Tony's). And it definitely hadn't happened once since they'd watched each other die.
But this was important. This was an aberration in Tony's behavior that Peter couldn't afford to let fester. He wasn't going to back down. From the look on his face, neither was Tony.
"Tony. You shoved me out of the way, knowing I'm fast enough that I could have dodged that guy or anything he threw at me myself, knowing me getting hurt is much less risky than you getting-"
"Excuse you," Tony hissed, sparing him a blistering look, "but I'm the adult here, and therefore I get to do the risk assessment and accompanying decision-making. Spiders and children get to be meek and quiet and obedient."
"And which one am I, exactly?" Peter snarked just for the hell of it.
"Both. Shut the pie hole."
Peter replied 'no' exclusively for the sake of replying 'no', but Tony ignored him like he usually did whenever he was acting like a pest for no good reason. He strode across the hallway to the only door that looked vaguely exit-like, and Peter followed reluctantly.
There was a security system. It proudly displayed a tiny, very low-res plastic screen and a numbered keyboard. Tony squinted at it suspiciously for a moment, and then his face produced an inconsolable sort of look.
"They use four-digit codes?" he asked incredulously. "We seriously got kidnapped by people who use four-digit access codes?"
"Mr. Stark, do you think we could sort out priorities?" Peter was still not feeling magnanimous.
Neither was Tony. "Quit being a nerd, Pete, you're not subtle. FRIDAY, gimme a scan, then list out our possibilities."
"Right away, boss. Warning: I am unable to check for hostile presence in the adjacent division."
Tony then turned to Peter, latching a hand onto his arm and pulling him away from the door. "Stand back, kid."
Seriously?
Peter nearly growled in despair, feeling an intense urge to tug at either his or Tony's hair. The older man wasn't even strong enough to drag him away without Peter's compliance. "Would you stop-"
"Filtering possible combinations by comparison to relevant data points lifted from local databases. Two-hundred and thirty-three optimistic results; estimated initial graph: forty-two nodes."
Peter frowned, momentarily distracted all of a sudden. "It'll probably take three point fi-"
Tony waved an energetic, dismissive hand. "Yeah, thanks, I wrote her, I know the complexity of her sorting algorithms, and also, y'know, math-" The beeping and scratching of the door opening hid Peter's disgruntled huff.
The new room they barged into had three men inside, by all accounts on incompetent guard duty. It looked less like an interior than before, dirty concrete and full of dusty stuff, as though they were standing in some sort of warehouse. As Tony produced yet another ridiculous gadget that would probably turn the guy nearest to them blue and stick his every other toe to the ceiling or something, Peter felt himself deflate.
"You know, I thought we'd gotten past this," he muttered, dejectedly kicking the legs out from the second one before Tony got to him too, and now he wasn't angry. He sounded sad and disappointed to his own ears, which meant whatever Tony was picking up on was twice as emotional and ten times more embarrassing. He got no answer, just a sharp look, so he kept going. "That we were on the same page and stuff, understood each other. Working out our issues."
"Issues-?"
"You with having the, uh – communication skillset of a pre-pre-pubescent baboon-" Tony legit squawked at that, which only almost derailed Peter's point. "Me with the- knowing I have plenty of responsibilities I'm supposed to juggle, and- that recklessness isn't a virtue. I gotthat – I get that. But you're still treating me like a goddamned kid!" he nearly shouted, frustration boiling over to make his voice steadily climb to irresponsible pitches without his say-so. He probably overdid it on the webbing restraints out of sheer pettiness.
Tony, who'd been avoiding eye contact ever since Peter had started on his little spiel, whirled around unexpectedly to glare fiery daggers at him. He was angryfor some reason. "Yeah – my goddamned kid!"
Peter got the feeling Tony had more – probably a lot more – to add to that statement, but the air seemed to have wheezed out of the man's lungs with the words. In all fairness, Peter apparently also completely ran out of eloquence at around the same time. They stared at each other for a handful of panicky seconds until their attention was demanded elsewhere.
"Big man with big gun. Pointing it at you."
That broke their shocked limbo. Peter didn't even really look when he shot out a web and flung whatever handheld pistol their intruding nuisance was carrying to the far-off corner of the room. He just glared at the third goon, uncharacteristically annoyed.
"Can you just – you mind leaving? Right now?" Tony sounded just as irritated. "I really wouldn't expect you to have a particularly long attention span, comes naturally to those gifted with dog-like intelligence-" Peter threw him a glare over the unnecessary insult to dogs. "– I said gifted – but I'm sure you've noticed-"
"We're sort of having a thing, we're busy," Peter interrupted, summarizing. "You can wait your turn."
"Bye," Tony chirped in conclusion.
At first, the man merely stared at them. Peter shot a testy warning web he barely dodged, and he scrammed.
When he turned back to Tony, he could actually see his brain scroll through all exit strategies for this situation, over ninety per cent of which surely involved a crude deflective joke. Because he was feeling unexpectedly reckless and uncharitable, Peter decided to nip all of them in the bud. "Your kid?"
The look on Tony's face was somewhere between aggravated and frightened. "Pete-"
"No, I wanna hear this."
"You reallydon't."
Peter decided to play dirty. "Are we going back to the thing where you make any and all decisions for me and I get upset because I'm not just some kid?"
Tony just looked really, really tired now. "You are a kid. That's the problem."
The initial bubble of revolt ignited by the first sentence burst into confusion at the second. "What is?"
"I'm irresponsible, that's what. And you- kid, you died."
Peter blinked at him. "I- what? I'm not following."
Tony sat cross-legged on the floor and patted the spot beside him so Peter could join. "Listen," he started carefully. "There're certain situations a person can go through – they'll make a pretty big impact. I mean, you're, like, twelve-" Peter punched his arm just to make a point, considering he was quite aware the goal of the comment was to rile him up. "-ow, careful with us mortals – my point is, you're young, but you already know what I'm talking about." Peter thought about spiders, and uncles, and parents, and most of all, I am Iron Man, and abruptly stopped thinking. "Well, I- the world, really, but, y'know, mostly me – I'd never been through something like that." Tony's voice suddenly shook like an earthquake raked through it out of the blue. "I honestly – Jesus, do you know how old I am? All it took was this," he snapped his fingers, "and I was right back to feeling like a kid on the first day of pre-school, floor vanishing under me, the works. It was the single worst thing I've ever been through."
It hadn't escaped Peter's notice that Tony was deliberately avoiding explicitly saying what that was, but since Peter wasn't an idiot, he didn't ask him to. It wouldn't be Tony's death – no, if it were that, there was no way he'd be telling Peter about it. Which only left one other traumatic snap of someone's fingers, as far as he was aware.
The thing was – Peter didn't always deal so well with the memory of a tattered Avengers' compound, Tony Stark's ultimate martyr moment unfolding right in front of his wife's eyes. Of the next few days, of the funeral, of Bucky Barnes' call that made Colonel Rhodes leap off the couch with a shout. Of those unending hours he'd spent exclusively in Morgan's company, utterly and morbidly enchanted with the newest Stark.
Peter didn't always deal so well with what could've been. He understood this fear – he understood the way it hurt to have something important taken away, to deal with the fact that it would be gone forever, and then to witness some miracle. How terrifying it still felt that he'd witnessed hard, first-hand proof that the existence of the man who would live forever was just as fickle as the rest of them.
He had thought – surely Tony was stronger than that. Tony would be better at dealing with this. But Tony's words had a very down-to-Earth quality to them, and Peter now realized how very, terribly stupid that thought was, in every way that counted.
Peter started vague in the expectation it would help pinpoint the problem. "I- you've been acting different."
"Yes," Tony confirmed, irked and amused. "Different. What you've witnessed has been my admirable restraint not to cover you in bubble wrap for the rest of your accursed existence on this planet. And any others."
And it suddenly, finally, clicked in Peter's head what it was that Tony was trying to tell him.
He gaped, unsure whether he was more outraged, amused, or flattered. "That's seriously what this is about? Really?"
"You're kidding me, right? You're kidding. You're surprised?"
Peter opened and closed his mouth, and gave into the amusement. "If my suit is lined with bubble wrap the next time it comes out of your workshop, I'm running away from home."
"Parker."
Peter glanced at the look on Tony's face and sobered up. He shifted uneasily. "It's been years, Mr. S- Tony. And months since I've been back."
"I know," he growled, tugging at his own hair. Startled, Peter stared, wide-eyed, and Tony sighed so as to calm him. "I know," he repeated more gently. "But that- time didn't work, not for this, not for- I didn't have Morgan, back then, but Peter, you're-" Tony didn't seem to know how to continue that sentence, so he gave up on it, which was a shame, because Peter really, really wanted to hear it. "Like I said – it made an impact. You change after that kind of- I don't get to just forget."
Peter felt a visceral, desperate urge to apologize, but read the room well enough to know that wouldn't go over well. He burrowed into his insecurities instead.
"Is this a symptom of- I mean. You've told me that you-" Peter realized what he'd been about to say and backtracked violently. He was so insensitive sometimes. He felt his throat constrict a little, brain scrambling wildly. "Crap, I don't want to pry-"
Tony rolled his eyes. "Yeah, uh-huh, listen – that ship's sailed so hard, it's halfway to Titan at this point."
"Right," Peter assented, not exactly disagreeing. "Aren't you – isn't this because of your- PTSD?"
"The- overreaction?" Tony seemed to grimace at the word. "Probably. The attachment issues, not so much."
That was all the reassurance Peter had been looking for. He relaxed and offered Tony the stink eye. "Of course you'd call it an issue."
Tony arched an eyebrow at him, and as much as Peter could tell he wanted it to come off cool and collected, there were certain things Iron Man had lost the ability to hide from him. The vulnerability he was struggling to shove back down was surprisingly crystal clear to Peter. "And you wouldn't?"
"No." The rebuttal was instantly out of Peter's lips like it'd just been waiting for a prompt.
It seemed to be the right answer, anyway, because after seeming taken aback for a moment, Tony looked away to conspicuously hide his expression, and swung an arm over Peter's shoulders. "Right. Well, that's definitely your mistake, but I'll take it."
"Isn't there something they say about mistakes and wisdom?"
"I really wouldn't know."
"Because you never make mistakes or because you never learn from them?"
"Yes."
Peter grinned up at him, and then forced himself to simmer down, letting the comforting weight of Tony's arm around his shoulder keep his feet on the ground. "Is that it, though? The reason for- the overprotectiveness? I've been Spider-Man for ages, and you were okay at the battle in the compound – you've never been like this. You worried, but not- not to the point where you're irrational. What's changed? I mean, you got me back – if anything, you should be confident in your ability to- I'm okay. You saved everyone."
Tony rubbed at a phantom on his chest. "I'm giving up Iron Man. The armor has been my peace of mind for so long, I- None of you can rely on it, not anymore. And that means- I mean, look where we are right now, Peter. Look what happened today."
What if someone had died tonight? That's on you. And if you died, I'd feel like that's on me.
Tony, look at me. We're gonna be okay. You can rest now.
When you can do the things that I can, but you don't, and then the bad things happen, they happen because of you.
I am Iron Man.
Peter understood. He chose his words carefully. "That's- that's a very heavy burden, isn't it? Don't you think you're better off without it?"
"That's not the point, kid, is it?"
"I think the point is that, when you found me, all those years ago, you had something in mind."
Tony looked up slowly at that, scrutinizing in the astute expression on Peter's face. "Yeah? What was that?"
"Tony."
Tony gave him a half-smirk. "I wanted to leave the team. I knew my replacement was gonna be you."
Peter nodded, unsurprised. "And now?"
"Now – now, kid, you're a stupid little shit with way too much talent to get yourself in trouble. And as you've so nicely pointed out several times, I have a handful of grey hairs."
Peter felt the grin tug at his lips, but resisted it. "Well, apart from the majority of your hair being grey-" Tony glowered at him. "Nothing's changed, you know."
"A lot has changed."
"Not about this. Unless-?"
Tony pursed his lips. "I believe even more firmly now than I did before that you're the one I want taking my spot in the Avengers, if that's what you're asking."
Peter nodded once, resolute. "Is there anything I can do to help with- your Iron Man issue?"
Tony smiled a flash of a smile, so fast Peter wasn't sure he hadn't imagined it. "Nah. This is all me."
"Kinda seems like I'm involved already."
Tony stared at him for a long time. He cleared his throat. "Maybe something else I need you to understand. That separation you were making, earlier – between me, the suit, and Iron Man – that's a dangerous line for me to walk. I can't do it."
"'If you're nothing without the suit, then you shouldn't have it'," Peter quoted. Tony sighed.
"See, nobody taught me that one. So, again, you're welcome."
He'd said it flippantly, a joke. Peter's quiet "thank you" was anything but. Tony didn't say anything in response, but his hand might have tightened on Peter's shoulder. The warehouse felt silent and uneasy – like there were still words in the air, worth their weight in expectation.
Kid, you're an Avenger now. Time for Peter to be the grown-up in this conversation. Naturally, the first step was retreating into nervous habits. "Mr. Stark."
"Mr. Parker."
"You can't keep this up, though," Peter advised gently, cautiously, gesturing between the two of them like it was obvious what he was referring to. The grimace on Tony's face proved it was. "I get it, I do. This heart-to-heart was real enlightening. But I'm pretty sure part of parenting is- learning how to let kids be exposed. I think? I'm sure I've read that in one of May's books. It probably wasn't really referring to- Avenging stuff, but y'know – you get the gist. You've gotta stop."
The older man's face had scrolled through a vast spectrum of emotions while Peter spoke, and they were all visceral allergy to every other word out of his mouth. "I'll stop when I'm dead," he grumbled. Peter glared at him viciously because way too soon. "… But I'll make an effort to actively remind myself you're not entirely without skill or in constant imminent danger. From now on."
Peter beamed at him, which seemed to soften Tony's disgruntlement. "You can do it, I believe in you."
He dodged the hand half-heartedly swatting at him and energetically jumped to his feet. Tony's face twisted incomprehensibly, watching Peter stand up. "Toddler lecturing me on emotional maturity," he grumbled. "I can't believe this is the second time in two weeks I've had this conversation."
"You're a genius, aren't patterns your thing? That should tell you something." Peter shot back immediately, holding out a hand to help Tony up as well. Then he thought about what he had just told him and gave him a disapproving look. "Aw, Tony, are you being overbearing around Morgan?"
"Pepper gave me an earful, thank you very much. And weren't you there when Steve encouraged my daughter's Avenging genetics?"
"Yeah, no, that's fair. Invite me over for Morgan's next lecture, I'll make a slideshow."
Tony laughed, and it didn't seem to contain the tension from before. Peter restrained himself from preening with great effort. "Alright, Spider-Man. Go get 'em. There's still at least one criminal at large."
Peter snapped to attention immediately. Tony tapped his wrist as if to say get on with it, gesturing to the exit their big bad had escaped through. "You don't wanna do it yourself?"
"What am I supposed to do? Crack my joints and vertebrae at them?"
"That's a really heartwarming way to pass the torch, Mr. Stark," Peter threw behind him, sharpening his ears and taking up a sprint.
"It'll be warmer when I set your ass on fire, Parker – less quipping, more Avenging."
True to his word, Tony kept his distance, following Spider-Man at Peter's discretion. It didn't take him long to find the man they'd scared away, perched outside the storage room with a tablet in his hands. Peter took it away before his frantic attempts at communication were successful, and trapped him back inside his own lair. He locked up behind Tony, who had FRIDAY reboot their security system just out of spite. They stumbled upon no more kidnappers on their way out – the next hallway let to a garage door, promising an actual exit.
The latch gave easily under Peter's hands, and they stepped outside to a metropolitan area. A car honked past them – a couple people did a double take at finding a wild Tony Stark standing still on the sidewalk.
"I'm not sure this is how kidnappings are supposed to go," Tony muttered, squinting behind him. "That was easy. This was a storage facility?"
"Can FRIDAY contact someone now?"
Tony called Pepper first so she could yell at him, which is exactly what she did right after he told her he'd been missing for about two hours now. Then he called SHIELD – according to Tony, they were currently nazi-free, and it was therefore morally appropriate to leave felons in their care. He'd barely hung up before he got a call from Steve, who was, apparently, Pepper's first call.
"No, thank you," Tony greeted Captain America politely.
"On my way," Steve said anyway. "FRIDAY told me you're in Brooklyn, you realize?"
"Explains the smell. Why is FRIDAY telling you things?"
"Because Rhodes asked."
"Rhodey's with you? Rhodey is supposed to be babysitting."
"Morgan asked to visit."
"Why do you all bend to my daughter's every whim?"
"Following your example. I'll be there in twenty minutes."
"Tell me you're not bringing entourage-" Steve had already hung up. Tony stared at his phone.
"Is this how people feel when I do that?" he wondered, and Peter nodded in unsympathetic confirmation.
Steve found them like that, disheveled and sitting against the metal door they'd just walked out of. More people were stopping by then, like a traffic jam over an accident, but Tony's complete lack of self-consciousness wasn't about to change in the middle of a busy Brooklyn street. Steve didn't show up empty-handed either – Tony stared at him incredulously. Several passersby did as well. Peter thought about how safe his identity would remain if he failed to crawl away within the next thirty seconds.
"What, in the complete lack of distress and alarm heard in our phone call, made you believe that was in any way necessary?"
Steve shifted uncomfortably. "Err on the side of caution, right?" he justified.
Tony sighed. "Please direct me to the nearest shower, I smell like ineptitude and failure."
Steve adjusted his prototype Stark shield, hologram never brought to life, and led all three of them to his car.
"So why do you think we were kidnapped?" it occurred to Peter to ask, except far too late, climbing into the back of the vehicle. Steve threw them both a glance at the question, equally curious.
"Obviously, someone finally saw you as the menace to society that you are," Tony said, sliding into the passenger seat, "and decided to do something about it. I'm betting it was old-lady-crossing-the-street-number-two-hundred that did it. Either that or something SHIELD's gonna tell you."
"Do you think Spider-Man's identity's safe?"
Peter had said it quietly, but it felt as though he managed to grab Tony's attention more easily than if he'd yelled it. "Yeah. It'll be fine," he replied immediately. "Your webbing will have dissolved in about twenty minutes, and SHIELD isn't capable enough to get here that fast, so not even they will know Spider-Man was involved. If they thought they were kidnapping your Avenger alter ego instead of some kid Tony Stark was hanging around, they'd have knocked you out some other way, or at the very least they'd have taken your gear. Probably didn't even look at your wrists, since you still have the web-shooters. Only two guys saw you use them, and who's gonna believe them when they say some scrawny teenager is Spidey? They don't even have a name."
Peter stared at him. "You thought about all of this, like, five seconds after we broke out of confinement, didn't you?"
"Five seconds after you knocked out that first guy," Tony corrected. "It only took me that long because we were busy having a conversation."
Steve nodded. "It's a good thing your priorities were in order." Peter honestly couldn't tell whether that was sarcasm. "By the way, Morgan overheard a couple phone conversations she shouldn't have. Prepare for that."
It seemed to take a second for it to click in Tony's head, what Steve meant. He went pale when it did. Peter himself only got it when they walked into Steve's apartment and Morgan threw herself into her father's arms, sobbing inconsolably.
Iron Man is dead. Right. There was a reason for that.
"I'm sorry, honey," Tony told her immediately, voice softer than Peter would ever think possible for him. "I just took a bad- trip, it won't happen again."
"Mommy said-"
"I know, but I'm alright, aren't I?"
"Uncle Steve said-"
"We don't listen to Uncle Steve, remember?"
Steve made a disapproving noise, and Morgan pulled back to inspect her father. "Uh-huh." She turned to Peter next. Her eyes were glistening. "Did you keep him safe?"
Peter nodded very quickly. "Very safe. Safe and sound. Not a scratch on him."
"You need a nap," Tony stated decisively, and Peter honestly couldn't tell whether he was speaking to him or to Morgan. "I need a nap. Or caffeine. Caffeine's better."
Rhodes scowled at Tony and Peter both and shook his head. Steve was already brewing coffee, leaning against the kitchen counter. Tony shifted to pick Morgan up and sat down on the couch, his daughter in his lap. Peter figured this was an inappropriate time to make a crack about his aging back.
Still somewhat teary, Morgan sniffled and pointed at Steve's shield, casually dropped against the wall when they'd walked in. "Daddy, Uncle Steve has a shield like Uncle Sam's."
Peter eyed the prototype holographic shield he'd watched Tony work on as often as he worked on his own suits, back in the day. Steve was smirking at Tony over the couch, from the open-space kitchen. Tony pretended not to see it.
"That sentence is funny because it works in so many ways," he said thoughtfully by way of responding, and then let the topic drop.
"That thing was supposed to stay in storage," Rhodes said, ostensibly meaning the shield but giving Tony a hard stare instead. "Retired. For good."
Tony held up his hands, Morgan still clinging to him. "Wasn't my fault this time."
"Cotton swabs," the little girl muttered. Steve turned away from the coffee to give her a blinding smile. Peter and Tony blinked at whatever reference only the two of them understood.
"Bad days will happen on occasion, Rhodes," Steve elaborated on Morgan's words. Tony narrowed his eyes at him. "Doesn't mean something's wrong." Right, Peter thought, Captain America is supposed to be retired too.
Rhodes looked from Tony to Steve and back again, making note of the silent conversation clearly going on right then. Steve raised one eyebrow. Tony produced a rude, dismissive expression in return. Steve crossed his arms. Tony pursed his lips and looked away. Morgan hiccupped softly, still calming down from her fit.
Peter and Rhodes exchanged a long stare. It was compounded worry – Peter knew it was. Peter had seen in on Rhodes' face before.
"Did you need Iron Man?"
(Peter still remembered, viscerally, how War Machine's hand had felt, landing on his shoulder. He'd forever associate that touch with the visual of the Avengers' compound in ruins. "C'mon, kid,"he'd heard through his sobs, soft and pain-wrecked, "soldier on. We need to move him."
Pepper had only clung harder to Peter at that, and Peter had clung back.
"We're not soldiers," he thought he'd heard a dazed Captain America say.
"Are you gonna lose it too?" Rhodes had hissed at Steve. "Because I'm barely holding it together, and I sure as hell can't do this by myself."
Everything happened so fast after that – Steve had kneeled, closed Tony's eyelids, and lifted his body into his arms in one swift move. "I've got him," he'd muttered, and then Peter and Pepper were being led away by Rhodes and Clint Barton.)
The world was always going to need Iron Man, which was why it had inevitably killed him. Pepper had seen it right from the very start – the universe eventually asked for too much, and Tony didn't know how to say no.
Tony glanced at Peter too, before answering Rhodes' question. "Not for a second."
"Maybe for a couple seconds," Peter couldn't help but correct. Tony gave him a dead-eyed stare.
Steve cleared his throat. "But Iron Man wasn't there, was he?"
Good thing Steve was there to say no on Tony's behalf. Peter thought Tony would happily return the favor for Captain America. They might both make it out alright if they just never stopped keeping each other in check.
Tony shook his head. Rhodes seemed to relax. "Told you," Tony insisted, covering Morgan's ears. "Iron Man is dead."
Iron Man is dead, Peter agreed, Tony Stark isn't.
