Archive of Our Own

It’s Tony’s idea to go to Venice. 

It certainly isn’t a place Peter ever thought he needed to visit again. The suggestion seems to come out of nowhere. There’s no conference there. No crisis. No reason at all for them go. Just Tony’s whim driving them along.

Peter physically flinches away from the idea, feeling his insides go clenched and hot. Venice had been the beginning of a shit show he doesn’t want to remember.

He kneels down to fiddle with the servo on Dum-E’s arm. He’s noticed that it’s been catching, lately, when the bot hands off tools to one them. Peter isn’t hiding. He’s just taking care of necessary maintenance. Right.

“Seriously?”

Tony’s draped over one of the work benches, twirling a soldering iron in his good hand and giving Peter an appraising look. It shouldn’t do the things to Peter that it does. There’s nothing overtly sexy about it, and lord knows he isn’t trying. But something about the posture – the taut line of his back, the minute pout of his downturned mouth, the warm skin visible through the holes he’s burned in that ratty Metallica t-shirt – makes Peter ache to reach out and touch him.

Instead, he ignores his lab partner, reaching up to his own work area for a bottle of WD-40 and spraying it along the ball joint of Dum-E’s arm. The little bot chirps at him in approval, and Peter can’t help but smile at that.

“Are you using WD-40 on my state-of-the-art robot?” Tony asks.

“What? He likes it!” Peter says, with Dum-E helpfully whistling behind him.

“Ok, It’s not sentient, so …”

Peter clasps his hands over either side of the robot’s claw.

“Shh!” he admonishes, fighting to keep his face serious. “He can hear you.”

Tony bites his lower lip, but Peter sees the beginnings of a smile on his face.

“You two,” he finally says, moving a pointed finger between man and bot. “Deserve each other.”

Then the threatening grin breaks across his face, and he lowers his head to chuckle. Peter feels it like punch to his solar plexus.

“No fair changing the subject,” Tony says once he’s collected himself. “You’re seriously saying no to a free trip to Europe? What else are you gonna do with your summer vacation?” 

“I’ve got patrols,” Peter says, standing and giving Dum-E a little pat. There are reasons he shouldn’t go. And they are very good reasons. But Tony doesn’t need to know any of them.

“I called Ms. Bishop,” Tony counters. “She’s agreed to cover your territory while we’re gone. Can’t leave the pensioners of Queens to cross the street by themselves.” 

 “I’ve got that quantum physics course next semester with Dr. Richards,” he tries again. “If I don’t start prepping for that, I’ll be behind before the class even starts.”

“I can quiz you on the plane. I’m a very good study buddy.”

“I don’t think my passport is even …”

“Pete,” Tony cuts him off and spears him with a look. “What’s going on here?”

“N-nothing,” Peter says. “Nothing’s going on. I just feel bad, you taking time out of your schedule, just to go traveling with me. You don’t have to, Mr. Stark.”

Tony tilts his head to one side, considering.

“But I want to,” he says finally, voice a low, encouraging rumble. “We’ve been working really hard. The new arc reactor applications are practically ready for beta testing. We deserve a vacation, don’t you think?”

The thought still makes Peter a little sick to his stomach, but Tony just grouped them together. Called them a “we.” He doesn’t quite have the wherewithal to resist it. Maybe it won’t be so bad. He can do this.

“Ok,” he says, sighing. “What did you have in mind?”

What Tony has in mind, as it turns out, is hopping on his private plane the next day and jetting off to Italy. It’s nearly midnight already. 

“I have to do laundry!” Peter squawks in protest. “I don’t think I have enough clean underwear.”

“Geeze, kid, I will buy you underwear. I will buy you Italian underwear. Just say you’ll come.”

It isn’t Peter’s fault that that combination of words conjures up a specific set of images that take his brain promptly offline. But he must agree, because the next afternoon, he’s stumbling up the stairs to board Tony’s jet, feeling sleep deprived and sick.

Dread and anticipation mixing in an unholy cocktail in his gut had prevented him from sleeping at all the night before. Peter stuffs his bag into to the overhead compartment and throws himself into a window seat. 

When Tony boards, he takes the seat next to Peter despite the wide array of options available to him.

“You ready to rock and roll, kid?” he asks.

Peter’s response is maybe not recognizable as words.

“Ok, grumpy little spider, how ‘bout you rest up on the flight. We’ll start fresh in Venice.”

He has his right arm draped across the back of Peter’s seat, and his hand reaches down to rub soothing circles into his scalp. Peter closes his eyes and leans back into the caress. That does feel nice. It feels nice whenever Tony touches him, though it doesn’t happen as often as Peter would like.

It’s not exactly that Tony touches him less now than he used to. He’s always seemed to have a very fuzzy idea of personal space, and that hasn’t changed since he came back. But he only ever touches him with his right hand, now. So despite actual facts, a part of Peter feels he’s been robbed of at least half the physical contact to which he is entitled by virtue of being in Tony Stark’s general orbit.

It was a miracle that Dr. Strange was able to bring him back at all. It had taken him a year just to hunt down the spell book he needed to make it happen. The ancient ones were, understandably, pretty protective of magic that could raise the dead.

So it’s understandable, considering the level of difficulty involved, that he couldn’t also heal all the damage done to Tony’s body by wielding the Infinity Stones. The left side of his face still bears the shadows of scars, and the skin running along the length of his left arm to his fingertips is puckered and mangled with a shiny new-skin texture. It looks as though he held it in a flame. It’s visible proof of the cost of wielding the kind of power that no mortal man was ever meant to hold.

Peter’s watched, in the intervening three years, as he’s got more comfortable in showing off his scars. At first, he would only ever wear long sleeves that slipped down over his hands, oversized Henley’s and dress shirts even in the doldrums of summer in New York City. But it couldn’t stay that way for long. This is, after all, Tony Stark. He’s the man who openly displayed his weakest point, the arc reactor he literally needed to survive, like a bullseye on his chest. He practically made it into a fashion statement.

Now he rolls up his sleeves without a thought and never favors his left side despite the fact that he’s got somewhat decreased mobility in his injured hand. He acts as though there’s no difference between the two. Except for this: He never touches Peter with his left hand.

But with Tony’s callused fingers scratching the short hairs at the back of Peter’s neck just now, he can’t find it in him to complain all that much. He leans back into the sensation.

“Hmm … Might just take a lil’ nap,” he mumbles, letting his eyes slip closed.

“Sweet dreams, Pete,” he hears Tony say before he drifts off.

The next time Peter becomes fully conscious, Tony’s good arm is wrapped around his waist, and his head is lolling on the man’s shoulder.

“Gonna have to help me out here, kid,” Tony says, breath ruffling Peter’s curls. “You’re too heavy for me to carry onto the boat without us both taking a swim.”

“Hmm?” Peter jerks awake and away from Tony’s grip, stumbling a little.

Only a hand hooked into the hood of his sweatshirt stops him from going over the edge of the little dock they’re on.

“Whoa, underoos!” Tony barks out. 

Peter grips the wood with sticky toes, steadies himself, and finally takes a look at their surroundings. He breathes a sigh of relief and wonder when it turns out they are totally foreign to him.

Oh sure, it’s unmistakably Venice. Before him, ancient brick and plaster buildings sink slowly into the water around the green expanse of the grand canal. But it has to be early morning here, because a thick fog hovers above the water, tinted palest pink by the rising sun and covering everything around them in a translucent shroud. It’s beautiful, actually.

“Have you actually joined the realm of the conscious?” Tony asks him, knocking their shoulders together.

“Yeah, yeah,” Peter mutters back as they board a puttering water taxi.

The city is almost eerily quiet as they cut across the water. The last time he was here it was chaos – tourists running for their lives, water rising, buildings tumbling. But now the streets are empty, and there’s only the rumble of the boat engine and the insistent squawking of seagulls to fill up the silence. It’s peaceful in a way that Peter barely recognizes. 

He looks back at Tony from the prow of the boat and smiles.

“She’s a beauty, isn’t she?” the other man calls to him.

Peter’s about to reply when he sees it jutting out above the fog. That damn bell tower. They must have rebuilt it, after he’d failed to keep it from falling. An uncomfortable weight settles over his chest. It had been the first time he and Beck had teamed up, the first time he’d been made to see something that wasn’t there.

He’d been so fucking eager to please. Couldn’t have made a better target if he tried. So anxious for someone, anyone, to just tell him what to do. Peter squeezes his eyes closed and tries to think of something else. But now he’s in the shit, back in the middle of that nightmare vision – The desiccated hull of the Iron Man armor crawling out of its grave accusingly. If you were good enough, maybe … 

“You don’t look so good, kid.”

Peter inhales sharply at the hand on his shoulder, pulling away in a panicked daze before he realizes that it’s Tony beside him. He’s whole, and healthy, and looking at Peter with concern rather than blame. Peter takes in a few deep shaky breaths to try and pull himself together. 

Tony’s got his hands held out to Peter as though he’s trying to gentle a spooked horse, but there’s something dark in his eyes, and his jaw is clenched tight. Is he angry? Because Peter pulled away from him? 

“I’m sorry,” he says, scooting closer to the other man. “I didn’t mean to, um …”

“Not your fault,” Tony says, shortly. His eyes shift away from Peter and out to the water. “I should probably be a little better at recognizing when someone’s in the middle of a panic attack.”

“I wasn’t,” Peter starts to protest. “I just … You surprised me is all.”

Tony’s expression lets Peter know that he doesn’t believe this line at all, but he doesn’t push it. The tension in his jaw doesn’t ease, though. He still looks angry.

“Right,” Tony says, scooting a little further away. “I’ll try to announce myself next time.” 

And Peter is already ruining this trip. Nice work, Parker.

For the rest of boat ride to the hotel, Tony stares out into the fog and Peter, under lowered lashes, stares at Tony grinding his teeth. 

The hotel is right off the grand canal. It’s got the kind of old-school glamour that Peter’s come to expect when traveling with Tony Stark, but never quite gets accustomed to. The lobby is a jewel box of gold and marble that takes his breath away.

His eyes must go big as he looks around, because Tony catches his gaze, his expression softening to a warm half smile. He’s always amused by Peter’s reactions to the trappings of wealth. This is a long, long way from Queens. He winks, and Peter rolls his eyes. But it breaks the strain between them, letting Peter breath a little easier.

They settle into adjoining rooms, and Peter takes a long hot shower to finally banish the sleep from his bones. He throws on shorts and a t-shirt, and goes down to the terrace.

He’s stopped in the doorway by the sight of Tony at one of the little wrought iron terrace tables with several empty espresso cups in front of him. He’s leaned back in his chair, legs - clad in form-fitting charcoal trousers - stretched out in front of him. Peter’s gaze travels up his body. He’s wearing a white linen shirt rolled up at the sleeves and unbuttoned low enough to reveal a swath of tanned chest and just a hint of chest hair. His face is tilted up to the sun.

Pour him over ice, and I could drink him up, Peter thinks, nonsensically. He feels entirely outclassed in his scruffy tennis shoes and science pun shirt. He didn’t even take the time to dry his hair. It’s still damp, a trickle of water creeping down his neck. 

There’s no time to backtrack and change, though, because Tony’s turning toward Peter and gesturing him over to his table.

“That one’s for you,” he says when Peter stumbles his way over, gesturing at the demitasse cup on the other end of the table. “Drink up. We’ve got an appointment.”

The dark espresso is still steaming. He knocks it back like a shot, mindless of it burning down his throat. When he looks up from the empty cup, Tony’s attention is trained on his throat. Peter swallows thickly.

His dark eyes are faintly obscured by the blocky, tinted EDITH glasses. That shouldn’t bother Peter. He’s seen Tony wear them often enough. He returned them to their proper owner as soon as he could, anxious to slip out from under the burden he felt every time he put them on. 

But something about the location – the persistent mummer or passing tourists, the reflection of the sun against aged white stone, the smell of salty water and fresh catches mingling with blossoming wisteria – that transports him back years into the past. Back to a pair of smirking green eyes slipping behind those frames. Eyes that are wrong, all wrong. If you were good enough …

He feels his breath speed up, but it’s beyond him to control it. Beads of cold sweat run in rivulets down his back. It’s a memory. It isn’t real.  But sometimes it’s so hard to be sure. And how can Peter be sure when his senses are telling him that everything is threat?

Everything except the hand rubbing up and down his sticky back.

“ … Come back. Pete. Come on, come back to me.”

Peter tunes in to the cadence of Tony’s voice, and his breathing slows little by little. When he becomes aware of all of his surroundings again, he finds himself crouched down on the stone terrace with Tony kneeling beside him. He’s pushed the glasses up onto his head, his unobstructed eyes filled with sharp concern.

“Sorry,” Peter manages, sucking in a deep breath. “Sorry.” 

“Jesus, stop apologizing,” Tony snaps. “I get it. This was a bad idea.”

“Coffee didn’t agree with me,” Peter says, weakly. “Too much caffeine for the the old spidey senses, maybe.”

Tony’s jaw actually falls wide open. 

“I’m sorry, what?” he asks.

“All better now,” Peter assures him.

He can do this. He can be normal, and have a nice time with Tony in Venice without having any more breakdowns. He just has to stop thinking about Quentin Fucking Beck.

Peter pats the man on his good shoulder, and hoists himself to his feet.

“So we’re just ignoring your second panic attack of the day then?” Tony asks, voice on edge.

“I told you …” Peter starts.

“Uh-huh,” Tony says. “Caffeine. Sure. Fine. This is totally fine.”

“You said we had plans,” Peter says. “Let’s not ruin the day.”

It takes a little more cajoling on Peter’s part, but Tony does finally acquiesce to letting them get on with the day. He’s still frowning when he leads them to a slim, polished wood motorboat and offers Peter a hand to board.

“You sure you don’t want to lie down or something?” he asks, fingers on the key in the ignition. 

“C’mon, Mr. Stark,” Peter says, putting on a smile. “You did promise me an adventure.”

Tony bites at his lower lip.

“Okay,” he says at last. “Hang on tight, kid.”

With anybody else, it might be just an expression. With Tony, it’s a genuine warning. Peter feels grateful for his sticky fingers as the engine revs and they take off, swerving around other boats and sending a massive wake out to violently rock the black gondolas hewing close to the outskirts of the canal.

Wind whipping through his hair and beating at his cheeks, Peter thinks it feels almost like swinging, and he lets out a whoop of delight, prompting Tony to push the boat that much faster. When they finally slow, he laughs as Peter attempts to tame his windblown curls. It’s futile task. 

They end up on an island outside the city, ushered into a workshop where artisans in heavy leather aprons shape molten glass into intricate designs. Peter watches in fascination as they breath into glass, expanding it like a slowly inflating balloon to create perfect spheres or delicately twist it to make the elegant stem of a wine glass. 

At one point, while Peter is transfixed, Tony goes over to talk with one of the workmen, and comes back with an object that he places carefully in Peter’s palm. It’s one of the little glass balls, shot through with a spider web patter in blue and red, and just big enough to fit inside Peter’s closed fist. He smiles at it and fights the urge to hold it close to his heart. Most of the things that Tony gives him are practical, like the Spider-Man suit, or wildly outrageous, like a spur-of-the-moment trip to Europe. This small, insignificant gift feels different, given just because he wants to see delight flicker across Peter’s face.

They don’t really stop for the rest of the day, Tony sometimes physically dragging Peter along behind him. 

At a matinee of a commedia dell’arte play, Tony has to whisper the translations from the Italian in Peter’s ear. Sometimes he’ll recite the line back to Peter before translating, and it sends a shiver down his spine every time.  

After the play, they buy ludicrously large cones of gelato to cool off in the extreme heat of Venice in June, and Peter gets so distracted watching Tony eat his cone that his melts down his fingers in a sticky ooze of limoncello cream. He’s using his tongue to clean the worst of the drippy mess from his fingers when he hears Tony emit a low-pitched groan.

“Are you ok?” Peter asks, pulling his index finger from his mouth. There’s a hazy, faraway expression on the other man’s face that gets him a little worried. 

“Huh?” Tony says, blinking. “Yeah. Yes. Brain freeze.”

They take a walk around the city, seeking out bridges where they can catch a breeze off the water and shaded alcoves and pockets of greenery where they can get a little relief from the heat.

But the shadows of the last time Peter was here keeps creeping in at the edges, despite the flurry of activity. There are spray-painted marks on many of the buildings showing the highest point that flood waters reached after the attack, tour guides pointing out reconstruction efforts, flowers and totems left on corners to commemorate the dead.

Through it all, Tony is like a light, beating back the encroaching darkness with a hand around Peter’s wrist, tugging him on to the next thing with a wink and a “You need to see this …”

When the sun begins to set, they head into a restaurant that looks a little ramshackle from the outside, but inside is cozy with a balcony looking out onto one of the minor canals – pink sky reflecting onto the green water.

As soon as they’re inside, a  matchstick of a man man with deeply tanned skin and a shock of silver hair rushes Tony shouting “Antony!”

“Giorgio!” Tony exclaims, clapping the man on the back. “Come sta tua moglie? Come va, vecchio mascalzone?”

“Me?” The man asks, laughing. “E tu?”

He cranes his neck around Tony to look Peter up and down, raising an eyebrow at Tony.

The two continue to bicker back and forth in Italian while they’re led to a table on the balcony, and Giorgio leaves without taking their order.

“A friend of yours?” Peter asks when they’re alone.

“Family, actually,” Tony replies. “Some second cousin a few times removed, or something. Giorgio was fond of my mother. I helped finance this place, so I guess he’s a little fond of me, too. Not that you’d know it from the way he talks to me.”

“Like you’d know what to do if he said something nice about you,” Peter says, muffling his voice by taking a sip from his water glass.

“Don’t analyze me, Parker. That road goes both ways.”

That’s … Fair. And the last thing that Peter wants is Tony looking any deeper into the way he’s been acting. He waves his napkin at Tony in surrender. 

“Your cousin didn’t leave us any menus,” Peter notes. “You haven’t made him angry enough not to feed us, have you? Insulting his mother or something? I can’t really tell when you speak Italian.” 

“Did it sound like I insulted his mother?” Tony asks, leaning forward with his chin in his hands, lips quirking up in a smirk.

When you speak Italian, it just sounds like sex to me, Peter wants to say. It’s the truth, after all. But probably unwise to say out loud.

“Foreign languages can be deceptive,” is what he opts for instead. “And he didn’t seem so sure about me. You both might have been talking shit. How would I know?” 

Tony chuckles at that.

“It’s me he’s not sure of. Giorgio was quick to let me know doesn’t think I should be dating men 30 years younger than me.”

Peter’s heart gives a traitorous jump in his chest, and he tries to splutter out a reply.

“Don’t worry,” Tony assures before he can come up with any response. “I set him straight. He was very relieved.” 

“Right,” Peter says, ignoring the twinge of disappointment he feels. “Right. Of course. Wouldn’t want anyone thinking that.”

A silence falls over the table. For Peter it’s an awkward silence, his face heating in embarrassment for feeling so many things he absolutely shouldn’t. But across from him, Tony doesn’t seem phased. His fingers are drumming a rhythm on the scarred wood, and he’s looking out to the water, watching boats pass in the thickening twilight.

Peter’s put out of his misery when Giorgio returns with a tray laden with dishes, which he piles to the edge of their table before offering Tony a bottle of wine.

“So,” Tony says, surveying the spread. “I can vouch for the risotto. It’s the best in the city. The octopus is also top-notch. But be careful with desserts. He likes to get a little experimental.”

He pours generous glugs of dark chianti into both their glasses, lowering his voice to a whisper when he talks about Giorgio’s desserts.

The risotto is definitely the best Peter’s ever tasted, creamy and rich with parmesan and porcini. His bowl is empty before Tony’s had even a few spoonfuls of his own. 

“I was hungry,” Peter says, when Tony raises and eyebrow at him.

“Oh no, I know how you inhale food,” the other man says, gesturing in front of him. “That’s why I had him bring half the kitchen. Gotta feed that spider-fueled metabolism.”

Which is true. So while Tony eats his risotto, Peter digs into arancini, balsamic-drizzled bruschetta and even, with a little coaxing, the octopus. It’s surprisingly sweet and tender, with a pleasant chili kick.

They kill the bottle of wine between them, and finish with coffee and an unexpectedly delicious matcha almond tiramisu. It all leaves Peter feeling warm and satiated, increasingly tempted to let his hand move forward just a few inches to tangle his fingers with Tony’s.

He resists.

When they leave the restaurant, a fingernail sliver of a moon has risen overhead, and the stars are bright pinpricks in the sky. A warm breeze blows in from the ocean as they walk along an abandoned canal.

“So, today was a good day, right?” Tony says.

Peter gives him a quizzical look.

“It was good day,” he confirms, gratified as he watches a smile creep over Tony’s face. 

It has been a good day. Surprisingly so. But there’s something about it that’s been niggling at the back of his mind.

“Are you ever gonna tell me what today was all about, though?” Peter asks. 

He can sense the other man stiffen beside him. 

“People go on vacation all the time, Pete,” Tony says, tone measured, careful.

“Sure, people,” Peter allows. “But not you. You still had an IV strapped to your arm the first time I caught you in the lab after …” 

He flounders. He always hates talking about the time before they brought Tony back. What’s he supposed to say? Oh, you know, Mr. Stark, after you died. 

“You don’t take vacations, sir. Is all I’m saying. There has to be a reason you decided to just pick up and go to Venice.” 

Tony sighs, rubs a hand over his face.

“Look, kid,” he starts, sounding beleaguered. “We can just keep having a good night, you know? There’s gotta be a club somewhere in this city that won’t be interminable. We could go dancing.”

The idea surprises a laugh of Peter. He cannot imagine Tony willingly dancing to EDM at some sticky European nightclub, drinking a water-down 10 Euro cocktail and trying to avoid getting glitter in his beard.

“You’d really rather go clubbing than just tell me the truth?”

Tony shrugs.

“I’m just giving you the option here, Pete. The truth is gonna be way less fun.” 

Peter gives him a flat look. A challenge. 

“I thought you might be like that,” Tony says on a long sigh. 

They walk a little further down the canal, kicking up dust on the narrow walkway and occasionally swaying into each others’ spaces, almost touching.

The longer the silence holds, the more worried Peter gets. He’d thought maybe Tony was trying to keep him away from a fight, or has decided he wants to spend less time with Peter in the lab and is trying to soften the blow. But if either of those was they case, surely he’d just come out and say it.

Panic grips him, runs an electrifying finger down his spine, raising all the hairs on his body. He’s dying, Peter thinks. A complication with the resurrection spell? Residual effects from the palladium poisoning? Something he came in contact with in space?

They’ve wasted an entire day goofing off that could’ve been spent trying to fix whatever’s wrong. All because Tony’s trying to find the nicest way to tell him he’s … 

“No, kid,” a gruff voice breaks through his spiral.

Those dark eyes bore intensely into Peter’s own, putting extra weight behind his words.

“I’m fine. As healthy as I have any right to be. I would tell you.”

“Promise?”

“I promise.”

Tony turns away, breaks the lock of their gazes and paces in a semi-circle, running fingers roughly through his hair. 

They’ve come to a tiny piazza, fronted by a narrow church with a marble façade and high dome. A large circular window at the front reflects the crescent moon, giving the impression of an eye watching them.

There’s a wrought iron fence in front of the canal here, maybe a remnant from a time when the church was under the purview of a few aristocratic families. It’s covered in dripping purple wisteria. An arched entryway leads to stairs that sink down into the water. 

It’s not a place many tourists stumble upon, clearly. There are no restaurant fronts or gelato stands nearby. Just a church with its front steps worn smooth by parishioners over centuries. It seems like a good place for telling secrets.

Peter watches as Tony stills, takes in a fortifying breath and lets it out.

“Ok,” he says. “Ok. So, you don’t usually fall asleep in the lab.”

It feels like a non sequitur, even if it is true. There’s too much stimulation for him to doze off there. He’s generally the kind of person who needs blackout curtains and perfect conditions to get real sleep, so he often opts to crash in one of the tower’s guest rooms if he’s desperate. 

Tony does occasionally just collapse in the lab. Sometimes he’ll be in the middle of a project. He’ll just work until he can’t anymore, and wind up slumped over a workbench. Then Dum-E will remove whatever tool is in his hand, and Peter will carry him up to bed.

He’s always treasured those moments when he gets to see Tony so soft and vulnerable. It feels warming and proprietary to slip the shoes off Tony’s feet, pull a sheet over his body, and sometimes run a finger over his creased forehead, wanting to wipe away the worries. 

“I don’t usually fall asleep in the lab,” Peter agrees, prompting. 

“So I didn’t start out to be nosy,” Tony says. “But last week we were working on final prototypes for the moon lab project, NASA was breathing down our necks to make the deadline, and you were just going to sit down and work on some calculations, right?” 

“Right …”

“But you fell asleep on that grimy couch that Bruce brought in. You were dreaming. And let me tell you, kid, you’re just as much of a chatterbox when you’re sleeping as when you’re awake.” 

It feels like a fist is gripping Peter’s sternum and slowly squeezing. He can see where this is going, and it isn’t good.

“You must have been having a nightmare.”

Not a nightmare. The nightmare. Trapped with Beck in an illusion, watching Tony crawl out of his grave. If you were good enough, maybe Tony would still be alive.

“I always thought our nightmares would be about the same things, you know?” Tony is saying. “But some of the things you were saying didn’t make sense. So I did some research. Hacked into SHIELD’s files.”

Fuck. Then he knows everything. Peter turns away, not wanting to see the disappointment on Tony’s face.

“You should’ve told me, Pete.”

A hand comes up to squeeze his shoulder, but Peter shrugs it away. He doesn’t deserve comfort right now. 

“Told you what, exactly?” Peter asks. His voice is too loud for this place. It echoes off the stones and breaks the peace of it. “Told you that I fucked up the second you weren’t around to supervise me? Told you that I took the gift you left for me when you thought you would die, and gave it to a narcissistic psychopath? That hundreds of people died, and almost so many more, because I wasn’t good enough to carry your legacy?”

Peter’s nose is running, and his eyes are leaking and he hates this. He hates it. He’s always been so grateful that he’s avoided having this specific conversation. To reveal this giant failure.

“I know you believe in me, Mr. Stark,” he says, dully. “But you shouldn’t. And I didn’t want you to know that. I’m sorry.”

He finally turns back to Tony, wiping his nose self-consciously on the back of his hand and looking not at the man in front of him, but at the dusty street.

“No,” Tony says, softly. “I didn’t want you to tell me any of that, because that’s not what happened, kid.”

Peter snorts at that. It’s a bitter sound.

“No offense, sir, but I was there. And you were otherwise occupied.”

“You were targeted,” Tony says, sharply. 

He stalks toward Peter, closing the distance between them in a few short steps, and it becomes clear. This is what he’s been angry about. Not mad at Peter, but for him.

“I put a giant target on your back without even telling you I was doing it,” he says “You were 16 and grieving. And still you managed to take that asshole down. Every bad thing that happened there? That’s on me. And you should’ve told me about it because I would have told you so a thousand times over until you actually believed me.”

Peter doesn’t believe him, but it releases a little bit of pressure in his chest to hear him say it. To at least know that he isn’t ashamed of Peter. Even if he should be.

“I’m so sorry he hurt you,” Tony says, sternly.

He shuffles a little closer. Peter shrugs, feeling the tears building again behind his eyes.

“He only hit me with a train,” he says, wetly. “I catch buses on the regular. It’s almost like he wasn’t trying.”

It’s a beat before he notices that the quality of the stillness between them has changed. When he does, he finally allows himself to look up into Tony’s face. 

He’d meant it as a joke, but apparently that particular detail is new information to Tony. His face is white, hands gripped into fists. 

“You got hit by a train?” His voice comes out in a growl that would terrify Peter if it were directed at him. “I am going to kill Nick Fury. And then I’m going to resurrect him and kill him again. Real slow. You got hit by a train?!?” 

“Yeah,” Peter allows. “But I’m fine now. Happy patched me up. Just a few cuts and bruises.” 

Tony’s lips purse into a thin white line, muscles in his jaw ticking. Peter doesn’t want him to look like that. Not on his account. He tries to shift the subject.

“So this trip was supposed to be what exactly? Immersion therapy? You could’ve warned me, Mr. Stark. I am in actual therapy, you know? It’s slow going, but going.”

“It was stupid,” Tony says, muscles relaxing a little. “I just … I read the files on everything that happened when I was gone, and I wanted to fix it. Somehow. I thought if we came here together … I wanted …” 

He’s struggling to articulate what he wants to say, so Peter steps in. He knows now the intention was kindness. The details don’t really matter. 

“It’s ok,” he says. “You don’t have to.”

Tony shakes his head, refusing the out Peter’s trying to give him.

“I thought if I could bring you back here, make sure we had a good day … I-I wanted to override all those bad memories from before. Make it like they never happened. Replace them with something else. So it would be like I was by your side the entire time. Like I should’ve been. Like I always should be.” 

The feeling those words elicits crashes over Peter like a wave. Suddenly, he can’t breathe. He looks at Tony’s face, contorted in regret and something darker, and flushes. It’s too much. Peter feels too much.

He looks away, eyes catching on the cool, dark water behind iron bars. It looks so soothing, offering relief from the unbearable heat under his skin. He can’t do anything else with it, as much as he wants to reach out to Tony right now. That wouldn’t end well. He can’t. 

Before Peter really registers what he’s doing, he’s pulled his shirt off over his head and turned toward the canal. He hears a sharp intake of breath from Tony, but doesn’t really connect it to anything he’s doing. 

“I think I’ll just, maybe, wash off the dust,” he says, voice vague. 

Peter makes quick work of his shoes and socks, shimmies out of both shorts and underwear in a single move, and then walks down the steps into the water. 

It’s pleasantly cool on his toes, then bracing as he walks in and it creeps up his body. 

A temporary peace comes when he submerges his head under the still surface and just floats there for a long moment, seeing nothing but blackness and hearing nothing but the thrumming of his own pulse in his ears.

When Peter’s head breaches the surface again, Tony’s there in the archway. There’s a heat in his gaze that makes Peter’s pulse spike up another notch.

“You gonna come out of there, Pete?” he asks in a strained tone. 

Peter shakes his head, sending little ripples out across the water. His blood is still unbearably warm, and the air around him is thick and cloying. 

“Well,” Tony says.

Then his hand goes to his throat, and he starts to unbutton his shirt. 

Peter’s eyes go wide in disbelief, fire lighting across his cheeks as he watches Tony Stark undress before him. The shirt slips off his shoulders, revealing strong arms and a wiry chest. Peter’s gaze is drawn inexorably to the sunken place in the middle of Tony’s breastbone where the arc reactor once nestled. It’s the most vulnerable part of him laid open for Peter to see, and his stomach churns at the thought.

He watches as Tony flicks the button open on his pants, kicking them off along with his shoes. It all happens quickly, efficiently, but it feels like an eternity while Tony slips off his underwear and wades into the water toward him.

Peter gets a brief glimpse of a soft cock in a nest of dark hair before it’s covered over once again by the inky blackness of the canal. He licks his lips, tasting the faint salt of the brackish water drying on his skin.

Tony floats toward him, treading water lightly, wavelets lapping at his chest. He stops about a foot away, and Peter sees for the first time how the ugly scarring on his left shoulder transitions into red welts that reach out toward the hollow of the missing reactor. Wielding the stones must have literally burned the heart out of him. Peter wants to soothe the angry looking marks with his fingers, with his tongue. But that’s not his place.

“What’s going on in your head, Pete?” Tony asks softly. 

The only other sound beside his voice is the gentle lap of waves against stone. Peter sinks down into the water until it covers his nose, and only his eyes and head break the surface. He doesn’t want to say, but the look on Tony’s face – concern and affection – implores an answer from him.

He rises up a bit so that he’s covered from only the neck down.

“You shouldn’t say things like that to me,” he rasps. His throat is dry and aching.

“Things like what?” Tony prompts.

“That you want to cover up my bad memories with thoughts of you. It-it’s too much. You shouldn’t say things like that. Not when you don’t mean them. Not when you don’t want all of me.”

The last comes out in a rush, and Peter clenches his eyes closed after he says it. He doesn’t want to see the horror in Tony’s eyes when he understands just what Peter has said.

He waits in the dark behind his eyelids for the kind-hearted rejection Tony will give him. Of course he’ll be kind. They’re more gentle with each other now than they once were, a natural reaction of each to losing the other.

Tony doesn’t say anything, but Peter feels careful fingers brush a damp curl off his forehead, sending a trickle of water down his nose and over his lips. He opens his eyes to find the other man has moved closer, just inches from Peter now. He’s so close Peter can feel Tony’s exhalations against his face.

Tony looks into his eyes searchingly, hand coming up to cup the side of Peter’s face, thumb rubbing over the line of his cheekbone. 

“I’m a broken old man, Pete. And you deserve so much better than me. But none of that means that I don’t want all of you.”

His thumb skates down Peter’s face to rest at the corner of his mouth. Peter inhales, wet and shaky, and then he dares, floating forward the scant distance between them to bring their lips together.

It’s a muscle-melting relief when Tony kisses back, both hands coming up to tangle in Peter’s hair, pulling him in closer and rubbing at his temples.

He nips at Peter’s bottom lip, then soothes it with a swipe of his tongue. 

“God, Tony …” Peter whimpers as they break apart.

Tony’s breathing is ragged too, and he tugs at Peter’s hair, sending electric sparks sizzling across his skin. 

It’s only then that Tony seems to realize that he’s got both his hands on Peter. His eyes go from hazy to panicked in an instant, and he starts to pull his left hand away.

“Jesus, Pete, I’ sorry,” he whispers. “I shouldn’t …”

But Peter claps his own hand over Tony’s, keeping him in place and tracing over his knuckles. 

“No, please,” he says, unable to keep the desperation out of his voice. “I want you to touch me.”

Cautiously, he takes a firmer grip on Tony’s scarred hand, pulling it down so that the textured fingers trail along his face. Looking up at Tony for permission, he places a kiss in the center of his red, roughened palm.

“I’ve never wanted anything as much as I want you to keep touching me,” Peter whispers into the tortured skin.

Tony’s eyes are on fire. He moves incomprehensibly fast, tugging at Peter’s arms to move them a few yards down the canal until they’re tucked under a low bridge.

The light here is a subaquatic green, starlight reflecting rippling waves onto the wooden underbelly of the bridge. They’re both breathing heavily, the sound amplified in the enclosed space.

Tony pushes Peter up against the wall, chests pressed warmly together, legs tangling silkily underwater. Their mouths clash together, and when Peter gasps, Tony takes advantage by pressing his tongue in to explore, stroking expertly at all the right places. 

“You have no idea,” he says once he’s transferred his attention to Peter’s neck, sucking at the delicate skin just above his collarbone. “You have no idea how much I wanted you. I didn’t know. You were gone for five years, and I didn’t realize. How could I never have realized how beautiful you were until I saw you on that battlefield?”

The words make Peter moan, and then Tony bites down on his throat. The scream that’s ripped from Peter is soundless. He can’t get enough breath.

“I want to burn away every painful memory you have because of me,” Tony says, claiming Peter’s mouth again. “Wanna make it right even if it isn’t.” 

“It is right,” Peter insists. “Please, don’t go away again.”

He wraps himself around the other man like an octopus, giving him the responsibility of keeping them afloat as Peter clings. His hard length presses against Tony’s stomach, a delicious pressure. He feels and answering hardness against his ass. 

They flounder in that position, but it feels so good to be that close that Tony has to be the one to put a stop to it, holding Peter out away from him.

“Ok,” he says, panting. “Ok.”

Peter’s laughing at his efforts to compose himself, but the breath is knocked right out of him as Tony spins him around to face the wall, letting his hands slide up Peter’s arms to position them above his head. He places his hands on the stone. 

“Think you can stick here, kid?” he whispers in Peter’s ear, and Peter nods, head all a jumble.

His fingers stick securely, and for a second he just floats there, unsure of what happens next but so, so ready for it. Then he feels Tony’s fingers stroke gently down his flank, tucking himself in close against Peter’s back.

Peter shivers at the light touch, fingers moving from just below his arms down to his thighs. It almost tickles, but the uncertainty of the sensation only serves to further stoke the desire boiling inside of him.

A part of him still doesn’t believe this is happening. It feels too much like a flight of fantasy he might fall into. Or an illusion made just to tempt him to evil.

Tony’s fingers leave his sides, and Peter grumbles at the loss of contact. 

“Right here, sweetheart,” Tony reassures him. “I’m right here. Can you put your thighs together for me?”

He nods, the motion sending droplets from his hair trickling down his face.

Tony’s right arm comes up to wrap around Peter’s chest, hand resting over where Peter’s heart is threatening to beat out of his chest, holding him close.

Peter almost loses control when Tony uses his scarred hand to take hold of his length, stroking firmly. He’s lost to the pleasure of that movement, the little twist Tony gives at the end of each stroke, the way he circles the tip with his thumb.

“J-Jesus,” Peter stutters. 

He’s thinking that maybe nothing will ever feel better than this right now. And then he feels Tony slip between his thighs, insistent. He moans into Peter’s ear, and it’s utterly undeniable that Tony wants this just as much as Peter does.

He would never have believed it was possible, thought the years and the baggage they share would keep them from this. But now it feels like nothing could. Not death, and not propriety, and not years and years of lost time.

Tony’s thrusts are wild, eased by the slickness the water provides. He strokes Peter with the same lack of coordination, but it doesn’t matter because he’s so, so close. Every movement sends ripple out into the water, and their gasps are echoed back at them as they hit the low bottom of the bridge. 

Peter feels surrounded by nothing but Tony, his senses picking up everything and transmuting it all into a single, perfect sensation.

“Fuck, Pete, you feel so good,” Tony says, hoarsely. “Never anything like this.”

He’s stroking mindlessly at Peter’s chest, mouthing messy kisses along his shoulders. And Peter feels that old fear creep into his mind again. It’s too good, isn’t it? Too much of what he always wanted. Ever since Beck there’s this niggling grain of doubt whispering How do you know? How do you really know?

“Tony please,” he begs nonsensically. “Please.”

He doesn’t know how to express what it is he needs.

What he gets in return in a broke-off “Fuck.” Then Tony bites down hard on the meat between his neck and his shoulder and comes, pulling Peter as close a physically possible as he shakes with his release.

The pain of the bite is sharp and deep, a reminder that he is here. This is real. It sears through Peter’s body and blots out doubt. His fingers crack the stone wall as pleasure surges through him.

When Peter comes back to himself, Tony has turned him around, holding him close with a hand stroking through his sodden hair. Their wake is still splashing against the sides of the canal.

“You with me, kid?” Tony asks, looking over Peter’s face in the same way he sometimes does after a battle, checking for damage.

Peter’s head still feels a little spacey.

“I think I might be drunk from that,” he admits, tucking his head against Tony’s chest. He’s already decided he’s not going to stop taking these liberties until Tony tells him to stop.

The water is even nicer now that he’s all blissed out. Peter feels like he could float like this forever.

“So what do you say, kid?” Tony’s voice rumbles through Peter’s body. “Prague next, then Berlin?”

Peter’s mind rebels at the very thought. His stomach flips in supportive protest. He doesn’t want to revisit those dark places or his past self – grief-stricken and helplessly naive. But he wants even less to let Tony go for even a second. And a part of him wants Tony to do exactly what he promised, to rip out those old hurts and replace them with nothing but the two of them side by side. 

In the end, it’s not much of a decision.

“London was also pretty traumatic for me,” he deadpans. “Also, New York has never been a cakewalk.” 

“You make some very valid points,” Tony replies, unreleased laughter ringing in his voice. “We’re kind of a couple of sad sacks. We could be at this for a long time.”

“It’s a lucky thing then,” Peter says. “That I’ll follow you anywhere.”