Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Clint visited 34 days after the snap. Tony was doing better. Thanos was dead, his head on the floor of some alien planet. Thor was drunk. He was always drunk, now, but he had yet to leave. Barton’s family had been snapped, the whole lot of them, and, needless to say, just like the rest of the world, he was not happy.

He went between being pissed Thanos was dead and he couldn’t kill him himself, being glad Thanos was dead, and intensely grieving his wife and children.

In the entirety of the time between the Thanos’ snap and Tony’s, Clint went through only 3 stages of grief, and the second one certainly lasted the longest. But it started with Tony.

40 days after the snap, not even a month and a half later, they were all still living in the same house. Strategizing every morning. Trying to hold onto something that wasn’t there.

Tony knew it was hopeless. He would never see the kid again. Never get to tell Peter that he was his son, biological or not. Never get to praise him on getting into college, or watch him get his first patent.

He needed to move on. They all did. They could never lead relatively normal lives grieving half the universe. He needed to take Pepper, and maybe Happy, and run. Take what he had left. Take every remanent part of Peter Parker and bury it.

He was thinking this, that morning, sipping coffee from a cup in shaking hands. Trying to remember the last time he saw Peter.

It was a Wednesday. They worked on Karen, tried to dampen her obsession with instant kill mode. After a day of failure, they had pizza with Pepper, and played hologram-Mario Kart until 3 in the morning, when Aunt May had called to see if Tony was awake and proceeded to rant about Peter being up so late on a school night.

The day of The Snap, they were meant to have a movie night, to watch the fourth Harry Potter movie- because Pepper hadn’t seen them- but they had to cancel because of Peter’s field trip. Not that they wouldn’t have had to cancel anyway. The Goblet of Fire isn’t exactly available on Titan.

His eyes welled up just thinking about it. They’d been doing that a lot lately. Tony knew that Pepper would never finish watching Harry Potter. They just couldn’t do it without Peter.

“Hey, earth to Tony.” Barton shouted through his hands, and Tony snapped to attention.

“What?”

“I was just wondering what you’re sitting here crying about.” Nat cringed a bit, at this, and Banner shrunk into himself.

“Excuse me?”

“Well, Stark, a lot of people are dead, sure. Entire families, gone, in an instant. But you haven’t lost shit. You’ve got your fiancé, and that bodyguard who never leaves you alone. What right do you have to sit here, and cry when you had nothing to loose in the first place? Half the universe is gone. But you’ve got everyone you care about, so I guess my question is really; what the fuck is your problem, Stark?”

“Clint,” Steve spoke up.

“No, no, Steve, because I know that you lost everyone too. Sam, Bucky. Your closest friends, your only friends, really, gone. It doesn’t piss you off to see this asshat standing here, crying as if he has anything to be upset about?”

Steve began to say something, but stopped, and shook his head. “We can’t afford to do this right now.”

Tony stood up to leave. They didn’t know about the kid. How could they know about the kid? To them, he was Spider-Man. A strong fighter, a witty opponent, a man who could beat both Falcon and the Winter Soldier, together. But he was a kid. His kid. And he lost him. He couldn’t save him. He didn’t have to sit and listen to their bullshit.

“What, are you running away away? To Pepper? Gonna go complain to your loved ones? Lucky you. Stop moping around over the fact that Thanos pulled one over on you, and start trying to fix things for the people that actually lost.”

He changed his mind. Rather than leaving, he rushed towards Clint, weakly jabbing an accusatory finger into his chest.

“You have- no right. No right to talk about what I’ve lost, like you actually know shit about what’s been happening in the outside world since you chose to break the Accords and get your sorry ass arrested.”

Clint looked taken aback, but Tony wasn’t done.
“You chose to say fuck all to the government, you chose to help break the goddamn Avengers apart. While you were off, playing vigilante target practice with your kid? Mine was dying in my goddamn arms.”

Nat furrowed her brows and softly spoke up. “You don’t have a kid, Tony.”

“I don’t have a kid? I don’t have a kid. Okay. And how would you know, Natasha? You left me the same way Barton did and you know it.”

“We met while I was undercover, Tony, remember? I know anything and everything there is to know about you before 2008, and you would’ve told us before the Accords, so unless the kid is two years old, and the media just didn’t catch on, you don’t have one.” She said this all gently, as if she was afraid that space, the sickness from so long in it, had done something to his mind.

And, maybe it had. But it hadn’t created Peter. He wasn’t capable of creating something- someone, as extraordinary as Peter.

Instead of granting her the pleasure of a verbal response, he shakily walked over to his new phone, courtesy of, would you look at that, his own goddamn multi-billion dollar company.

“F.R.I.D.A.Y. pull up video title ‘Holo-Vital-Bot-Thingy.’”

The video began playing on his phone, and he swept it into the air, allowing the hologram to be seen by the remaining members of the team.

The video started zoomed in entirely too close on Peter Parker’s face, until he zoomed out, looking surprised. He was standing in his own lab in Stark Tower, made apparent by the bronze label on the door behind him. His shirt was covered in grease and soot, and there was a giddy Ned at his side.

“Hey, Mr. Stark, sir.” He paused, and then grinned, sheepishly. “Sorry, I know you hate that. Hi, Tony.”

“Oh my god, you call the Tony Stark by his first name.”

“Shut up, Ned,” Peter laughed, putting the camera down on his desk, leaving the windows behind him now, and grabbing a tiny piece of silver thread. “So, Ned and I were taking a look at the schematics for part of your suit, y’know the one bit that reads vitals, and lets you know who’s alive and stuff?” He pulled up a blueprint of the very thing, comparing it to the thread he was holding in his hands.

“Well, I was wondering how easy it would be to shrink it down into the wiring of our suits, like the tracker,” he narrowed his eyes for a second before he broke and chuckled. “And instead of it being a question to Karen or F.R.I.D.A.Y.-“

“Yes, Peter?” The AI asked.

“No, F.R.I.D.A.Y. I wasn’t asking for you, sorry.”

“Of course, Peter.”

“Anyway, instead of asking your AI, which could take up enough time for someone to, well... you know, I figured, it’d probably be quicker if you could just want it to happen, and have it happen. So, Ned and I, we shrunk down an EEG, and sewed it into the top of my suit, after sewing in the miniaturized vital scanner,” he brandished the thread in his hand, “and now we’re gonna test it on Ned a few times.”

Peter pulled out only the mask of his Spider-Man suit from his backpack, and, before putting it on, said, “F.R.I.D.A.Y., activate the Anonymity Protocol in lab floor 81, lab title Peter Parker.”

“Okay, Peter. Activating Anonymity Protocol.”
The windows behind him and Ned went dark, and the intensity of the LED lights above them increased. There was a faint click of a lock behind the camera.

Mask now on, Peter turned towards Ned. “Okay, here’s a hand held vital monitor thing. Put it on your finger, and make sure I can’t see it. We’ll do normal first, then after being zapped, and while you’re relaxed.”

“Do I have to get zapped for this? Can’t you just, like, jump-scare me?”

“I mean, you’d know it was coming. And, what’s the fun in that?”

Ned huffed, and Peter began to count down from three. He then waited a second, presumably for his AI to read out the numbers.

“Woah, Karen, jesus, I did not need to know that much, oh my God.”

Ned looked at him warily. “What did she say?”

Peter shook his head. “Bpm is 96.”

Ned grinned and showed Peter the number on his finger.

“Nice! Okay, now, I’ve got a bug zapper here,” Peter showed the camera, “and I’m gonna hit him with it a few times, see how well this thing reads distress.”

Ned sighed. “I really fucking hate you.”

“Dude, did you just curse in a video meant for the Tony Stark?”

Ned frantically looked to the camera and began rambling apologies as Peter tried, and failed, not to laugh.

“Good God, Ned, I’m kidding. Hey, at least your heart rate’s already up a bit.”

“Not funny, Peter Parker, you little assho-“

Before he could finish, Peter zapped him, and he shrieked.

“I hate you.”

He did it two or three more times, while Ned glared, before counting down from three again.

“Oh my God!” He yelled, shaking his head. “Christ, we need to fix that, I’m never going to be able to look at you again. Okay, BPM is 130.”

Ned nodded, eyeing him suspiciously. “What is Karen saying about me?”

“You do not want to know.” he replied, and the video cut to a mask-less, grinning Peter, besides a red eyed, sitting Ned.

“Let’s get right into it this time. Plausible deniability and all that.”

“Yeah yeah yeah, let’s get to it. I’m tired.”
Ned said, a bit slowly.

“Okay, ready?” He put the mask back on, and Ned pointed and laughed at the way his eyes readjusted to being back in the suit, the whites of the mask tweaking bigger and smaller.

Instead of counting to three aloud, this time he did it with his fingers.

“Oh, Karen, come on, we can’t just have one time? Just one, where you don’t repeat that fun little fact? Whatever. BPM 69.”

“Nice.” Ned said. Peter groaned.

“Peter, Boss has requested you ‘bring your dumb ass up for dinner, before [he] tells Aunt May today’s lab explosion count.’ He has made pasta, and Miss Potts has picked Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban as tonight’s movie.”

“Alright, F.R.I.D.A.Y., thank you!” He pulled off the mask, and grabbed the camera. “So, yeah. That’s what we made today, Tony. Hopefully we can patch it up together and make it a bit more foolproof, get it up to code so we can use it in battle. Oh, and I’m not gonna be able to make it for movie night, next week. We’ve got a school field trip.”

“To MOMA.” Ned added.

Peter waved, pointed the camera for Ned to wave as well, and went to shut the camera off. Before he did turn it off though, he said, “Bye, dad.” The last image on the video was his panicked face.

The hologram went dark, and the room was silent.

“So.” Tony said. “That, was Spider-Man. Also known as Peter Parker, Tony Stark’s personal intern. Not biological, or anything, Nat, but damn it if I didn’t love him like my own.”

She stayed quiet. So did Barton.

“He was on that trip he mentioned,” Tony said, his voice dripping with anger, “when he got sucked into a goddamned spaceship, and stranded on Titan with the rest of us.” A single tear fell down Cap’s face, and it was so dramatic it was almost laughable.

“And this kid, my kid, Spider-Man, had this thing, you know, casual superpowers, where he could sense danger, before it happened. You know, like a sixth sense, that gave him a bit of a shock, or pins and needles or whatever, to let him know when something was coming. So, not only did I watch my kid crumble to dust in my arms, but I had to watch knowing that he was the only person, in the entirety of the universe, who could feel it.”

Clint moved to say something, but again, Tony wasn’t finished. “So, considering you don’t know a damn about me, or the person I’ve become since two-thousand-fucking-sixteen, you don’t have a say in what I am or am not allowed to be hurt over, you piece of shit.”

“Tony.” Bruce said. “I’m so sorry. He seems like a great kid.”

“Yeah,” Tony answered, staring at Barton, who, at least, had the dignity to hang his head. “He was.”

Chapter Text

He was dying. He was dying and he could feel it, everywhere. Searing heat through his bones, increasing gravity with every step, ripping his body apart, his Spidey-sense going haywire as his body turned to dust.

He had done it.

Peter didn’t want to die, he couldn’t die. There was still so much to do, so many people that needed to be saved, a big ugly purple dude that needed to be stopped.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered when he felt his spidey sense shut off, the rest of his senses going with it. I’m sorry, he thought, for not being able to finish this fight. For loosing half of the universe. For being part of that half. I’m sorry, Mr. Stark, Tony, for failing. Failing you, failing the world. Failing the neighborhood. But he couldn’t. It was too late. He was gone.

After that, it was all a rush, really. There wasn’t a single point of the fight that Peter fully understood what was happening.

“Hey! Holy cow, you will not believe what’s been going on. Do you remember when we were in space? And I got all dusty? And I must have passed out, because I woke up and you were gone, but Doctor Strange was there, right? And he was like, ‘It’s been five years, come on, they need us.’ And then he started doing that yellow sparkly thing that he does all the time-“

Tony cut him off with a hug.

“What are you doing?”

Peter didn’t quite understand, but Tony dug his face into his shoulder and squeezed him. He gave him a real hug, a strong one.

“Oh, this is nice.”

Somehow he got from there to a Pegasus. It was all a bit of a blur. Pepper was there, he knew that, she saved him. But then he was on a Pegasus with a very scary Asgardian woman and he really had no explanation.

But, his instant kill came with spider legs now. That would’ve been cool, if he had ever planned to use instant kill again. Needless to say, the amount of excitement Karen had presented through her little AI voice when activating the mode, terrified him to extreme extents.

But, then he was lying in a ditch, holding on to a giant glove filled to the brim with reality destroying rocks, surrounded by every single woman in the fight, apparently. There weren’t even that many of them. The Avengers really needed to work on their gender equality.

The journey from point A, waking up on Titan, to point B, Mr. Stark’s death, again, was a bit blurry, if he was being honest.

“Mr. Stark? Hey!”

He dropped down when he saw Rhodey standing over him. He could barely breathe from the rush and the fear of the fight, and Tony’s unresponsive face was not helping.

“Mr Stark? Can-can you hear me?” He was crying now, tears slipping down his face as he fought to keep breathing steadily. Just moments ago he had been the one dying, the one fighting to stay. And now it was his hero, his mentor. His dad. Again.

“It’s Peter. Hey. We won, Mr. Stark. We won, Mr. Stark. We won, you did it, sir, you-you did it.”

He didn’t respond.

“I’m sorry, Tony.” There was so much he could have said, so much he had to say. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t look into Tony’s eyes and watch the light begin to fade anymore. He couldn’t speak, couldn’t breathe. This wasn’t fair. A man like Tony Stark deserved the longest life he could get. He had saved enough lives to earn him millions in return. But that wasn’t the way the word worked. So, he let Pepper take over. Let her tell him to rest. But he couldn’t tear his eyes away.

Mr. Stark had a daughter, he found out, later. Morgan. And, another protégée, of sorts, Harley. They were both there. At the funeral. His funeral. Tony’s.

He hadn’t spoken to Morgan. Hadn’t spoken to Pepper. Hadn’t spoken to Happy. This was their family, their time to mourn. Not his. He had been gone for five years. He’d missed so much.

The one saving grace in his life was Ned. Ned, who had also died, painlessly, thank God, in what the media was now calling ‘The Blip,’ and hadn’t aged at all. Half of his classmates, his- well, not really friends, but people he had grown up with, turned 21 in what felt like mere seconds. But he had Ned. He didn’t have a home, or any sense of surety, but he had him.

The entire school was static with excitement of the students who hadn’t been snapped. 6th graders, aged five years in 10 seconds.

Once the excitement died down, though, the school mourned. Midtown School of Science and Technology, truly living up to its name, spent a full week honoring Tony through the review of his inventions, and his history as Ironman.

And every second hurt Peter a little more.

So, Peter did what Peter did best. He mourned.

There was no headstone to visit, no place of rest. His ashes sat on the mantel of Pepper and Morgan’s lake house, beside a photo of the three of them, but Peter wasn’t about to invite himself into the house of a mourning widow and her child.

Instead, he sat with Ben. For hours at a time in the middle of the night, he sat. And every hour he regretted it more.

The world was chaos. Resources were limited, millions of people were homeless and jobless, millions of families were separated, and crime was running rampant. He went out as Spider-Man, cleaning up the mess he had helped make in his failure to stop Thanos. He helped reunite people with their families, he stopped crimes the police were too frazzled and busy to notice. But when the day was over, and the sun had set, he sat.

Some days he spoke, told Ben crazy stories about his new life that he was sure Ben never would’ve believed. Others he was quiet, sitting with his back against Ben’s headstone as if he was still just a child in his uncles lap. Sometimes he wondered if Ben wondered why he had never visited in the past five years, and others he wondered if corpses had been Blipped as well.

Sometimes Ned joined him. Spent the night sitting with Peter, comforting him even though they had school the next morning. If it was a talking day, he would join in, help Peter with his stories, or his ramblings. If it was a quiet day, he would respect that, holding Peter close and letting him lose himself in his thoughts while still knowing he was safe, and held. Peter never asked him to come, but Ned always seemed to know when he was needed.

Try as he might, his thoughts often strayed back to Tony. Sometimes he was angry at Tony, for sacrificing himself. Others he was angry at himself, for leaving, for dying. For making Tony think he was worth inventing freaking time travel. But most days he simply mourned. Mourned for their lost time. Mourned for his mentor. Mourned for Morgan. Mourned for Pepper. Mourned for a genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist.

One day, almost two months after everything, it was a quiet day, and Peter was alone. Until he wasn’t.

He was laying with his back to the headstone again, his legs outstretched and tilted to the left so he could imagine being pressed to Ben’s chest, balanced on his knee. The sun had long ago begun to rise, and he knew if he didn’t make it back to the new apartment soon, May would get worried, but he couldn’t bring himself to stand.

Before he could finally force himself too, he heard approaching footsteps, and a crinkle of plastic. Assuming it was someone visiting a loved one, he kept his eyes closed until the footsteps stopped in front of him, and the plastic that smelled strongly of lilies crinkled against his back.

He opened his eyes to see Pepper, dressed in full winter gear, carrying an umbrella and an extra coat, squatting in front of him.

“Hi, Peter.”

She had placed an expensive looking bouquet of flowers, which, yes, consisted of a large amount of lilies, at Ben’s gravestone. It had already begun to collect a small sprinkle of snow on top of it. Peter hadn’t even realized it was snowing.

She handed him the jacket, and stood up with her hand extended. “Let’s take a walk.”

They walked throughout Queens for almost an hour before either of them spoke.

“We haven’t seen you in quite some time, Peter. Morgan’s been asking about you.”

He stilled on the sidewalk, hands in the coat he had gratefully accepted. “I’ve only met her once.”

“But she’s heard about you hundreds of times. She’s been hoping to finally meet you. More than she did before, at least.” She stopped next to him, and leaned herself against the glass of the storefront behind them. Peter followed suit, but said nothing. He was at a loss for words.

“Did you know Spider-Man is her favorite superhero?”

“What?”

“Yeah. She grew up without you here, really, but she also grew up watching every existing clip of you. Even now, when she’s bored, or I need her to calm down, we put on a ‘Spider-Man greatest fails compilation.’ Shuts her right up.”

Peter smiled, but said nothing.

“Where have you been, Peter? We figured you’d want to see her, at least. Visit the home we made.”

“I didn’t want to impose. He was your family. You needed your time to mourn.”

Pepper placed two fingers on his chin, and carefully turned his head towards her. “Oh, Peter. He was your family too. And pretend all you like, but I know you’re in mourning. We could’ve done it together.”

He closed his eyes before he could begin to cry. In the months before the Blip, the months where he’d been interning with Tony, staying for the weekends, joining their family dinner, Pepper had become the closest thing he’d had to a mother since he was five years old. Aunt May was amazing, and he loved her to bits, but she was just that. His aunt. He’d foolishly began to think of Tony as the closest thing to a father he’d had since Ben. Maybe that was was really got him killed, in the end. “It’s not my place. He had- you have, a family now. A real one. I couldn’t overstep.”

Pepper sighed, and cupped her hand around his cheek. “I would tell you that I wish I could convince you, that I could tell you you’ve been nothing less than a son to me for six years and you would take it, but I know how stubborn you are. Instead, I’m going to ask you if you’re willing to take a quick trip with me.”

“May excepted me home hours ago.”

“I already texted her. Besides, our driver has been missing you.”

Peter said nothing, which Pepper apparently took as a yes, as a car pulled around the street before even 2 minutes had passed.

Against his better judgment, he got in the car, because his aunt had raised him well, and he wasn’t about to deny a recent widow, a close friend, a request.

“Hey, Pep.” Happy nodded in her direction, before he turned to Peter and his eyes softened, almost imperceptibly. “Hi Pete.”

“Hi, Happy.”

The drive was almost 2 hours long, but Peter slept through most of it. It was a little past dawn when the three of them made it to the lake house Tony’s funeral had been held at. The house he and Pepper had bought to leave the public eye, to start their real family.

It made Peter want to cry. He didn’t know if it was because of the reminder of the funeral, the reminder of Tony, or the reminder that the family he’d gained had been only inside his head.

“Morgan’s still sleeping, so it’d probably be best to do this in the living room.”

“What are we doing, Pepper? Why did you bring me here?” He refused to let the unshed tears building up spill over. This house was not helping. Peppers ominous silence as she set up a small box- one of Tony’s portable hologram projectors- on the living room table was not helping.

The living room was cozy, and so incredibly Tony. Few people would look at a simplistic cabin in the woods and think of the famed billionaire, but Peter had grown to know him well. He sat down on the couch, and ran his hands over the fabric. Tony had built his family here. He had invented time travel here. And he would never see how either of those masterpieces he’d created would grow, and evolve. And Peter had played a part in that fact. He couldn’t help but think that if he hadn’t been Blipped, if he had survived, and grown as a hero and a scientist, he could’ve helped Tony, saved him.

Before his thoughts could spiral, Pepper was joining him on the couch, a frozen hologram of Tony, sitting on one of his kitchen stools, hovering over the table. The lights in the room were off, and the frozen image of Tony washed the room in gloomy blue light.

“We found this a few days after the funeral. He left one for Morgan, too. You and May ran off before I could show you yours, and Happy thought maybe you just needed more time. I tried to give you it, but I thought you’d have came back by now. After five years, it was strange to know you were out there, choosing not to visit. I thought you’d at least visit for Morgan.”

“I don’t- I thought she wouldn’t want to see me.”

“Peter, Tony and I- we raised Morgan as your sister. You are family to every member of this household, dead or alive. You were dead, and Tony was wrecked. For the first hour after he got off of that God-forsaken spaceship, the only words he was able to process were ‘I lost the kid.’ He couldn’t deal. So, we moved out here. Away from the public, away from the space he shared with you, because it was too harsh a reminder. When we had Morgan, we made sure the child we gained knew everything about the child we lost. Morgan doesn’t blame you, Peter. No one does.”

Peter was speechless. He opened and closed his mouth a few times, likely looking utterly ridiculous, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. Tony thought of him as a son. Pepper thought of him as a son. Morgan, who he’d been ignoring for months, thought of him as a brother.

Ever since he was 5, he’d had a fragmented family. It was never whole, and maybe it never would be. But the holes would be filled, patched over, at least. His memories of Tony, the year they got to spend together, might never be enough. He might spend the rest of his life regretting the course of his actions up until that moment at the compound when he saw Tony with the gauntlet in hand. But, in time, the hole in his heart caused by what could have been, might be filled by what is. He might make memories with Morgan, memories that make his heart, his life, his family, a little more whole again.

“I’m sure that’s a lot to take in, but you mean a lot to me, and meant even more to Tony. He wouldn’t have left you without a final goodbye, not after he worked so hard just to bring you back.”

“Can-“ Peter swallowed, suddenly more nervous than before. “Can we watch the video?”

Pepper nodded and hit a few buttons. Tony’s hologram began to move, his hands waving around in a way that was all too familiar to Peter. Tony was nervous. Of course he was.

“Pete. I hope to any and all gods out there you never end up watching this. I tried to keep Mo’s message light, but I know the chances all of us are making it out of this are slim. If you are watching this, Peter, the most important thing you know is that it’s not your fault. I didn’t… trade my life for yours, or die because of you, or whatever other bullshit I’m sure you’re throwing around in your self-sacrificial, guilt ridden head.

I did invent time travel for you, though. Maybe that’ll boost your tiny little ego a little. Here, you can even take this video and show it off to Ted. I, Tony Stark, the most incredible and generous man on the planet, invented time travel just for you, Peter Parker.”

Hologram Tony frowned, slightly. “That is, assuming we pull this off. I’ve got faith in the team, believe it or not. I- I’ve spent the past five years regretting all the things I never told you, so I’m going to say them here, now, incase I don’t get to say them to you and your stupid baby face later. Maybe it’ll help me focus on the mission to get this shit off my chest.

So, Peter Benjamin Parker, you are my son. Even if you never thought of me as a father, even if it’s not biological, you are my son. I knew it when you were alive, and I know it now. I loved tinkering with you in the same way I love spoiling Morgan with handmade toys. It was scary, at first. I’d never seen myself as the fatherly type. But I knew, from the second I berated you on that bridge, that I would do anything in my power to protect you. Hence the time travel, I guess.

Once you were gone… I ran away from you. I buried every reminder of you in my mind as if it made up for the fact I didn’t have a body to bury in the ground. Even the mementoes I kept, I hid. When the team came, and proposed time travel as the solution to all of our problems, I mocked them. I told them it was impossible, and that they should stop trying. But I had been trying. For five years, I had been trying. But in those five years, I had gained so much, Peter. I was holding myself back, because I was afraid that no matter how we pulled it off, I would get you back, we would get the world back, but I would lose this family I’ve created, this family that I never thought I could have.

Funnily enough, it was you who knocked some sense into me. When we moved in, I shoved a photo of you that Pepper handed me onto a shelf above the sink, out of my line of sight. Out of sight out of mind, I guess. But you never were. Anyway, I saw the photo, that stupid one where you’re holding the internship certificate upside down, and I just knew I had to try. That even if I die in this process and you are watching this video, it would be worth it to know that you were safe. Or as close as your spidery ass gets to safe. Alive, at least.

If you are watching this video, I also want you to know that I’m proud of you. For everything you’ve done, and everything that you’ll do, past and future. I know, I know, I sound cheesy and soft, but you wouldn’t believe the kind of things raising a child does to a rock solid heart. You’re going to make mistakes, we all do. And I’m proud of you for those, too. Morgan sure gets a kick out of them, at least.” He smirked.

“Alright, alright, this is getting long, and sappy, and the the goal is I pour my heart out to you in person and whatnot.” Hologram Tony grabbed the camera, and looked straight at the lenses. “You’re already better than I am, Spider-kid. Suit, no suit. Powers, no powers. You’ll be a great man someday, even if I’m not there to coach you in the ways of being both rich, famous, and a genius. See you soon.”

The video shut off, leaving the room in an eerie darkness.

It wasn’t everything. Hell, it might not even be enough to get Peter through school the next day, but it was something, and that something was enough. His life would continue, even if Tony’s wouldn’t, and he needed to live his life in the way Tony would’ve wanted him to. He would mourn, and he would have his bad days. But he had family. More family than he’d ever had. His aunt. A mother, a sister.

One day, he’d forget what it felt like to sit next to Tony on his lab bench, covered in motor oil and running on yesterday’s breakfast. He’d forget the sound of his laugh, and they way he would pretend not to smile when Peter made an obscure reference. But he’d remember the way it felt to come home to May, finally conquering the kitchen. He’d remember the way Pepper smiled at him, a private smile when Morgan said something strange, or when Happy didn’t quite live up to his name. He’d remember the look on Morgan’s face when she came home with an A on a test, the sound of her laughter when she finally understood one of Peter’s movie references. And that was enough.