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Peter was bouncing excitedly in the backseat of the car, talking about everything and nothing with Happy, who clearly was pretending to not pay attention. He knew the man did though, because Mr Stark would randomly bring things up that Peter’d said to Happy. He wasn’t sure if Happy was actually genuinely interested, or if Mr Stark just forced him to listen and then repeat some sort of summary about what Peter had said. He would, personally, bet for the latter alternative, but who knew?
Point is, Mr Stark always knew about the things Peter’d had said to Happy, so the man had to at least some of it.
When Peter was done rambling about a test in calculus, he could see the compound through the window. Happy stopped the car, and the teen immediately jumped out through the door.
Well outside, however, his spider senses started blaring alarms like crazy. All of the hair on his skin stood up, and every muscle in his body tensed, going into fight or flight mode immediately. Peter swirled around, but Happy was still leaning against the black car, relaxed and smiling.
He turned back to the building, and felt the ground start to vibrate under his worn out sneakers. All of the windows suddenly broke, the sharp pieces of glass flying through the air and landing, covering the ground in front of him.
By now his senses was so loud in his ears they blocked out any other sound, and he didn’t know what to do. He saw the walls give away, and suddenly the whole compound was falling apart, dust flying into his face, making it hard to see and breathe, and his eyes was itching and hurting. After blinking rapidly, trying to see something, he was finally able to look though the dust that was clearing out by the second.
There was nothing but a lot of rubble laying in front of him now.
People were inside, Mr Stark was inside! He had to help his mentor and everyone else get out! God, first his parents, than Uncle Ben, and now Mr Stark! And if he didn’t do anything, Mr Stark dying would be his fault, just like Ben’s death.
But his body wouldn’t move, no matter what he did, he remained standing uselessly, staring at what had once been the Avengers Compound. He cursed his legs with all the swear words he could remember, and some he made up right got then and there. He wasn’t doing anything, and Mr Stark was probably suffocating under all the rubble, just like Peter had been himself during the thing with the Vulture, or he was already dead. No, he couldn’t.
He couldn’t just die.
He’d survived being kidnapped by terrorists, flying through wormholes to outer space, survived giving his home address to terrorists. He couldn’t die because his own building decided to just collapse. Couldn’t die because of Peter. Because of Peter’s stupid, pathetic, idiotic legs that wouldn’t budge to his will and move, no matter what he did. Mr Stark couldn’t be dead. He couldn’t, he couldn’t, he cou-
“He’s dead.”
Peter’s legs finally seemed to work and he swirled around at Happy’s oddly monotone voice. The words didn’t even have time to register in his mind before the face of the grumpy driver morphed in a way that looked painful, and suddenly it was The Vulture, Toomes, who was standing before him, grinning widely.
“Your friend Stark,” he said, smirking. “He’s dead. You killed him.”
No, he didn’t. He didn’t mean to. He tried to save him, but his body wouldn’t work. He didn’t.
“But it don’t matter. He didn’t care about you anyway. He didn’t care about anyone but himself. You did the world a favor by getting rid of him. Good job.”
Toomes smirked and Peter could see a glimpse of that thing in his eye. That thing that he could see clearly in Mr Stark’s eyes, his whole face and posture, whenever Peter told him that he’d gotten an A on a test, or when he finally understood something complex that Mr Stark was explaining to him. It looked like pride. But that couldn’t be right, why would he be proud of Peter? Peter wasn’t his kid, just a random teen that happened to get bitten by a spider. Still, it definitely felt like Mr Stark was proud of him when he placed a hand on his shoulder and smiled at him. When he said “good job” or “congratulations”, he definitely sounded proud. And his eyes defrost looked proud, they looked bright and happy, if a bit melancholy, and he’d even told Peter that he was proud of him a couple of times. And now, he’d never look like that again. He’d never look like anything again. Except dead. He’d look dead, cause he’d be dead. And he’d be dead because of Peter.
Toomes took a step forward, and the look in his eye was gone. He was smiling, and reaching a hand up towards Peter, to place on his shoulder.
The transfer shrieked back in a full body flinch, trying to get away from the taller man, but then he tripped over rubble and fell, feeling pain exploding in his back from the impact with the ground.
And everything went black.
———
Peter woke with a start and a scream that made his throat hurt, breathing heavily for a couple of seconds before finally registering the pain in his back and left underarm.
He shifted on the hard, cool surface to realize he was on a floor beside a bed, laying on his back, with his left arm pressed between his body and the tile floor. The room was dark, but with his spider senses he was able to see just fine anyway. This wasn’t his room at the apartment, that much was obvious, and after a couple of seconds of squinting at his surroundings, his still fuzzy brain finally remembered he’d been sleeping at the compound.
Peter and Mr Stark had been working in the workshop that evening. The older man had been looking happier than usual, the constant bags under his eyes not as evident when he was beaming at Peter for no real reason, and that made Peter’s smile widen as well, and they’d been chatting animatedly the whole time while working on their respective projects.
Well, chatting as if in basically taking turns to ramble about things that had happened during the week, and listening to the other talk.
After spending some time with his mentor, Peter realized he could talk almost as fast as the teenager. He also always seemed interested in listening to what Peter was talking about, whether it was a Star Wars headcanon, a test in school, or just an idea about a science project, and the teenager appreciated this endlessly.
Peter was just as happy to listen when Mr Stark would tell him stuff, even about the meetings and things he did for Stark Industries, that the man always complained about, saying it was boring. And, yeah, Peter would probably think it was pretty lame too if he had to do all that on a daily or at least weekly basis, but when Mr Stark told him about it it was suddenly highly amusing and interesting. And seriously, it was Iron Man talking about his day, how could it not be interesting?
To be honest, he had no idea what had lifted the man’s spirits so high that particular day, since it hadn’t even sounded very fun. Actually it had seemed pretty shitty. Ms Potts, Happy and Col Rhodes were all out of the country, and someone had apparently been hitting on him during a meeting, so it didn’t sound like a fun time, but whatever. Don’t look gift horses in the mouth and all that.
(So there was this fat, old guy, like, even older than me, probably 60, who was sitting next to me. Pretty important and rich apparently. Henry... what was his last name? Something that sounded like ‘potato’ and, seriously, his nose looked just like one. Whatever, Potato guy had managed to move his chair so it was about half an inch from mine, without drawing any attention to himself. Well, I noticed, and raised and eyebrow at him. Potato guy just winked at me and fucking placed his hand on my thigh! Like what the hell is his problem? I’m engaged, does he think I’m going to cheat on Pepper, who is the most gorgeous woman I’ve ever met, with him? I may have punched him in the face. And I’m pretty sure I broke his nose. I’ve never liked the sound of bone breaking as much as in that moment.”)
Time had flew by, and by the time they finished up it was late, so he stayed at the compound for the night.
They had watched a movie with Vision before going to bed. The compound had a very big (and expensive) couch, still, the three of them had been huddled up in pretty much the same place. Peter was more or less in Mr Stark’s lap, who in his turn was leaning his head on Vision’s shoulder. It was oddly domestic, especially considering it was Iron Man and The Vision, two Avengers and superheroes, but Peter decided he liked it.
Now Peter hoped and prayed that he hadn’t screamed too loud when waking up from the nightmare, and that Mr Stark was still asleep.
After shifting around a little more, he managed to release the arm he’d landed on top of. Now, with both of his arms free, the teen propped himself up on his elbows, about to climb into bed again, when the door was slung open.
Peter held his breath, watching his mentors worried gaze glance through the room until it finally landed on the boy on the floor. Peter felt like a deer in the headlights, and didn’t even breathe, feeling both guilty for waking him up and embarrassed for having a nightmare and falling out of bed in the first place. Mr Stark seemed both revealed and concerned, and paused, pursing his lips.
“Nightmare?”
He said finally, and a small and childish part of Peter wanted to tell Mr Stark the truth, wanted to hug him so badly, make sure he was areal and actually not dead. The bigger part of him, the rational one, knew that he had to prove himself, though. Knew that he’d have to show Mr Stark that he wasn’t a kid anymore. And only kids had nightmares. So he swallowed, and searched his mind frantically for an explanation.
“N-no, I saw a... a spider.”
Great, he was stuttering and his voice broke pathetically, and he’d just told Mr Stark he woke him up with a scream because he saw a fucking spider. He was Spider-Man. If it was someone else who’d said it Peter’d have laughed his own head of. It wasn’t nearly as fun being the one to make an idiot out of himself.
Mr Stark nodded, and looked so serious that an very incompetent part of Peter thought he’d actually believed the lie for a second.
“Right. You saw a spider and got so scared you started crying and jumped out of your bed.”
What? He wasn’t- shit. He had been crying. Like a child. When he lifted his hand to his chin it was indeed streaked with tears, and he scrambled into a sitting position hastily to start wiping furiously over his face, trying to erase any proof.
After feeling satisfied with his work, Peter glanced carefully up at Mr Stark, who hadn’t moved from his position, leaning against the doorframe. He looked tired, barefoot and wearing a grey T-Shirt with “War Machine” written over it in red, thick text, that was way to big and reached his knees. The usually perfect combed hair was a mess, and he looked just about ready to fall back to sleep right there, while still standing upright.
The billionaire just huffed and went to sit down against the bed at Peter’s side, hugging his legs and closing his eyes, letting the backside of his head hit the mattress with a soft thud. He breathed out a shuddering exhale, and Peter thought he looked extremely tired and old. Earlier that day he’d looked very good, but now, in the blue moonlight that streamed in through the window, he seemed to have aged ten years since just a couple of hours ago, when he went to bed
“I have nightmares. All of the Avengers have them,”
he mumbled, still not opening his eyes. Peter looked at the dark bags under his them, and swallowed thickly.
“You died.”
Now Mr Stark opened his eyes, and he lifted his head to look at Peter. The emotion in his eyes wasn’t pity, it was softer, kinder. Sympathy, Peter recognized it as. He kept going.
“The compound collapsed. The Vulture was there. He said it was my- my fault.”
His breath hitched in the end, and he hated how he could feel his voice cracking pathetically. As if it wasn’t already pitched higher than usual. Mr Stark didn’t seem to notice, or he didn’t care, because he just gave Peter something that looked like a try at smile, but ended up a bit pinched.
“Can I touch you?”
That was not something Peter had been expecting to hear. He wasn’t sure what he thought the man was gonna say either, though. Reassure, saying that it wasn’t real, that he was fine and that the building wasn’t gonna collapse? Or just laugh at the fact that him dying would have Peter in tears? The last one sounded a bit heartless, but he also knew that Mr Stark avoided anything about feelings by a mile, using any means necessary. Whatever, he did not expect for him to ask if Peter was okay with something as simple as being touched, of all things. Peter couldn’t even recall a single time when Mr Stark had asked for permission to do anything from anyone.
Despite all that, he just stammered out, “Uh... sure, of- of course why-,” and then he was being tugged against his mentors side with an arm wrapped around his shoulders.
Mr Stark had apparently had time to straighten out his legs in front of him during Peter’s spluttering, and now Peter was halfway in his lap, a strong arm around his shoulders holding him in place.
Peter froze for a moment, which seemed to be enough for Mr Stark to tense up too, clearly backtracking and opening his mouth to say something. Then Peter just let out a breath and slumped against his mentor’s chest, any and all tension seeping out of him.
He didn’t know how still on edge he had been, until he was leaning onto Mr Stark, and could feel the rise of his chest, assuring him that his mentor was alive and breathing, not crushed under a building and dead.
The older man seemed to take a bit longer to recover, though, but after a few seconds of sitting completely stiff, not moving a single one of his tense muscles, he, a bit hesitantly, wrapped an arm around Peter’s torso, holding him closer from behind. The other hand, previously placed on Peter’s shoulder, landed in the teenagers hair after another moment, and Peter let out a puff of air through his mouth, as the fingers started untangling his messy curls.
Peter leaned back, feeling the exhaustion come back to him, and he was just about ready to fall asleep again right there, on the floor. The previous nightmare already felt like a distant memory, blurry and unimportant.
They sat for a moment, which really could have been hours as well as five minutes, when neither dared say anything, but then Peter felt the man behind him roll his shoulders and lift his arms above his head in a half hearted stretch.
The teenager only missed the security of strong arms around him for a second before another thought crossed his mind. Shit, he realized, Mr Stark was closer to fifty years old, and this was a probably a very uncomfortable position for him, sitting on the fucking floor, not to mention that he had a fifteen year old practically laying on top of him, and they’d been here for quite some time. It was very comfortable for the teenager, Peter’d be the first to admit that, but probably not for the other party.
The kid managed to pretty much jump out of the embrace and to his feet, surprising himself with not stumbling. But, well, he hadn’t really stumbled since getting his powers, so maybe he wasn’t all that surprised.
Mr Stark looked up at him in surprise as well as concern, and he rushed to find his voice and apologize. For waking the engineer up in the first place, for nearly falling asleep on top on him while they were sitting on the damn floor, or for flying up to his feet without any warning and startling the other man, he didn’t know. Probably a combination of all three.
“I’m sorry Mr Stark, I didn’t think- I’m so sorry!”
He blurted out, and the man didn’t bat an eye, just held out a hand to him. When Peter simply blinked stupidly, he raised an eyebrow.
“Mind helping me up? Growing old sucks.”
Right. The teen hurried to take the hand and drag his mentor to the feet in one, smooth motion, only feeling slightly concerned at how light the man was. He pointedly ignored the small blush he could feel on his cheeks over his complete idiocy. Mr Stark either didn’t notice, or chose to just play along.
“Stop apologize, you make me feel like a bad person when you’re so polite all the time.”
Peter smiled a small, barely noticeable, smile. And, well, maybe it was a little smug too. Just maybe.
“Okay, Mr Stank.”
His mentor groaned dramatically, closing his eyes and tilting his head back as if extremely exasperated.
“Did Rhodey tell you that?”
Peter snickered, and nodded once. Mr Stark punched him lightly in the shoulder, scowling. His eyes looked fond though, even if pretending to be offended.
“Don’t listen to him, he’s a betraying idiot of a best friend.”
With that, the teen was promptly pushed towards and onto the bed, not even bothering to resist, as he was actually really tired. Like, my vision is quite blurry, I can’t really focus without my head hurting, and my eyelids are dangerously close to just falling shut if I don’t actively try to keep them up-tired. The digital clock on his nightstand read 02:34 am.
“Well, it’s past curfew for spider babies, think you can fall asleep?”
Oh, Peter didn’t doubt that, he was halfway there already, but the thought of his mentor leaving to sleep in another room, even if only on the other side (for some reason Peter’s room was next to Mr Stark’s) of a wall, was making him panic. If he couldn’t see him, he couldn’t protect him should something happen, cause he wouldn’t even notice it. And, sure thing, he was being paranoid and childish, this was probably the safest building in the US, but he just had a nightmare with the man dying, so could you really blame him?
“I don’t know, could you stay?”
He asks, and blinks his eyes as if fighting back tears, trying to look scared by hunching in on himself, sitting on the verge of the big bed.
It was a low blow, and dirty playing, and he was feeling guilty for playing with the other man’s feelings (but honestly it most of it was actually genuine, not that he’d admit that, even to himself), but he really, really didn’t want him to go. And he played to win.
After receiving a huff and an empathized, “fiiine,” that probably was supposed to sound irritated, but failed miserably, Peter crawled under the covers, Mr Stark following suit after only a second of hesitation.
Peter still felt a small sting of guilt, but not as much anymore as the man didn’t even tense or look uncomfortable when the teenager basically buried himself in his shirt, pressing himself against the other mans chest. Instead he just felt a familiar arm around his back, and the other one resuming the motions through Peter’s unruly hair from earlier. He finally got to close his eyes, and the last thing he thought before falling into a dreamless sleep may or may not have been ‘Ned’s gonna freak out when I tell him this.’
———
The next day Peter blamed the whole thing on being exhausted, and still shaken from the nightmare, all the while spluttering and apologizing. Mr Stark had just ruffled his hair and laughed.
(Ned really did freak out. He laughed for five whole minutes, much too Peter’s dismay.)