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He wasn’t sure exactly where he was. Queens, maybe. Roof of some office building. Didn’t know, didn’t care. He let his legs swing idly over the edge, like there weren’t forty stories between him and the ground.
There was something energizing about edging so close to death you could almost touch it. The rush of plummeting from the sky and letting JARVIS pull him up at the very last second, of hurtling straight upwards until the suit rattled and his HUD flashed danger, slow down. No space in his brain to think about anything but the adrenaline coursing through his body and the cold breath of Death on his neck. The only time he felt alive was when he almost wasn’t.
But flying no longer made him feel anything, so he ended up here.
This moment would probably get shoved into one of Tony’s mental filing cabinets of personal mistakes later, under the heading Reckless and Irresponsible. Or maybe You Need to Take Care of Yourself, Tony. Except it wouldn’t, actually, because if he fell there wouldn’t be any filing cabinets anymore. That was a plus.
Was he really debating pros and cons?
Yeah. Yeah, he was.
Pepper would hate this. Which was probably a sign it was a bad idea, because Pepper was usually right about things. But she also liked him, and that was an irrational thing to do, so clearly he couldn’t trust her judgment. He didn’t deserve that, her liking him, didn’t deserve her. He hated, he hated—
Ah. That was an emotion, there.
He wondered what the headlines would say afterwards. Something snappy. The Fall of the Stark Empire, maybe. Falling, there were a lot of plays on words you could make with that. Not that he particularly cared. It was just… something to think about. He was running out of things to think about.
“Really, at this point you're just stalling,” Tony said out loud. “You waiting for something, buddy?”
He didn't think he was afraid. Mostly he just felt numb.
“Mr. Stark?” a voice asked behind him.
A stream of curses flashed through Tony's head.
He tilted his head back and let out a puff of air. Tried to compose himself, to force the dark thoughts out of his head just for a minute so he could talk like a functional human being, but he’d never been good at that. No point in waiting until he was ready to speak.
Just get it over with, he told himself. Just say something, come on. Life's not gonna wait around for you to get your act together.
“What's going on? What are you doing here?” he tried to say, but that was too many words for his mouth to handle and he didn't really care anyway. “You need something, kid?” he called instead, and he could hear the exhaustion tugging at the edges of his own voice.
“No… no, I…” Peter’s voice hesitated behind him. “I was just swinging around, y’know, seeing if anyone needed help from a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, and then I looked up and saw you just sitting there on the roof, and I just… I was wondering if you’re, if you’re—”
Tony was pretty much never annoyed by Peter’s rambling, or by anything the kid did, to be honest, but tonight he just really, really wanted this conversation over. “If I’m what,” he said flatly. “Spit it out. I don’t have all night.”
“I was just wondering if you’re okay?”
There was a pause.
“You swung all the way over here just to ask if I was okay?” Tony snorted.
He heard Peter’s shoe scuff the ground. “I—yeah, I guess. S—sorry.” Like he had anything to be sorry about. This kid was a better person than Tony could ever be. “But… are you? Okay, I mean?”
Was he okay. What a question. “Isn’t it past your curfew?”
“What—no! I wouldn’t—it’s Friday, it’s not a school night, so my curfew is later… wait, you’re trying to change the subject, aren’t you. That’s not gonna work on me, Mr. Stark.” The kid’s footsteps drew closer to Tony. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Peter lower himself to the ground beside him and rip off his mask.
So this was a sitting down conversation. Great.
He heard Peter inhale, but didn’t turn to look. “Just answer the question, Mr. Stark. Please.”
“When did you get so demanding, squirt?” Tony said without any real fire. He pitched his voice higher. “Just answer the question, Mr. Stark—”
“Mr. Stark—”
“Yeah, yeah, I know.” Tony sighed. “Kid, I have so many issues I’d give a shrink a heart attack. I don’t think I even know what okay is.”
Wow, he sounded pathetic. This is a great time for a witty deflection, Tony informed his brain, but his brain just went unnnngh and stopped working. What was the point of being a genius if you couldn't think half the time? He wanted a refund.
Peter hesitated. “Do you… want to talk about it?”
“About what, my feelings?” Tony snorted. “No.”
“Will you at least come inside? It’s dark out.”
He wasn’t sure he had the energy to get up and go inside even if he wanted to. “I like it outside.”
“No, you don’t,” Peter said. “You said, and I quote, ‘Outside? What’s that? Does it have super cool awesome robots, because I don’t think so. I’m not leaving my lab for the next year and nothing can convince me otherwise.’ That was when you hadn’t gone out of the compound for two weeks and I was worried you were going to get a vitamin D deficiency.”
“I’m staying here.”
Peter’s voice wavered. “You’re scaring me a little, Mr. Stark.”
“I’m fine,” Tony groaned. “I don’t know why you care so much.”
“Of course I care!" Peter said, and from the way he bit his lip Tony could tell he knew. Cue the obligatory worried speech. "You’re, like, my idol, you know that? You’re hilarious and freaking genius and also kind of intimidating if I’m being honest—”
Tony sighed. “Kid—”
“No,” Peter interrupted, “you need to hear this. You're always protecting me, and okay, it's kind of annoying, but also it, uh, means a lot. You… you care. You gotta give yourself some credit for that, Mr. Stark. ’Cause you care, and I can trust you—”
“Parker—”
“—and you’re super selfless, I know you like to pretend you aren’t but like, the nuke? That you flew into the wormhole? I saw that on TV and I literally stopped breathing until they said you were okay, and I was like, I’m never gonna be that brave —”
“Stop,” Tony half-shouted, gritting his teeth. “Just stop.”
The kid finally shut up.
Tony forced his breathing to slow down. “You don’t get,” he said, his voice shaking, “to act like I’m this perfect hero. You don’t get to act like you care about me. I’m done with all that, okay? I’m done. I’m not… whoever it is you’re describing. That’s not me. You’re either lying or stupid and we both know you’re not stupid. So quit the pretending.”
“I’m not pretending,” Peter said. “Why would I—?”
Because of my labs, my money, how would I know, Tony thought, there’s always a reason, I just never see it until it’s too late because I’m such an egotist I can’t accept the fact that no one would ever tolerate being around me unless I had something they wanted—
But this wasn’t Obie, this wasn’t Steve, this was Peter. The kid didn’t want anything from him and that was almost worse.
“Because you’re so kind,” Tony said instead. “Because you’re so ridiculously good you can’t—” His throat closed up. The guilt choked him, it bubbled up into his throat and he was drowning in it because this kid deserved so, so much better than him. “You don’t… you don’t have to do that, okay? I know you’re just trying to help, but I’d rather you hated me than forced yourself to be around me. That’s… that’s worse.”
Peter's lips parted, but Tony cut him off. "Just go away. Beat it," he said sharply, and searing hot hatred lashed out like a whip because this kid was so good and he hated it, hated that there were still things out there that could make him feel something resembling okay-ness because he didn't deserve to be okay. He was shouting now, the words ripping themselves out of his mouth; he didn't know exactly what he was yelling, only that he really, really wanted Peter to stay and that was why he needed to go.
The way Peter's face contorted was a knife to the gut and that was good, one more reason to jump. Once the kid left, he could do it. Once the kid left.
But the kid wasn't leaving why wasn't he leaving.
Tony felt a hand touch his arm and he froze. “Hey,” Peter said quietly, and something inside Tony melted because this kid just wouldn’t stop caring and maybe, maybe that meant it was real. “I know your mind won't let you believe it right now, but you deserve to be okay. You deserve so much more than that. You're—” He swallowed. “You're a really good person, okay? Like, probably my favorite person. Except for maybe Aunt May. And also MJ because she'd kill me if I said otherwise. I just, I wish you could see yourself the way I see you.” His voice broke. “Me caring about you, that’s one hundred percent real.”
Processing error, Tony’s brain informed him. His insides twisted around each other; he felt shaky and paper-thin, like a house of cards that would fall in any direction with the slightest touch. “Don't start crying on me,” his mouth drawled automatically, and then he glanced over and realized the kid actually might.
Error 404. Emotion not found.
“I'm not going to cry,” Peter hiccuped. The liar. “It's, it's just, I need you. If you… weren't around anymore, I'd think about it every day, and I guess I'd move on eventually but I'd never really get over it. I'd miss you. A lot. I don’t know if that's selfish, I’m not trying to guilt trip you or anything, but… the world is better with you in it. My life is better with you in it. Just so you know.”
Tony exhaled, long and shaky, and stared out at the stars.
He tried to imagine that: someone being happier, just because he existed. The net happiness levels being just a little higher in the versions of reality where Howard and Maria Stark had decided to have a son.
The world is better with you in it. He wasn’t sure he’d ever believe it.
But he was so, so tired. Tired of the constant war with his own mind; tired of resisting every want and need because of some vague conviction that he didn’t deserve it. Peter cared, he thought. People cared. Maybe they saw something he couldn’t. Maybe he was the blind one, not them.
For a genius, he could be pretty dumb sometimes.
“Thanks, kid,” he said quietly.
The tension faded from Peter’s shoulders. “Any time, Mr. Stark.”
The corner of Tony’s mouth quirked into something that was not quite a smile.
He wasn’t going to be able to erase this with an annoying joke, was he. The kid had already seen.
His fingers itched to call the suit. Let the helmet snap over his face and transform into Iron Man: invincible, impenetrable, alone. Flashy hot rod red that drew every eye, because if they were watching the suit they weren’t watching the man falling apart inside.
Tony dug his nails into his palm until it hurt.
“It feels like everything is draining out of me.”
He let the words float over the skyline, half-hoped they wouldn’t reach Peter’s ears. “Like everything I hold onto just… slips through my fingers. And I try to catch it, and I can’t.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Peter glance at him.
“I keep thinking, this can’t get any worse. And then it does. I don’t… I don’t know what to do anymore. I’m messed up. I know I should be, like, taking vitamins or meditating or something, but I just… don’t. It’s like I don’t even want to be okay.”
Peter was quiet for a minute. “May has depressive episodes,” he said eventually. “Like, she’s on meds and stuff. Sometimes it goes away for a few months or years, but it’s kinda just something she has to deal with.”
Tony wasn’t mentally ill. He wasn’t. He was just… fundamentally incapable of doing life.
“And you know what helps her? Therapy. And meds. And a support network.” Peter’s eyes stayed locked on Tony. “Screw meditating. Of course you’re not going to start making lifestyle changes when you can’t even get out of bed in the morning. You’re not going to want to be okay when you don’t know what that feels like. This isn’t your fault.”
Peter’s gaze grew unfocused.
“Sometimes it feels like the good things always leave,” he said quietly, and somehow Tony got the impression they weren’t talking about May anymore. “Sometimes you don’t know if you can keep going.” His eyes flicked up to Tony’s. “But then new good things come. And you’re glad you didn’t give up.”
Tony didn’t think he could get words around the lump in his throat.
“It gets better, Mr. Stark. I promise.”
He nodded, a quick jerk of the head. It was a pathetic acknowledgement of whatever this was, this fragile power that Peter had given him. He thought maybe it was hope.
Hesitantly, he lifted his hand and rested it against Peter’s shoulder blades. The kid leaned into the touch just a little.
“You ready to go inside?”
“Yeah,” Tony whispered. Firmer. “Yeah.”
Peter got to his feet and extended a hand.
Tony gripped the kid’s hand and let Peter help him up, and he wasn't exactly sure how it happened but he found himself with arms wrapped around him and his chin on Peter's shoulder and an armful of teenager hugged tightly to his chest. He squeezed his eyes shut and breathed in: shakily, shallowly, but he could breathe. He could breathe. He could still feel it, all the guilt and self-hatred and emptiness chipping him into dust; he was still broken, fractured, but at the parts of him that were touching Peter he was whole.
This kid, Tony thought, and tasted saltwater on his lips. This kid.
He still didn't exactly know what okay meant, but he thought it was something like this.
An echo of guilt wormed its way into his gut, and he let his arms fall back to his sides. “I’m sorry. You’re my—” Son. “protégé. I’m supposed to be the one protecting you, that’s my job.”
"And I'm a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man," Peter said. "This is my job." He frowned. “Okay, that didn’t really make sense. But, like, I’ve done this before. I mean, it’s not usually my, uh, mentor, but… yeah. I’ve done this before.”
“Still.”
“Mr. Stark,” Peter said firmly, “you spend all your time protecting everyone else. Somebody’s gotta protect you.” He leaned his head on Tony’s shoulder, and the touch sent an electric current of IloveyouItrustyouIloveyou through Tony’s whole body. “You protect the world and I protect the little guy and we protect each other and then everyone’s happy.” Peter yawned. “Wow, protect doesn’t even sound like a word anymore.”
Tony swallowed and drew an arm around Peter’s shoulder. “Sounds good,” he said hoarsely, squeezing the kid to his side. And it did.