Chapter Text
“Here,” Tony held out one of the last bags of food, nudging it into Peter’s shoulder when the kid didn’t take it straight away, “eat.”
Peter shook his head. He was still in the Iron Spider suit, the nanites glimmering in the low emergency lights. Tony had barely seen him out of it since leaving Earth, even though he knew that the original suit was underneath it. He wondered if it was a safety thing, if the kid was trying to use it as a barrier between him and the harsh, far-too-adult reality they were staring in the face.
If he’s wrapped in a shell, nothing can hurt him.
“I’ve already eaten today,” the kid finally muttered.
Tony resisted the urge to sigh. After all, it’d be a waste of oxygen. “Yeah, that was lunch, and now it’s dinnertime. C’mon, Parker, we haven’t been away from Earth long enough for you to forget something as basic as mealtimes, right?”
The joke fell flat. It was, admittedly, a pretty bad one, but Peter usually laughed at nearly anything he tried. Now, though, the kid just turned to stare up at him with glassy eyes. “I know we’re almost out of food.” He nodded to the bag. “We need to save it.”
“Who told you that?” He shook his head as soon as he finished asking. “You know what? Never mind. Stupid question. Of course it was Little Blue-Peep. Damn it, I told her we weren’t telling you-”
“Telling me what? That we’re gonna die out here?” Peter’s voice wasn’t harsh, resentful. It was just… accepting. Hopeless in a way that made every fiber of Tony’s being recoil. No voice that young should ever sound that jaded, that world-weary. “I already know, Mister Stark. I mean, I’m not an idiot.”
There was nothing he could say to that, because it wouldn’t be fair to lie to the kid at this point, and Peter had already spoken the truth. To repeat it would only be added cruelty.
Instead, he lowered himself down beside the kid, rested his back against the cockpit’s wall and tried not to look out at the stars that would be their burial ground. Then, he pressed the bag of food back into Peter’s lap. “Please eat.”
Tony could see the request land strangely with the kid, saw his eyes flicker uncomfortably as he tried to dissect it. The kid knew what Tony did: Tony Stark never said please, never begged, never cajoled. He just… ordered. He told Peter what to do, the behavior he expected. Kid, that’s the wizard, get on it. Pete, you gotta let go, I’m gonna catch you. I don't wanna hear another single pop culture out of you for the rest of the trip, you understand?
“But you need to eat, too,” the kid finally said.
“I won’t starve, kid. Trust me.”
“You can’t… you can’t just make more food when we’re in space, Mister Stark.” There was a hint of hysteria in Peter’s voice, and, god, the kid wasn’t trained for this. He shouldn’t even be here. He was supposed to be stopping bicycle thefts and eating churros, not dying in the arms of a nebula with only his jaded mentor and a homicidal android for company. “I won’t be the reason you don’t eat.”
“Peter,” he murmured, and the kid froze. That was another thing he never did: use Peter’s name, his actual name, “our oxygen is going to run out in a few days anyway. I’m not going to starve.”
Peter blinked up at him, mouth open as if to argue, and then he deflated. “Oh.”
He sat in silence for a few breaths, painfully conscious of how precious each one truly was, then Tony flicked the bag, which was still sitting untouched in Peter’s lap. “Eat, Parker. I’m not watching you die on an empty stomach.”
“What about you?”
Nobody cares about me.
“You don’t worry about me, squirt.” He poked the kid’s shoulder. “That’s my job.”
And he couldn’t help but feel like he’d failed at it miserably.
--
“He is dying.”
Tony flicked his paper football in Nebula’s direction, muffled a curse when he missed the goal, and tried not to look at the cot where Peter was sleeping, covered by a thin blanket, just a few feet away. “Yeah, well,” he cleared his throat, “we all are.”
Nebula’s eyes were creepy. They seemed to stare right through him, like the depth of the sea, the places where humans shouldn’t go. “I can survive longer than you two. My systems need only minimal sustenance and oxygen to function.”
“Well, woohoo for you.” She took a shot at his goal, and it sailed straight through. “Bet you can’t wait to be rid of us.”
“I do not want you to die,” she replied easily. “Nor will I take any pleasure in the death of your child.”
“What a sweet sentiment.”
Despite his earlier reservations, he found his eyes trailing over to Peter, baby-faced and too fucking young to be fading like this. Too young to have been caught up in Tony’s trajectorial decay.
It hit him all at once that Peter would be perpetually young. He would never grow old, never lose the stutter in his speech, never kiss a girl, a boy, or a healthy mix of both. He would die like this: sixteen, brilliant, and just three gasps out from a life he should’ve had.
“You are afraid.”
The words dragged his attention away from the bed and back to Nebula. “What makes you think that?”
“I have seen many men die.” The way she said it sent shivers down his spine. Like this was a fact of life, the witnessing of mortality. Like death didn’t occur behind closed doors, wasn’t discussed in hushes and innuendoes. “They are always afraid.”
He didn’t like what that implied about Peter. Or, rather, he didn’t like how that confirmed the thing Tony had known for days, weeks.
Peter was terrified. He was a child, he was staring death in the face, and he was terrified.
“Aren’t you afraid?” He asked, voice rough, desperate to steer the conversation in a direction that didn’t involve his failures.
“I have not been afraid to die for a long time.”
Yeah, Tony thought, bitter smile forming on his lips, I thought that, too.
--
He recorded a message for Pepper while Peter was distracted.
He didn’t even think to let the kid make one for May, but he should’ve.
He should’ve.
--
He didn’t remember falling asleep. He didn’t remember the past few hours at all, actually, but he was roused just vaguely by the feeling of cool, metal hands touching his face, moving him. He didn’t have the energy, the breath, the anything to resist, just let his body slump into the touch and his mind drift.
There was a part of him that knew that this was death. Or, at least, a part of him that knew that this was the beginning of death. He’d stepped a foot over the edge, and now he was falling.
It was funny, in a morbid sort of way, how he was too tired to care.
He was propped up against something hard. The edges of metal rubbed into his back, a distant discomfort that he barely even registered. Footsteps retreated, shuffled, returned.
Something warm was settled against his chest. Something gangly and firm and distinctly human shaped.
Peter.
The same robotic hands as before guided Tony’s arms up and around the kid, and there was a part of him still coherent enough to be thankful, to process the absolute tragedy that was playing out in real-time.
The oxygen was too thin, the days of starvation and dehydration throwing everything in double speed. Nebula would last longer than they would, still had some strength, and she was using it to lay this child in his arms, to ensure that neither of them succumbed to the inevitable alone.
He felt himself slipping again, felt Peter’s hair tickle his chin. The kid wasn’t moving, but he was warm, limp and soft. His breaths pushed up against Tony’s own ribs, steady and slow. He hadn’t given in yet, then. He was still alive. Still young. Still Peter.
He wondered if this was a hug. He wondered if that first one, that stupid blunder in the car, could count too.
He found that he didn’t really like the idea of their first and last hug being one and the same.
--
Light flooded against Tony’s face: a kind of light that he hadn’t seen since Earth. Since home. Bright, beautiful, burning.
His eyes flickered open on more instinct than conscious intention. For a moment, his vision whited out, too overcome to focus.
It said a lot about his life that he was only mutedly surprised when the source of the glow turned out to be a woman, staring down at him with an expression full of fondness.
Peter shifted against him with a groan, legs kicking weakly. Without really thinking, Tony set a hand on the top of his head, and the kid stilled.
The woman smiled. “Need a lift?”
It took Tony three tries to wrestle his parched vocal cords into submission.
“Yeah,” he rasped, blinking a few times to see if the whole thing was some bullshit hallucination, “yeah, do you mind?”
“Not a bit.”
And then she was gone, the ship shuddered, creaked, moved.
The stars spun, and Tony had to shut his eyes against a wave of nausea, burying his face into Peter’s hair and swallowing back bile. It was his first taste of motion in weeks. A re-echo of hope.
With Peter’s limp weight pinning him down, Tony promised himself that he would never go to space again.
--
Steve and Rhodey met them at the edge of the Milano’s ramp.
Nebula had to half-carry him off the ship. To save his pride, he assured himself that if he hadn’t been supporting Peter’s mostly-delirious weight, he could’ve easily walked on his own.
He also told himself that he handed Peter off to Rhodey because he trusted him with the kid, and not because he was too weak to resist.
Steve grabbed him, slid an arm around his waist and hoisted him up. It was the closest they’d been since… since before. Since Siberia. Since the sting of betrayal had become another pillar in Tony’s mansion in the sand.
“Tony,” he whispered.
He didn’t know how to respond to that tone, how to process the genuine relief in Steve’s voice, so he fell into something more familiar: guilt. “I couldn’t stop him.”
The set of Steve’s jaw stiffened. “Neither could I.”
He realized, a little belatedly, that Peter had been moved somewhere out of his sight, and he made a pitiful effort to free himself of Steve’s grasp to get back to him. “The kid. The-The kid. I came with a kid.”
“Right here, Tones.” Rhodey appeared at his side, Peter’s arm slung over his shoulder. The kid’s eyes were open and semi-focused, so Tony took that as a win. Let some of the tension resting in his muscles recede. “I’ve got him.”
“Pep?” She should be here. She would be here. It had been long enough, right? She would’ve come to the epicenter, gone reaching for the broken ends of the world and started gluing them back together. Pepper didn’t know how to let wreckage stay wrecked. Hell, look what she’d done with him. “Where’s Pepper?”
Steve and Rhodey shared a look that Tony understood immediately but refused to process, couldn’t process, would never be capable of truly processing.
No.
“Let’s… Let’s get you inside, Tony,” Steve just said, grip around his waist tightening.
“Steve?” No. You know what? Fuck Steve. He tried to tear away from him again, this time with significantly more vigor, and let his gaze fix on Rhodey. “Rhodey, where the fuck is Pepper?”
The man just shook his head, face stone but eyes bleeding pity. “Fifty percent of everyone, Tones. I’m… I’m so sorry.”
“No. No. No.” Steve’s grip went from supportive to restraining in a heartbeat, and he threw himself against the steel-still arms. He didn’t know what he planned to do if he escaped. He just knew that he had to. “No, she’s- maybe she went underground. Have you checked that? Checked-Checked the safe houses? There’s tons. I-there’s gotta be-”
Rhodey was still shaking his head, still denying, still toppling everything Tony had built his life on. “She was in a crisis meeting with twelve security reps, Tony. I reviewed the security footage myself. I’m so fucking sorry, man, but she’s… she got picked.”
The fight left him in a heartbeat. Everything around him warped, blurred. All he could see was her. Her hands in his hair, on his chest, down his back. Her perfume, her shampoo. Her voice, her eyes, the way she always kept a stylus tucked in the front pocket of her blazer. Pepper. Pepper. His Pepper.
I have to protect the one thing that I can't live without. That's you.
He’d never wanted to see a world without Pepper Potts in it.
“Tony. Tony.” Rhodey grabbed his face, jerked it up until their eyes met. “Listen to me, man. You gotta…” He trailed off, shaking his head so minutely that Tony almost didn’t see it. “We’re gonna survive this, okay? But we have to go inside, we have to regroup. You need medical treatment, we need to-”
“I decline,” he rasped. “Don’t… Don’t fucking treat me. Just, just let me…”
Just let me die.
“Tony,” Rhodey tilted his head until he was staring at Peter, head hanging low, barely conscious, barely alive, “Tony, look. Take a look around you. Don’t do this now, okay? Please.”
Don’t do this in front of him.
He sagged against Steve’s chest. An emptiness was spreading inside him, the kind of void that was all-consuming. He wouldn’t survive this abyss. All it would take was time.
“Alright,” he whispered. “Fine. Fine. Just… let’s… let’s regroup.”
The words were hollow. Then again, so was he.
They staggered towards the distant Compound, Rhodey leading the way. He glanced back at Tony after a minute, adjusting his grip on Peter.
“We’re gonna figure this out, Tony. I promise.”
He nodded, but it felt like a lie. Rhodey’s promise wouldn’t make a difference. This time, there was no stringing the world back together.
Not when they were missing half the pieces.
--
Steve and Rhodey dragged them both inside. A good bit of the original team seemed to have been spared. Steve, Rhodey, Natasha, Bruce, Thor. Nobody had heard from Clint, yet.
Steve forced him into a wheelchair, and he only allowed it so that Peter, who was starting to rouse a little bit more as the minutes passed, wouldn’t fight it. Rhodey hooked them both up to fluids, giving Tony a stern warning to leave the damn IV alone, y’hear me? before stepping back to check Peter’s vitals.
“So,” Tony finally croaked, stilling his shaking hands by gripping the sides of his wheelchair, trying to push the never-ending flash of Pepper into the back of his mind, “damage report?”
Natasha sighed. “It’s been 23 days since Thanos came to Earth. World governments are… in pieces. The parts that are still working are trying to take a census and it looks like he did… well, he did exactly what he said he was gonna do. Thanos wiped out 50% of all living creatures.”
I knew that, Tony thought. I watched it happen. I waited for it to take me. Or, even worse, I waited for it to take the kid.
He swallowed, adrenaline making his voice shaky, breathless. “Where is he now? Where?”
“We don’t know.” Steve’s voice made an angry fire light through Tony’s veins. “He just… opened a portal and walked through.”
He had to redirect before he lost it, before he had a breakdown, before he lunged out of his seat and threw a punch to Steve’s perfect nose. He pointed at Thor, who was sulking in a corner, in a frenzy, half interested and half desperate for distraction. “What’s wrong with him?”
“Oh, he’s pissed.” The raccoon responded, because of course there was a talking racoon now. “He thinks he failed. Which, of course, he did, but, y’know, there’s a lot of that going around, ain’t there?”
Yeah, there is.
The guilt was too much. The loss was too much. The concept of never holding Pepper again was just too fucking much.
“Honestly,” he quipped, bringing the sarcasm up like a shield, “until this exact second, I thought you were a Build-A-Bear.”
“Maybe I am.”
Steve sighed, brushing off Tony’s diversion just like he always did. “We’ve been hunting Thanos for three weeks now. Deep space scans and satellites, and we’ve got nothing.” Their eyes met, and there was something vulnerable and honest about the way Steve was staring at him that made the whole situation sit worse in his gut. “Tony, you fought him.”
He nearly laughed, hysteria rising. “Who told you that? I didn’t fight him, no, he wiped my face with a planet while the Bleeker Street magician gave away the store.” He took a shaky breath. “That’s what happened. There’s no fight, because-”
Steve cut him off, exasperated. Exasperated, like Tony hadn’t just watched everything slip through his fingers. Like the one goddamn thing he needed to survive hadn’t just been torn out of his hands. Like his grief was the tantrum of a child, a digression that needed to be corrected. “Did he give you any clues? Any coordinates? Anything?”
Tony brought a hand up to his temple, made the most childish noise he could think of, then let his voice fall solemn, hard. “Y’know, I saw this coming a few years back.” The anger was pushing against his teeth, the backbreaking strain of I told you so aching in his throat. “I had a vision, I didn’t wanna believe it. I thought I was dreaming.”
“Tony,” and, of course, there was Steve, all misplaced American spirit and heroism, “I’m gonna need you to focus.”
“And I needed you.” He spat. For the first time since the conversation began, Peter flinched beside him, looking up from where he’d been picking at his IV with wide eyes. It was almost enough to make Tony stop, step back, regroup. Almost. “As in, past tense. That trumps what you need.” His voice broke, and he did nothing to hide it. “It’s too late, buddy.” He paused, vision blurring with fury and exhaustion. “Sorry.”
He really wasn’t.
In a sudden rush of bone-grinding rage, he lashed out. Knocked down everything in front of him, heard the clatter and, god, it felt good. The breaking. The shattering. That’s what he wanted to do to Steve, to the team, to himself. It’s what Thanos had done to the world, after all. Why didn’t they just save him the effort of finishing the job?
“You know what I need?” He lunged drunkenly to his feet, swaying. He shoved off the hand Peter fumbled out for his wrist with only a distant pang of regret. “I need a shave.”
He was distantly aware of Rhodey rushing closer, saying his name as he tore out his IV in a brutal yank, trying to calm him, but it was all useless. It was all pointless. Pepper was dead. Pepper was gone. They had lost. Why the hell was Steve still acting like there was a chance?
Tony Stark had run out of chances. He just wanted them to leave him alone long enough to die, like he’d always been destined to.
That was the end of his story, right? Death. It’s where he’d been headed all along. One last sacrifice, one last defeat. For a while now, his only tether had been Pepper. His love for her, his inability to cause her harm.
But that was gone, now. Nothing to hold him back, nothing to steady himself on.
He staggered a little, but righted himself. “And I believe I remember telling you guys,” he brushed Rhodey’s continued interjections off, pressed forward like this was the last thing he’d ever do, the last words he’d ever speak, “that what we needed was a suit of armor around the world, remember that? Whether it impacted our precious freedoms, or not, that’s what we needed.”
The look on Steve’s face was just as patronizing as he’d expected it to be, and his tone matched. “Well that didn’t work out, did it?”
“I said we’d lose.” He pointed an accusing finger in Steve’s direction. This was the strongest he’d felt in weeks, in months, in years. He was sure that he could tear the soldier apart with his bare hands, no suit needed. “You said, we’ll do that together, too. And guess what, Cap? We lost, and you weren’t there.” Tony felt himself start to stumble. Rhodey stepped forward to steady him, still murmuring his name, still trying to talk him down. “That’s what we do, right?” He pressed on. “Our best work after the fact? The Avengers? We’re the Avengers, not the Prevengers. Right?”
“You made your point,” Rhodey begged, hands firm and steady on his chest, “now just sit down, okay?”
“No, no, here’s my point.” He switched his attention to the new girl, the girl with the light, as Rhodey worked to wrestle him back into the wheelchair. “She’s great, by the way.” She took the praise silently, expression unreadable. “We need you. You’re new blood.” He finally broke away from Rhodey’s grip and stalked towards Steve, pushing himself right up in his face. “We’re a bunch of tired old meals, I got nothing for you, Cap.”
Who did Steve Rogers think he was, anyway?
Who the hell were any of them? A bunch of sad, washed-up failures.
A dying breed. Something that should’ve been extinguished a long, long time ago.
He could see that, now. Saw it clearer than he’d ever seen anything else in his life. The Avengers weren’t heroes, weren’t humanity’s greatest defense. They were the problem.
Maybe they always had been.
“I got no coordinates,” he snarled, breath coming in short pants, “no clues, no strategies, no options, zero, zip, nada. No trust.”
He was distantly aware of the adrenaline deserting him, of the shaking in his limbs becoming overwhelming, of the lights blurring in the periphery of his vision, but he pushed it aside, stared right into Steve’s eyes with as much hatred as he could muster.
“Liar,” he spat.
He tore off the nanotech housing unit, the pain of wires tearing from flesh only vaguely registering, and shoved it into Steve’s palm, hoping with everything he had that he’d mustered up enough force for the impact to hurt, to sting.
“Here,” he growled, “take this. You find him, you put that on, you hide.”
In a blink, the world spun. One second, he was standing. The next, his knees were making rough contact with the floor. Over the rushing in his ears, he thought he heard Steve cry out his name in aborted alarm.
“I’m fine,” he snapped, knowing with every fiber of his being that he could never be fine again. “I’m-”
The world dropped out from underneath him.
--
When Tony first woke up, he purposefully didn’t move.
He knew, from the sterile smell and the distinct beeping of a heart monitor, that he was in the MedBay. And from the memories he drudged up from the haze in his head, the context of how he got there wasn’t difficult to deduce.
“Tony,” Rhodey’s voice was quiet, but firm, “I know you’re awake.”
He hated having his vitals posted up where everyone could see them. It really cramped his vibe.
“Hey, Rhodes,” he croaked, still not opening his eyes.
“Hey to you too, man.”
He decided to focus on just about the only thing he actually gave a shit about. “Where’s the kid?”
“Open your eyes and find out.”
Well, that was just a low blow.
Still, he forced his gritty eyelids open, squinting at the light, and dragged his gaze around the room until it landed on a couch in the corner.
Peter Parker was curled up there, fast asleep, covered by a thin hospital-issue blanket and head resting on a throw pillow. Someone had dragged an IV stand next to him, and Tony could just barely see the dressing for the cannula on the back of the kid’s hand.
“Is he alright?” Tony whispered.
“Define alright.”
He pulled his eyes back to Rhodey, who was sitting in a plastic chair placed right beside his bed. His concern for the kid’s safety was pushing uncomfortably at the ever-hungry grief that had taken up a permanent residence in his chest. “What do you mean by that?”
“You know, you two are too damn alike for your own good.” Rhodey dragged a hand down the front of his face, words laced with the kind of exhaustion that Tony could relate to. The exhaustion of defeat. “Once you passed out, the kid nearly had a breakdown of his own. He actually held off on it, though, until he asked for his aunt and we had to tell him. We just sedated both of you, after that. Seemed easier that way.”
Something cold raced through Tony’s body. “Is she…?”
“Yeah. She’s gone, man.” Rhodey leaned forward, expression so serious that it made Tony want to flinch away. “Do you know what that means?”
“What, that the kid’s an orphan all over again?” He scoffed. “He can join the club.”
Rhodey ignored the snark. “Don’t play dumb, Tony. You know exactly what I mean.”
“I really don’t.” He did. Every time he got in the realm of acknowledging it, he flinched away, but he did know, and it terrified him. “Please elaborate.”
Rhodey watched him for a few long, heavy moments. “It means that you’re the last person on Earth who can give that kid what he needs right now.”
“And what’s that?”
“A home,” Rhodey said, as if it was the simplest thing in the world.
He nearly snorted. “I’m the last person that a child needs in his life right now.” He had to bite his lip to stop himself from trembling. “I should’ve died on that ship.”
“If you had,” Rhodey murmured gently, “then Peter would’ve, too.”
“Maybe it would’ve been for the best.” Even as he said it, he knew it wasn’t true. Knew there wasn’t a single version of reality where the world could keep spinning with that kid dead. “I mean, what’s gonna happen to the kid now? Is CPS still a thing? He’s got nowhere to go.”
“What’d I just say, Tony?” Rhodey actually had the gall to look exasperated. “You’re gonna take him.”
“Since when did I agree to that?”
“You’re about to.”
His anger from before sparked back up. It was easier to face the world that way, through a lens of fury. “I don’t plan on being alive by the end of the week, Rhodes, why the hell are you suggesting I take on a child?”
The man flinched at the admission. “You won’t go through with it.”
“Watch me.”
“God, Tony. Listen to me.” Rhodey leaned forward in his seat, folded his hands on the edge of the mattress. “I’m not gonna sit here and feed you some bullshit about everything being alright. You’re too smart for that. But I am gonna give you the facts, and the facts are that you brought that kid into this fight. You did that, Tony. And now he’s all alone, and you’re the only adult left on this planet who can protect him in the aftermath. Even if you don’t keep your ass alive because of anything else, at least do it out of duty.” Or guilt, Tony thought, hands clenching. “You’re the only thing that kid has left. Don’t you dare abandon him now.”
He turned his gaze back to Peter, still sleeping, still blissfully unaware of the horror his life had become.
“I don’t know if I can do it,” he admitted, voice small.
“You have to try.” He could hear Rhodey shift in his seat, a tinge of desperation in his voice. “And if you don’t, I’ll kick your ass, because I know for a fact that that kid is too damn sweet to do it himself.”
Peter shifted a little, nose crumpling up for a just a split second before he resettled, and Tony felt despair sweep through him.
“Oh, god, I have to do this, don’t I?” It was worse when he said it aloud, because the truth in the words shone through, piercingly clear. “I really have to do this. I can’t just…” He looked back at Rhodey, seeking… something from him. Reassurance? Permission? Sympathy? “I have to do this.”
“Yeah, Tones,” Rhodey seemed to deflate with relief, sinking back into his chair on an exhale, “you do.”
Tony had never heard anything more beautiful and nauseating in the entire course of his life.