Chapter Text
Peter curls into himself, the cold seeping through his foil blanket. The wind whistles through the underground parking lot, lifting stray trash from the ground and swirling it through the air.
The floor beneath him is hard and covered in filth, but it’s the best place he’s slept in months. The night before last he was under the bridge, the stench of dead fish and stale urine pungent in the air and the noise from the overpass rumbling through the ground, making it impossible to sleep. Last week he was sleeping in the doorway of a derelict building, and some entitled ass had kicked him in the ribs. He was still recovering from that.
Homelessness is what it’s cracked up to be, and so much more. So much worse. Harder than anything Peter has ever had to do, and it’s all because of The Daily Bugle thinking they could put his face on the news and declare him ‘Spider-Man’. He hates that the public opinion changed so quickly, turning him into a monster and ignoring all the good he’s done for them. He’s never been Spider-Man for the sake of gratitude, but he hates being hated.
Peter hasn’t known what to do with himself since. What do you do when your secret identity is taken away and the world turns against you? He never even got to graduate. Never got to have a real date with MJ. He’s had everything good about his life stolen away.
Aunt May has been worrying about him since he disappeared. He hasn’t spoken to her, but he sees text messages and missed calls every time he’s able to charge his phone. He never replies, doing so would only bring trouble to her front door, and she doesn’t deserve that. Besides, Peter knows she’s got Happy to keep her occupied.
No one needs Peter anymore, and they’ve made it impossible for Spider-Man to exist.
So now Peter is just ‘Kid’ to most of the homeless community, and ‘bum’ to the rest of the city.
Unable to grow a beard just yet, Peter had worried that people would be able to recognise him easily. He didn’t speak to anyone for the first three months on the streets, but he learnt that if you look dirty enough people won’t even look you in the eye, let alone recognise you. They fear that eye contact will result in Peter following them around for scraps, like a stray dog.
But he doesn’t, and he hasn’t. He’s not exactly surviving, but he’s alive, and that’s about as much as he can hope for in this circumstance.
Everything is going— well, not alright, but it’s going — until it’s not.
“Peter?”
Peter freezes. The voice sounds so damn familiar, so heart wrenchingly unreal that tears spring to his eyes and he tightens his hold on himself.
It wouldn’t be the first time someone living in the streets has lost their sanity. The separation one learns to feel from the rest of society is damaging beyond all concepts, and the disgust and vitriol thrown his way on a regular basis is enough to turn even the most stable person towards the darkness of a severe mental illness.
So, Peter assumes that he’s reached that point. He’d hoped that he would have had more time, time enough to regain himself and go on with his life when he grew out of his youthful, and defining, features. But alas. He’s not. And he’s hearing Tony Stark’s voice in his head.
“Peter, is that you?”
Closer, this time. Far too much clarity. Much too real.
“Peter, please turn around.”
Swallowing his pride, because he knows listening to the voices in his head is the first step to being controlled by them, he sits up and turns to face Tony Stark.
Tony Stark, who has been dead for a year and a half. Tony Stark, who’s being remembered around the world as a hero.
“Crap, kid, you look like the world ate you and spat you back out.”
Tony’s chuckle is forced and uncomfortable, and Peter wonders why his first visual hallucination would be Mr Stark and not his Uncle.
“I probably have some explaining to do, but can we not do that down here? I’m not being exactly forthcoming about the fact that I’m alive, so I’d rather be away from where someone can see me.”
Peter just stares, and Mr Stark swallows.
“I’m sorry kid, this is probably a bit of a shock.”
“A bit?” Peter laughs.
Mr Stark flinches at the sound.
“Maybe a lot. In my defence, I had no idea I wasn’t dead until yesterday. I came to find you, but then… well, your Aunt is very worried, you know that, right? She’s going out of her mind, and on top of that she’s trying to convince the world that what that idiot ‘Mysterio’,” – Mr Stark spits the name – “said was a bold-faced lie, but it’s hard to do with you hiding away. Please.”
Peter is starting to realise that Mr Stark isn’t a figment of his imagination, but a real person, genuinely alive and right there.
“Mr Stark,” Peter croaks.
“Please call me Tony,” the man opines.
That’s all Peter needs to rush from his little cocoon and throw himself at Mr Stark. He knows he must stink, he knows that beneath his clothes he’s little more than skin, bone and stubborn muscle, but he holds Mr Stark like he’s the last lifeline.
“I’m so sorry, kid. I should… I don’t know. I was dead. I didn’t have much room to do anything at all, but I should have set up contingencies.”
Peter doesn’t respond with words, he simply holds Mr Stark ever tighter.
“Let’s get you home.”
Peter barely registers as Mr Stark leads him towards the car. He’s shocked out of his retreat into his mind when another set of larger arms wrap themselves around him.
“Peter, you brat,” Happy sobs.
Peter breaks then. He starts to cry, and he can’t hear anything or anyone. He doesn’t register that he’s being loaded into the car, or that Aunt May is being called and told to meet them at the compound. They park in the garage and climb out of the car.
“You should shower,” Mr Stark says when they get inside. “There are some clothes in the spare room for you and—”
“Anthony bloody Stark, what did I say about leaving the compound without letting us know first?”
The harsh, sharp admonishment from James Rhodes causes Tony to pull a face and back up a little.
“Hey, Rhodey, dearest, I was just…”
“I don’t care. I told you to rest, not to go gallivanting around New York.”
“I was looking for the kid. Look! I found him!”
Rhodey appears to deflate at the sight of Peter, pity replacing his righteous anger.
“Peter, you’ve given everyone quite the fright.”
“More or less frightening than finding Mr Stark alive after a year and a half?”
Rhodey snorts and shakes his head.
“Go shower. Tony and I have things to discuss, such as telling someone when he decides to leave.”
“I’m not a child, Rhodey. I can still do what I want.”
“First of all, you act like a child. Second of all, after what the belated extremis reaction did to your body, you might as well be a child, and third, you cannot do what you want. We’ve been without you for a year and a half. We need to know everything you’re doing. Do that for us.”
Peter figures it’s time to check out of the conversation, because suddenly things are not making much sense at all. He rushes to the guest room and showers. It’s been so long that he flounders for a moment, before remembering what he’s supposed to do. He lathers the shampoo in his hair and drags a sponge filled with soap across his filthy body. He doesn’t let an inch of his body go untouched.
There’s something horrifying and satisfying about seeing months and months of grime circling the drain and disappearing. It’s like a right of passage to being allowed to be human again.
Peter stays in the shower for a long time, scrubbing his skin harshly. He then attacks his hair with a pair of scissors so that he no longer looks like Bucky Barnes. After a while, he feels almost normal again, even if the tiredness around his eyes and the darkness lurking at the back of his mind is something that he simply can’t ignore.
He pulls on the first set of clean clothing he’s seen since he left his aunts house, and he sighs. He’s not entirely sure he deserves it, but he has to take everything one step at a time. His brain is a mess of emotions right now, and if he tries to parse through and organise everything, he’ll probably drop dead of an aneurysm. He needs to be slow. Take things as they are.
Peter makes his way back to where he left Mr Stark and Rhodey and frowns as his eyes take in the scene before him. Mr Stark is sat on the sofa with his face in his hands while Rhodey stands over him, frowning.
“I can’t believe you died and haven’t yet got it through your thick skull that people care for you,” Rhodey says.
“It’s not like I spent the entire time in therapy, you moody bastard. I was dead. I wasn’t awake, I wasn’t conscious for anything. I’m exactly the same person I was before I died.”
“Except you’re not.”
“No. I guess not.”
Mr Stark lifts his head, and Peter gasps.
He’s not sure how he failed to notice it before, but Mr Stark died in his early fifties, but you wouldn’t know that from how he looks now. The man appears to be in his teen years.
“Mr Stark,” Peter says.
Tony startles, jumping up from the sofa and turning his back on Rhodey, who looks anything but finished with that particular lecture.
“Putting a pin in it, Tones,” Rhodey says before turning to leave.
Tony rolls his eyes in a way that makes him look even younger, and Peter can’t help but gape at the man.
“What happened?”
“Straight to the hard hitting questions, I respect that.”
Tony grins, wide and sharp, and gestures for Peter to follow him through the building. Tony leads him into a kitchen and places a platter of sandwiches in front of him.
“Don’t worry about those. Pep had them sent over, since she knows I can’t cook and that I tend to forget to eat sometimes.”
Tony pours himself a large mug of coffee, and Peter watches, waiting for some sort of reason that makes sense of the fact that Tony appears to be his age.
“You’re curious about why I look like I should be drinking keggers and flunking my high school exams?”
“Didn’t you go to MIT at fourteen?”
“Not the point, but I appreciate your dedication to the study of me.”
Peter takes a sandwich because he suddenly needs something to do with his hands, and the moment it touches his tongue, he realises he’s ravenous. He tries to pace himself, not wanting to look like an animal in front of Mr Stark, but the man appears distracted, eyes glazed over, mouth taught in thought.
“Mr Stark?”
“Please call me Tony,” he sighs.
Peter removes the ability to reply by quickly shoving another sandwich in his mouth. Mr Stark shakes his head but prepares to start talking. Peter settles in, knowing whatever he says, it’s going to be a big deal.
“So, you know how I had extremis injected in me when I got my reactor removed?” Tony waits for Peter to nod before moving on. “Well, it turns out the stuff never truly left my system, and it’s just been dormant, pretty much. Because of this, it took a while to reactivate, since it needed quite the kicker to get it going.
“Well, obviously, dying was all the encouragement it needed. It healed all the damage to my body, and in doing that, it took a few years off my face too, which is why I look so sprightly and considerably more attractive than before. Which is saying something, cause I have a face that everyone’s mother loves.
“Anyway, it also opens up a whole can of issues, because I’m supposed to be dead, and I don’t want people to think there’s been a sudden zombie outbreak. When I learned what had transpired in my absence, I had to find you. Rhodey and Pepper have teamed up to try and keep me locked inside like I’ve been grounded or something, but something is going to go down. Call it intuition, or call it a Peter Tingle,” Peter groans in horror, “but something is going to happen, and we need to be a united front on this.”
“Apologies for the interruption, boss, but Mrs Parker is here.”
Peter jumps up, looking at Tony in panic. He doesn’t know how to handle this. He left May alone because he didn’t want her to get caught up in all that mess. He’s not entirely sure that she’s safe being in her presence at all, and there isn’t a doubt in his mind that she’s going to be furious at him.
“Peter Parker.”
Peter freezes and pushes down the desire to run and hide somewhere. He can’t deal with this. Everything is happening too quick, and it’s hard to figure out exactly what he needs to do in order to cope.
“Don’t worry kid, I got your back.”
Peter feels no better from this promise, especially because when May comes storming into the kitchen, Tony actually squeaks and ducks away, throwing himself on the sofa a few feet away.
May looks wrecked. The bags under her eyes are dark and heavy, and she’s thinner than the last time he saw her. Her clothes aren’t her normal level of stylish, and her hair is pulled into hasty knot on the top of her head.
“Peter.”
Peter throws himself in her arms, and sobs. It hurts to see what he’s done to her and hurts even more to know that he’d been so selfish to not realise just how badly it was going to hit her. He doesn’t regret running away, but maybe a few letters here and there wouldn’t have gone amiss either.
“I’m so angry at you right now,” she whispers, still holding him close. “How could you do that? Where were you? You could have died, anything could have happened, and I’d never have known.”
“I’m sorry, May. I’m so sorry, but I didn’t want you to have to deal with the fallout. That man revealed my identity. If I’d stayed, you would have had to deal with everyone trying to find me and kill me or whatever. I wanted you to be safe.”
The arms around Peter tighten, and he pushes his face into her collarbone, trying his hardest to hold back the tears. God, he’s missed her so much. He’s missed Tony, he’s missed Happy, he’s missed everything about his life before his identity was offered to the world on a silver platter.
“I didn’t do it, May,” he promises, suddenly. “I didn’t hurt all those people.”
May laughs, though it’s a wet sound.
“Of course you didn’t. I know you would never. Obviously the man with the fishbowl head tampered with the footage. Don’t think for a second I even imagined you were capable of hurting innocent people.”
Peter sobs then, having not realised just how worried he was that May might have thought him a murderer. She holds him for a little longer, and then eventually pushes his away and wipes away his tears with her thumbs.
“Now, I feel like I need some kind of explanation. First and foremost, Mr Stark, why do you suddenly look like you’re about to use a fake ID to buy beer?”
Tony laughs, his teeth bared in humour. He signals for them to join him on the sofa and launches into an explanation.
He explains how Extremis was activated in his system, but that it took a while for it take complete his transformation. He doesn’t slow down, doesn’t assume that May might not understand some of the most technical language he uses. She nods, and Tony hesitantly voices a theory that he’s back to protect the world from another threat.
“What kind of threat?”
“I’m still trying to figure out the extent of it, if I’m honest. It’s all just a feeling.”
“Like the Peter-tingle,” May offers.
“No,” Peter groans in embarrassment. “My spider-sense.”
Tony creases up, but spares Peter further mortification.
“Yeah, I’m getting that. I know something is coming, but I’m still trying to keep feelers out to discover the exact problem.”
“What do you think is the best way forward from here? For Peter?”
“Honestly, Mrs Parker, I think that maybe you should both consider moving in here for the time being. For your safety. If Peter is willing, I’d appreciate his help with this, but if either of you have reservations about it, that’s fine.”
May nods, and her fingers around Peter’s wrist tightens. He wishes he know how to comfort her, but he’s drowning in guilt and uncertainty right now. He left, not really considering just how badly she might suffer in his absence. Sure, not being at the house kept him out of her hair and in a way, helped her stay safe, but that knowledge didn’t stop her worry about him the entire time.
He thinks about the cold nights he spent on the street, wishing he was back in their living room watching TV and eating Pizza Rolls with May. He thinks about the rainy days when his clothes were damp and even his abilities didn’t stop him from falling ill. He’d cried as he thought about the way May would have brought him chicken soup and held him close as he complained about being sick. All those days spent in misery wishing selfishly that he had May with him were days that May wishes he was there too.
“Let’s talk about that tomorrow. I just want to spend time with my nephew and convince myself this isn’t another dream.”
~
Tony leaves Peter and Mrs May alone in the lounge. He feels as though he’s interrupting something just by existing in their space, so he wonders over to the kitchen area and sets about making a coffee. It’s late, well into the night now, but Tony knows he’s not going to be able to sleep tonight. He might as well try to alleviate some of the tiredness that comes with insomnia.
At least as he’s pottering around the room, he feels as though he’s doing something worthwhile, even if he knows that it’s ultimately inconsequential past the fact that he’ll be getting caffeine. Everything he’s doing seems that way, except for finding Peter.
~
When Tony wakes up, his first instinct is to go back to sleep. He is tired. His body aches. His mind swims with the residue of a long sleep, and he can’t think. It takes seconds for that drowsy feeling to die and be replaced with utter panic.
When his arm hits a wall, he rouses and then when he tries to sit up and finds another wall, he is wide awake and his heart is racing a mile a minute. He begs himself to not have a heart attack. He isn’t healthy enough to panic like that. He gathers enough coherent thoughts to free himself, which takes a lot of effort, and then stumbles around, before freezing when he catches sight of his headstone.
“I died?” he asks stupidly.
Here lies Anthony Edward Stark
Husband, Father, Friend.
Died saving the world.
Unsurprisingly, Tony is thrown, and he immediately stumbles his way back to the city. He steals a cap and sunglasses and finds his way to Stark Industries, where he tells the desk that he has an appointment with Pepper Potts.
That is a hassle in its own right because Eugenia refuses to let him go up or call Mrs Potts, staying that she is in a meeting. Fortunately, Happy is striding through the lobby at that moment.
“Happy?”
Happy turns around, looking confused for a moment and then in a flash, he is lifting Tony from the ground in a bone crushing hug.
“I need to see Pep,” Tony explains.
“I’ve told him that she’s busy,” Eugenia explains looking concerned.
“It’s OK, Eugenia. He’s with me.”
Happy doesn’t take his hand from Tony’s shoulder the entire way up, every now and then flexing as if to ensure Tony is still there. Tony doesn’t mind. He needs to be reminded too.
“Happy, I’m kind of busy,” Pepper says tiredly.
“Not for this you’re not.”
Pepper looks up and sees Tony. She quickly ends her phone call and stands up.
“Tony?”
Her voice quivers with restrained hope and tears fill her eyes. She takes a single step forward and then Tony is throwing himself at her, enveloping her in an embrace that leaves them both crying into each other’s shoulders.
“How— whats the meaning of this?”
Tony explains what little he knows, which extends to ‘I woke up and broke out of the coffin’, and then he removes his hat and glasses.
“Tony!” Pepper cries out, a delicate hand reaching out to his face.
“Boss, you look… well…”
Tony grabs Peppers compact mirror from the desk and flips it open.
“Oh god, I’m filthy. I should probably shower.”
Pepper nods, stunned, and Tony rushes to the shower attached to the office, calling over his shoulder for a spare suit. He showers quickly, scrubbing the dirt from his skin and lathering shampoo into his hair.
Everything feels wrong, and it stretches far beyond the fact that he’s just woken up from being dead. He feels physically different. Is it possible that he’s shrunk? Does his skin feel smoother? His hair softer? What’s going on?
Wrapping a towel around his waist, Tony steps from the shower and uses his hand to wipe away the condensation on the window to reveal his face; except, it’s not his face from now. It’s his face from when he was a teenager.
“What the fuck,” he shouts at himself.
“I’d say he’s noticed now,” Tony hears Happy say in the office.
Tony rushes from the room and looks at them both frantically.
“What the fuck,” he whispers.
“Yeah. That’s pretty much how we feel.”
“Tony.”
Holding the towel against his modesty, he finds Rhodey stood in the doorway, looking stunned.
“You got here fast.”
“You tend to speed things up when you find out that your best friend, who’s been dead for a year and half, is alive.”
Tony chokes.
“A year?”
After Happy manages to usher him into some clothes, Tony is taken back to the compound, where he collapses into the sofa in confused exhaustion. Pepper, Happy and Rhodey talk over his head, but Tony lets himself sleep.
When he woke up a few hours later, it was to find his friends and wife still sat around him. He asks what’s he’s missed, and they launch into a long explanation of the events.
“What about Peter?” Tony asks Happy.
“Kid ran away from home, Tones.”
And that’s how he found himself here, standing in the kitchen with a mug of coffee clutched to his chest as he stares out of the window at the bright green trees swaying in the wind with the backdrop of night and the city sky line.
“Boss, something has happened that you might find particularly interesting,” Friday tells him.
Tony turns to find the TV showing the news.
“Crap.”