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Tony’s forgetting something.
The thought hits him like a shot. It shoots through his chest and down his limbs. It feels like a heart attack, or panic attack, or some kind of attack. It hits him so hard that he stumbles with it.
Pepper's hands shoot out, grabbing his arms. They're the only things keeping him upright.
"Tony, what's wrong?" She asks, alarmed.
"I don’t know." He answers truthfully. He presses a hand to his sternum. His heart pounds away a mile a minute beneath it. Somethings not right. He feels high stung and anxious about -- what?
He can't remember.
What was he doing?
He looks over Pepper's shoulder at the TV. The news is on, and Spider-Man is splashed all over it. Something went down at the Statue of Liberty, they're reporting, but they're not sure what.
They play some footage of Spider-Man swinging and Tony's heart leaps at the sight of it. Why though? Why would Spider-Man make him anxious?
Come to think of it, what did he even know about Spider-Man?
They have a strictly professional relationship. He's one of the newer heroes out there. Tony has a hunch that's he's on the younger side, but he's good in a tussle. He'd held his own with them against Thanos.
That's all Tony can think of at the moment. He's officially retired now, but he still likes to keep tabs on the newer generation. He's been known to dispense some advice here and there. He especially watches out for --
Who?
A name is on the tip of tongue.
He looks out for --
He draws a blank.
Spider-Man, maybe, he guesses.
It feels correct in a roundabout sort of way. But something itches at the back of his head, like it's only half an answer.
He’s forgetting something.
"Tony?" Pepper's fingernails press lightly into his skin. It grounds him, guides him back out of his mind. He shifts so that he can wrap his hands around her forearms.
"I'm okay."
It's mostly true. He doesn't feel like he's going to kneel over like he did a moment ago. He is shaking though, he realizes, and takes a deep breath to steady himself. He pats her arms. "I'm okay."
"I'll feel better when you're sitting down." She says, and, yeah, that's fair enough considering his track record with assessing his own health.
He goes willingly to the couch and lets her fuss over him. He swears up and down that he's alright and eventually she either believes him or just stops asking. They sit together watching the news until Pepper decides it's time to go to bed. And Tony, now too tired to fight it, goes with her.
He tosses and turns all night, haunted by echoes of half formed dreams.
A blurred face reaching out, sitting across from him, handing him tools --
Crashing into him, crying, turning into dust --
I don't feel good, Mr. Stark.
Tony gasps awake in a cold sweat. His heart pounds so hard, he feels it in his ears. He sits up and puts his head in his head. He counts until he's breathing like a normal person again.
He glances at the clock sitting on the bedside table. 5 a.m., it tells him. Pepper is still asleep. Tony knows there's no way he could fall back asleep, so he slinks out of bed and heads to the kitchen. He stops short though when he sees that someone's beaten him there already.
Happy is sitting at the kitchen island, a cup of untouched coffee in front of him.
What was Happy doing here, Tony wonders.
The fact he was here at all wasn't unusual. When Morgan started school, they got a place in the city. They spent the school year in the city then spent breaks and summers at the cabin. Happy handled dropping Morgan off at school while Tony was in charge of pick up. But she didn't have to leave for hours yet. Why was he here so early?
Wait --
Happy had been staying with them for a couple of months now.
Why?
His ex, May, Tony suddenly remembers. She needed a place to stay. She had legal issues? Was in danger, maybe? He can't remember the exact details. It's murky. But in any event, Happy was letting her stay at his place until things settled.
"Morning, boss." Happy's voice breaks Tony from his thoughts.
He smiles at him while he gets his feet moving again. "Morning, Hap." Tony gets his own cup and fills it to the brim out of the pot that Happy's already made. "How's it hanging?"
Happy doesn't answer and when Tony glances over his shoulder, he's staring off into space.
"Happy?"
He jumps a bit, like he's already forgotten that Tony was there. "I --" His throat works, and he tries again. "I just got a call that May died last night."
Tony sets his cup down in shock. The sound is too loud but neither of them react. "Happy, I'm -- I'm so sorry. What happened?"
"They said it was an accident at the condo." Happy intones, like he's numb. "They think it has something to do with Spider-Man and those guys he was fighting."
"Shit -- Happy -- I --" Tony doesn't know what to say.
Happy apparently doesn't either. He just shrugs his shoulder and sips his coffee.
"Why would any of that go down at your place?" Tony wonders out loud later and Happy just huffs out a humorless laugh.
"Just my luck, I guess."
"Sure." Tony says.
He feels like he's forgetting something.
The next few weeks pass by rather uneventfully. Pepper runs SI like a well-oiled machine. Morgan keeps being a kindergarten prodigy. Happy is -- well, he's struggling, but is coping better than Tony probably would in that situation. He's technically homeless, so he's sticking around but that's what Tony prefers anyways. In his old age, he likes having all his people close by. It's a small comfort that currently helps sooth his new nearly constant fear that he's missing something or forgetting something.
He may be just losing his mind though. It's a real possibility that years of professionally getting beat up and knocked around in a tine can has caught up with him because his body now is acting without his permission.
It's mostly small things though, almost like muscle memory that Tony follows and doesn't question until he realizes that whatever task his body wants to do can't be completed.
He now feels compelled to be down in the lab every Wednesday and Friday afternoon. He gets itchy if he doesn't. There's not much for him to do anymore though. He doesn’t have any Iron Man or Avengers related projects, but he starts feels he's stir crazy if he's not down there. So, he tinkers, finishes restoring some cars that he's started on but had stopped for some reason he can't remember.
The losing his mind aspect really kicks in when he catches himself throwing an arm out and asking an empty room for a tool. Or start chatting only to stop when he doesn't get a response.
Tony can kind of, sort of reason the talking to himself away. That could theoretically be chalked up to years of chatting to AIs and asking the bots for help. Deep in his gut, though, he knows it's not that. But he pretends it is because he doesn’t want to think what alternatives it may be.
Another new weird thing is that he has a compulsion to travel the city.
He typically walks to pick Morgan up from school. They both enjoy walking together but lately the walk from school to home isn't enough for Tony. Now his feet lead him away from home and if he doesn't follow them, he feels half crazed. Morgan stays game for about anything as long as she gets an after-school snack out of it, so she's content to follow Tony's lead as they wander the city.
One day, he takes them to a hole in the wall coffee shop in Queens that he's certain he's never been to. They stop just short of going in though as Tony's heart races at just the sight of it. Another day he takes them to a bodega near Midtown where he spouts off a sandwich order. As he's ordering it, he doesn’t understand why he's even doing it. It's not something he'll eat. Maybe Pepper or Happy will, but Tony knows he wasn't thinking of them when he ordered it.
He's thinking of --
He can't remember.
One time they see a cat in a shop window wearing a Spider-Man mask. Morgan suffers from cuteness overload. Tony takes a picture of it. He pulls up a new text message but suddenly draws a blank. He was going to send it to someone, but he can't think of their phone number.
Another time he sees that a theater is showing A New Hope and knows he has to tell --
Who?
He can't remember.
All of the above is concerning on multiple levels, but Tony keeps it under wraps fairly well. He doesn't want to sound any alarms quite yet. He's still functioning. It's good. It's all fine.
But then he starts checking ceilings.
It's not a big deal. He just, for whatever reason, now checks the ceiling of any room he enters. He doesn’t make a production out of it or anything. It's just a quick glance to see if --
Well, he's not sure.
It's not an issue until he walks into the kitchen one night after putting Morgan to bed. Pepper's sitting at the island and he greets her with a kiss. "The beast is asleep."
Pepper looks at him strangely. "Do me a favor?"
"Anything."
"Go out and walk back in."
Okay. He'd been hoping it'd be a sexier request than that, he wouldn't lie, but he does what she asks.
She frowns and asks him to do it again.
"Oh, I see what this is." Tony says. He grins and wiggles his hips as he walks. "It's a hate to say goodbye but love to see you go sort of thing."
He comes back but she still doesn't look happy. "One more time."
"Pep --"
"Last time. Please."
He does and she doesn't send him away again. Still frowning, she pulls him close and places a hand gently over the space in his chest where his arch reactor once sat ages ago. Almost another lifetime, as far as Tony's is concerned. He covers her hand with his.
"Did you realize," Pepper says. "that you looked up at the ceiling every time you walked into the room?"
Panic floods his body like ice. Tony takes a step back and tries to breathe. His heart is going into overtime. His mouth dries up. He licks his lips, but it does little help.
Pepper's hand hovers in the space between them. "Tony?"
He shakes his head. "I'm just trying to think of a way to answer your question without making you upset or mad at me."
Pepper's eyebrows look like they're trying to fly off her face, but she gives him a minute to gather himself.
"I have noticed that I've been doing that lately," Tony answers slowly. "But no, I didn't realize I did it just then."
Pepper opens her mouth then closes it a couple of times. Then she says, "I think it's time to call Bruce and see if he can come up for a visit."
The good thing about Bruce Banner is that he's generally up for anything Tony suggests. He's just got to be talked into it first.
"I don't know, Tony." Bruce starts, his hulking presence awkwardly hovering in Tony's kitchen. "I haven't practiced medicine in a while. And I'm not even your doctor."
"It's just like riding a bike." Tony waving away his concerns. "And I'll have my medical staff there too. You won't be solo."
He slides the folder that holds all his deep, dark medical past and secrets across the island to Bruce. He only hesitates for a second before taking it. Tony's not surprised when he flips straight to the end to look at the new juicy quirks of Tony's health. At this point, Bruce probably knows Tony's medical history better than he does.
Tony can practically see the hypothesis running through that big, green brain of his as Bruce skims through Tony's new notes. They're likely not much different than the ones Tony's come up with, brain tumor, brain injury, a series of good old-fashioned strokes.
He's almost got him.
"Come on, Bruce." Tony says. "You're the only one I trust to supervise this."
Hook, line, sinker.
"Okay." Bruce sighs. "Let's see what's going on."
What's going on, it turns out, is nothing. Absolutely nothing. In fact, Bruce tells, putting aside the damage in his left arm leftover from the Thanos incident, Tony's healthier than he's been in decades, physically speaking.
"Interesting." Bruce says to himself, as he double checks all tests.
And Tony's glad at least he's happy, but Tony's sure not. Because if it's not a physical issue, then that means he's got to move on to doctor number two on his list. Which means an emergency session with his therapist.
Tony hands over the folder before he even sits down on the plush couch. "This details out everything. All the tests that Dr. Banner did is in there. All you have to do is see if I'm nuts or not, Doc."
Dr. Chase hums as she takes the folder from him and immediately lays it, untouched, on the table beside her. "I already reviewed Dr. Banner's notes. He sent them over this morning. I'd like to hear what's been happening directly from you, Mr. Stark."
Tony's been seeing Dr. Andria Chase for nearly ten years now and he's convinced that she's as good as Pepper when it comes to manipulating him. She's asking him to do this because she specifically knows that Tony doesn't want to. He wants this to be a quick and easy process. Is he crazy, yes or no? Check one. But Dr. Chase believes in putting in the hard work and forces Tony to do the same.
It's easier to give in than fight her, so he spills his guts. The quicker he tells her everything, the quicker he'll get out of here.
He tells her about all the instinctive habits that have appeared out of nowhere, the near constant thrum of anxiety that's ramped up, the irrational fear that there's something just outside of his grasp that he's forgetting.
Dr. Chase pauses from her note taking. "And there's been no recent triggers that you can think of?"
"Nope."
“Nothing's happened with Morgan or Pepper?”
“No.”
“Happy?”
Tony shakes his head. “His ex died in an accident, but I didn’t know her well.”
She taps her pen against her notepad thoughtfully. “Interesting.”
She dismisses him shortly thereafter with her professional opinion essentially being a shrug and an, I Dunno.
Which means it's time to visit doctor number three, the last one on his list. Dead last, in fact, because Tony was really hoping he wouldn't have to go this route.
He pops into a bodega on his way and picks up two pints of ice cream. Hopefully it'll get him some brownie points and an appointment since he didn't call ahead.
Tony knocks on the door and Stephen Strange answers in a faded Harvard shirt, sentient cape, sweatpants, and a frown.
"Stark."
"Merry Christmas." Tony greets, passing his gift offering into Strange's hands and inviting himself in. "One of those is for Wong, by the way. Don't be greedy."
The Sanctum Sanctorum is as ornate and imposing as usual. It looks and feels more like a museum of the weird rather than a place that people actually live in.
He hears Strange close the door behind them. He's not being kicked out, which is good.
"It's not quite Christmas." Strange says, rummaging through the plastic bag.
"Happy Birthday, then."
"That's even more off. Which one is Wong's?"
"Whichever he likes best."
Tony turns around just in time to see Strange open a portal. A freezer is on the other side. He puts the ice cream still in the bag inside and closes the portal.
"Show off."
Strange finally smiles. "To what do I owe this pleasure?"
Tony clears his throat, suddenly embarrassed. "I just wanted to ask you something real quick."
"Shoot."
"Sure. Yeah. Did you hex me?"
Strange blinks hard. "Excuse me?"
"Sorry. Is that a taboo thing to say? Uh, did you cast a spell on me? Cast a -- well, an anything on me?"
"Not that I can recall." Strange says in a long-suffering sort of way. He pinches the bridge of his nose. "Tony, why do you think you've been hexed?"
In for a penny, in for a pound the saying goes, and Tony spills his guts for the third time in just about so many days. To his credit, Strange listens and seems to take him seriously. It dawns on Tony later though that this might not even be the craziest thing he's encountered that week.
"Interesting." He says when Tony's finished. "Do you mind if I check?"
"My head? Sure, but I've already talked to my shrink."
Strange doesn’t seem to find that as remotely funny as Tony does, but he doesn’t kick him out over it either. Instead, he leads Tony out of the entryway, up the grand staircase, and into a study tucked away on the second floor. It's cozier here compared to the rest of the Sanctorum. The walls are lined with bookcases and art. There are potted plants sitting on tables by the tall windows.
Strange settles Tony into a high-backed chair and pushes a cup of tea into his hands.
"Drink this." He instructs. "It'll help you stay calm."
That's probably a good idea considering the last time someone was in his head it sent him off into a PTSD induced spiral led to the birth of Ultron and the devastation of Sokovia.
Tony doesn't realize that he's said any of that out loud until he glances up and sees Strange frowning down at him.
"You probably should drink all of that then."
Tony downs the rest of it and Strange doesn't waste any more time. He stretches out his fingers on either side of Tony's head.
"Just try and relax." Is the only warning he gets before Strange firmly places his cold fingers on Tony's temples and enters his mind.
Tony gasps.
The sensation is horrible. It's eerie. It's invasive. It reminds him to much of Wanda poking around in there. At least then at the time, he hadn't been fully aware of what was happening. He is now though and regrets coming.
"I know." Strange says uncharacteristically gentle above him. "I won't be long. Try and stay calm. Clear your mind."
That's easier said than done, he thinks. He tries to ignore the way that Strange suddenly flinches. God only knows what's he's seeing.
"This would go a lot easier if you -- wait." Strange says. "I found something."
"What? What did you find?"
Strange doesn't answer but does let go of Tony's head. His presence leaves him like water rushing back to the ocean and Tony almost wilts with relief. He watches as Strange paces across the room, once then twice.
"What's up, doc?" Tony prompts. "Give it to me straight, how worried should I be?"
Strange stills. He folds his hands together. "There is a spell on you. It's a memory spell but I can't make out the details. It's like it's been redacted."
"Okay." Tony feels a certain way about that, but it's a small relief to know what's going on. That he isn't entirely crazy. "Who did it?"
Strange's mouth twists. "Apparently me, but I can't remember doing it."
"Huh." Tony says eloquently. "That's disconcerting."
"Very." Strange agrees. "Do you mind if Wong takes a look?"
He very much does but agrees for the sake of science.
Wong looks in Tony's head, then Strange's, then asks Strange to look in his. It reminds Tony of when there was a lice scare at Morgan's school, and they all had to take turns checking each other for bugs.
"What do you think?" Strange asks Wong once he's finished.
Wong places a hand on his chin thoughtfully. "It is very odd. It's definitely a memory spell and it's definitely your signature, Stephen."
"And it's on all of us?" Tony asks and Wong nods.
"And there's the fact that neither of us can read it." Strange adds.
"Yes." Wong says. "It's very odd indeed."
"So what does all that mean?" Tony asks.
Wong strokes his chin again. "I'm not sure. I'll do some research and see what I can find."
And with that, Wong's gone.
"What do you prescribe, doc?" Tony says as Strange walks him to the front door.
Strange thinks for a moment. "Those impulses you've been having, follow them. Lean in and see where they take you. They may jog a memory. Your subconscious is clearly fighting hard to remember whatever we're all supposed to forget."
And with that piece of sage advice, Tony’s kicked out to the curb.
He doesn't believe in doing things half assed, so he takes Strange's advice and leans all the way in. He finishes his sentences to no one in the lab, he checks every square inch of the ceiling, he walks to wherever his feet decide to take him.
The first day of Morgan's winter break is a Friday and Tony is restless like he has been every Wednesday and Friday for close to three months now.
"Want to take a walk, small fry?" He asks Morgan. She doesn't look up from the masterpiece she's working on.
"No thanks, daddy." She answers, more polite than he was at that age. Maybe at any age really. She finishes drawing a flower with a swipe of her marker.
"Your loss." Tony teases, leaning down and kissing the top of her head.
"Be careful." Pepper tells him as he kisses her goodbye.
“Careful is my middle name.”
Pepper rolls her eyes while Morgan throws in her two cents. "I thought your middle name was Edward."
Tony heads out the front door and turns his brain off. Today, his feet lead him to Queens. No one recognizes him. Or if they do, they don't care enough to stop him, which he's thankful for. He's not in the right headspace for fans. The walk isn't helping his anxiety the way he'd hoped it would. If anything, the further he goes, the more keyed up he feels.
It gets worse with every step he takes until he finds himself in front of a coffee shop. He's taken himself here before, but he's never gone in. He doesn't think he's ever been here. He can't think of a reason why he'd ever go to this particular coffee shop in Queens.
He walks up to the door and reaches out to grab the handle. His hands tremble. He could bail, he thinks. It'd be easy to.
But --
His subconscious wants him for a reason. Strange said he had to lean in, follow through. So in for a penny, in for a pound, he opens the door --
And is immediately bowled over.
Iced coffee is spilled all down his front, no doubt ruining his favorite hoodie. And thank Thor Tony's got enough self-control to not shriek like a little girl because, Jesus Christ on a cracker, it's cold. Who the hell drinks iced coffee in the middle of winter?
A dumb kid apparently. The same little idiot who is stuttering out apologies while Tony stares down dumbly at his wet hoodie.
"Oh, man! I'm so sorry, sir. I didn't see you. Man, that's -- uh -- that looks bad. That hoodie looks expensive."
It was.
"I can pay to get it cleaned." The kid says, but then back tracks almost immediately. "Well, I can pay some. Probably not all of it. I'm kind of --"
The kid cuts himself off with a strange choking sound, then squeaks out, "Mr. Stark?"
Great, Tony thinks, a fan. Fantastic.
He plasters on his public smile. There's no need to go ballistic on some kid over an accident. He looks up to tell the kid not to worry about it.
"Peter?"
The name is ripped from him unbidden. The kid's eyes widen, and his mouth falls open. For a split second, Tony has no idea why or how he knows that name. But then the memories hit him like a freight train.
He wasn't forgetting something. He was forgetting someone.
He was forgetting Peter Parker.
Tony staggers backwards. He's only saved from landing on the sidewalk by Peter grabbing onto him, keeping him upright.
Tony remembers everything. He remembers things that he didn't even realize he'd forgotten. Everything about the past few months slots into place and makes perfect sense now.
He was trying to talk to Peter in the lab. He was looking for him on the ceiling. He was walking all throughout the city looking for Peter.
He remembers how exactly he knows May, Happy's ex.
He remembers tracking the kid down all those years ago to that small two-bedroom apartment in Queens. He remembers Germany, the ferry, giving him the suit, lab days, getting coffee from this very shop, losing him on Titan, introducing him to Morgan.
He remembers Mysterio. He remembers watching helplessly as the Bugle playing that video, revealing his identity. He remembers the way defeat weighed heavy on Peter's shoulders with each threat thrown through his window, with each college rejection letter received.
He remembers how he'd begged Peter to please let him help, but he'd refused.
"This is my mistake to fix, Mr. Stark."
Tony didn't even know about the super villains, or the other Spider-Men, or May until it was too late to do anything.
And by the time he could try and do something, it was too late, and he forgot about it all anyways.
He vaguely realizes that he's being guided off the street into an alleyway. As soon as they're far enough from any preying eyes and cameras, Tony pukes all over the pavement.
"Woah!" Peter yelps and the sound of it makes Tony want to cry. He never knew he could miss a sound so much. He didn't even know that he was missing it.
After a few moments, Tony pulls himself together. He wipes his mouth with the sleeve of his newly christened hoodie and looks up.
Peter is standing just a breath away, pale as a ghost. He looks horrible. There's deep bags under his eyes. Tony wonders when he last had a good night's sleep. His clothes look second hand and worn. He probably doesn't look much different from a harried college student to anyone on the street, but Tony knows better. He can see the weariness around his eyes, the way it sits around his mouth.
Peter finally breaks the silence. "Mr. Stark, how do you remember me?"
"I can do you one better." Tony says. "How did I forget you?"
Peter stares at him, his eyes searching Tony's face, then says, "Let's go back to my place."
Peter explains everything while they walk. Tony practices his breathing exercises because what he's hearing is incredible and not in a good way. It's overwhelming to find out how everything that could have gone wrong basically did.
A petty and ugly part of him is upset and jealous that Peter trusted two variants of himself he didn't know for help but not him.
It's not fair and a horrible thing to think so Tony does his best to put that in a box in the back of his mind and breathes through it.
By the time Peter's finished, he's led them to a run-down apartment building, up three stories, and to his front door.
"Here we are," Peter says as he unlocks the door and steps in. "my place."
His place, as it turns out, is a glorified shoebox. Tony looks around and does his 3-3-3 breathing.
It's one room with a bed, table, kitchenette, and miraculously, a bathroom that includes a toilet and shower that's separated from the rest of the space by a curtain.
At least he doesn't have to use a communal bathroom, Tony thinks. Small miracles.
Peter's roommate, a large mouse apparently, scurries across the room.
Tony just has to turn a blind eye to that because, frankly, he's very close to hitting his limit and he cannot handle a Ratatouille situation right now. He just can't.
"This is it." Peter says with the air of a person who know what exactly they have and how it looks like to others. He picks up a pen from the table and anxiously taps it against his palm.
Tony's heart twists at the sight. In an instant, he's thrown back all those years ago to when he first met the kid. He'd done the exact same thing then too.
"It's great." Tony says as convincingly as he can. He must not do that good of a job because Peter makes a face.
"You don't have to lie, Mr. Stark." He abandons the pen and instead grabs a soda from the fridge. He hands it to Tony. Tony very valiantly doesn’t yank the kid into a crushing hug as soon as he gets into reaching distance. He just takes the can with a smile.
"No, really, kid, this is some grade A adulting here. You got a job too?"
Peter nods. "Yeah, at the Bugle."
Weird, Tony thinks, but he's aiming for encouraging so he doesn't say it out loud. "I saw that ole Jonah pivoted back to the printed tabloid business. What do you do?"
"I -- uh --" Peter rubs the back of his neck like he's embarrassed. "I take pictures of Spider-Man."
Tony's very glad that he hasn't opened up that soda yet because he drops it. It hits the floor with a thud. Thankfully it doesn't launch across the room like a rocket the way Tony thought it would. It just slowly rolls over to Peter's feet. They both look at it like it's a bomb.
Tony cracks first.
He laughs. He can't help it. It spills out of him, just on this side of hysterical. Peter looks at him like he's crazy and it only makes him laugh harder until the next breath comes out wet. He covers his eyes with his hand.
"I gotta sit down." He manages to gasp out before he does something embarrassing like sob. He feels Peter at his elbow, guiding him down into a chair. It takes a minute and every bit of work he's done with Dr. Chase, but he manages to get himself under control.
When he uncovers his eyes, he can't read Peter's expression. "This is a lot for me." He feels obligated to try and explain. "You get that, right?"
“I know.” Peter says.
"It's just a lot to take in all at once, you know?"
"I know, Mr. Stark."
"Why didn't you come to me?" The question slips out without Tony's permission. He didn't want to have this conversation right now. It wasn't worth the risk of pushing Peter away. It's out there now though. And even though Peter's expression quickly shutters into a carefully blank mask, Tony presses on. "I would have helped. I would have done anything I could to help you, Pete. It didn't have to come to this."
Peter's shaking his head before Tony even finishes. "I had to, Mr. Stark. It was the only way."
"No. I --"
Peter continues, talking over him. "If I hadn't then the multiverse would be in danger, and it would have been my fault. Everyone had to forget Peter Parker." He says it almost off handedly, like it's something he's rehearsed. "Besides, it's for the best. I just ruin everyone's life. It's better for everyone this way."
Now that breaks Tony's heart.
"That's not true."
Peter throws up his hands and starts ticking off names with his fingers. "Ben, got him killed. Liz, broke up her family. Ned and MJ, wrecked their futures. Happy, got him in trouble with the law. May," His voice cracks. "got her killed too. It was just a matter of time before you, and Pepper, and Morgan were next."
"Peter --"
Peter turns quick on his heels, grabbing his coat. "I'm going to fix it, Mr. Stark. Don't worry about it."
Panic grips Tony. It's sharp on his tongue. It surges through his veins, and makes him jump up, lunging for Peter. He catches his wrist but Peter tries to yank away.
"No." Tony says, nearly shouts. "Peter, dammit, no. Wait."
Peter, by some miracle, actually listens and stops.
"A couple of problems here." Tony says. "First thing, Strange won't help you again. Not with this. He already knows about the spell and he's looking into it."
Peter's brows raise. "How does he --"
"Second thing," Tony interrupts. "I won't let you. I refuse. I don't consent. Nope. Nada." He loosens his hold on Peter's wrist and gently grabs his hand. "I remember you again and I'll be dammed if I forget again. I can't do it again, Pete. I about went crazy when I lost my memories. I was looking for you on the ceiling, trying to talk to you in the lab. I was walking all over the city searching and I didn't even I was looking for you."
Peter stares at him, wide eyed.
"And even if you do find some way to wipe me again, guess what, kid, Strange says I have a stubborn subconscious and I'd just end up finding you again. So it'd be a waste of time on everyone's part."
Peter's jaw works silently for a moment then he says, "I just want to keep you safe."
Tony nods. "I know and I get that, believe me."
"I have a new life now."
Tony bites back a sigh. A part of him was afraid that this was conversation would lead here. "I know."
"It might be safer for you in you're not part of it."
Well, fuck. There it is.
"That's for you to decide, Pete." He says although every fiber of his being screams against it. "If you want some distance, that's fine. I can do that. But I won't be forced to forget again."
He realizes that he's still holding onto Peter's hand and with great effort, he lets go. Peter stares at him and it might have only been a few months since Tony's seen him, but it's almost like Peter's a
stranger for as well as Tony can read him.
Tony's said his piece and that's he can do. The ball is in Peter's court now. It's out of his hands.
"I'll head out." He says and turns to leave but hesitates. "I'm so sorry about May, Pete. But I'm proud of what you've built here. I love you, kid. Take care."
He almost gets to the door before Peter says, "Wait!" He turns around to find Peter holding out a piece of paper.
"It's my new number." He explains. "My old phone got smashed. I've got unlimited texts."
Tony takes it like Peter's handing him treasure. "So unlimited old man memes, I hear you, kid."
Peter actually smiles and Tony heads home.
Tony has enough self-control to wait three days before he texts Peter the picture of the spider-cat he took months ago.
Peter replies the morning after with a string of cat heart eye emojis.
"What are you smiling about this early in the morning? Pepper asks him, wrapping her arms around his shoulders.
"Nothing." He says. "Just remembered something I'd forgotten about."