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Tony is having a good night. Well, a normal night. A night without Pepper, which automatically makes it suck a little bit, but it’s one of those ‘be a real person’ nights, which he gives himself sometimes. He orders pizza. He watches TV. He lays on the couch and falls asleep. He totally forces himself not to go into the lab or the workshop. He doesn’t even think the words ‘iron’ or ‘man’.
Okay, so he googles himself. It’s a totally normal thing, especially for him. Maybe breaking the rules for being a real person but fuck it, he’s bored as shit. He doesn’t know why he even does this. Real people are boring. He finds some decidedly not normal things on google—people have some serious ideas about where Bruce is and how Tony is involved, a lot of them having to do with secret marriages and polyamorous relationships with Pepper. He reads just about enough to be considered weird, so he locks his phone and gives in to his instincts.
He’s on his way to the workshop when FRIDAY’s voice chimes into the monotony.
“Boss, Peter Parker is currently vomiting in an Uber.”
Tony stops walking.
He closes his eyes. He pinches the bridge of his nose. “Is he wearing the suit?” he asks, sharp. What in blue fuck. He has to be, since Tony is getting this update. But that would make this a particularly difficult situation.
“Yes, boss, but under his clothes. The driver is unaware he has Spiderman in his car.”
Okay, better. A less difficult situation. “You got a location?”
“They are driving through Rego Park.”
Tony taps his middle finger on the back of his hand and doesn’t know how to approach this. If he should approach this. He doesn’t know why the hell Peter is in an Uber in the first place. If he’s in the suit, he was clearly planning on going patrolling. If he needed a ride, he could have called. He’s getting better about that, Tony thought they had bridged some sort of gap, especially when the kid actually called him when he got caught out in the rain last week. Wet and shivering Peter Parker was just about the most depressing thing Tony had ever seen, and Happy had nearly slammed into a light pole trying to get to him. Happy’s façade is hard to break. That’s how fucking sad the image was. They went up to the apartment with him, Tony made him hot chocolate, and they waited with him til May got home. Peter was pleased as punch, so Tony was pretty pleased, too.
“Fri, is he alone?” Tony asks.
“Yes, boss. And he just vomited again.”
Tony sighs. “Okay, get me the tracking from Karen.”
~
He had considered stopping the car with the Iron Man suit, but he doesn’t want to make an even bigger deal than he’s already gonna make. So he leaves it in the shadows as he approaches the Uber, which is stopped at a red light. He taps on the window of the driver’s seat.
The guy looks positively miserable in the moment before Tony nearly scares him out of his mind. Tony waves, looking back behind him, where there are thankfully no cars lining up. The driver rolls down his window—he looks like the typical college frat guy, except with a new kind of terror in his eyes than hazing usually brings.
“Holy shit,” the guy says. “Tony—Tony Stark.”
“In the flesh,” Tony says. “I’ve come to rid you of your charge.”
The guy’s eyes narrow. “You’re gonna—what?”
“Peter Parker, right?” Tony asks, gesturing towards the phone mounted on the dash. “Uh, he’s my—nephew—and I know he’s racking up a shit ton of fees by throwing up in your car. Right?”
The guy looks over his shoulder.
“Hey!” Peter’s voice yells. “Hey, hey! Light’s green! It’s green, man!”
The guy looks at Tony again. He seems wary. “How did you know he was throwing up?”
“He texted me,” Tony lies. “He definitely—did not mean to order an Uber, he meant to call me, and he’s—ridiculously drunk right now and has no idea what the hell he’s doing.”
“Hey man!” Peter’s voice says. “Hey what’s—oh man—so bad—ugh—” and he pukes again.
“Ugh, Jesus,” the driver groans. He sighs, looking at Tony.
“I’ll take him off your hands,” Tony says.
“What’s his phone number?” the guy asks, reaching over and covering his phone.
“929-376-0712,” Tony recites, horrified and embarrassed at himself for having memorized the kid’s goddamn number. There’s no excuse. He reaches into his wallet and takes out three hundred dollar bills. “This cover the fees and the ride?” he asks, holding out the money.
The guy gapes. “Uh—yes. Yes it does.”
Tony’s a little surprised he doesn’t demand more. “So can I get him out of here? Swear I’m not kidnapping him, you’ll see in a second, he knows me.”
“Yeah, take him,” the guy says. “Whatever. You’re Tony Stark and I—I gotta go clean out my car.”
“Good decision,” Tony says. He walks to the back door and pulls it open, and Peter Parker promptly falls out. Tony just manages to catch him, nearly toppling over himself trying to keep him from landing on the pavement. “Whoa, kid, Jesus—”
“What’s—why’s—oh, Mr. Stark—how did—what’s going on?”
The whole back of the car smells like a toilet and Tony just wants to get the hell out of here. He reaches into his wallet one handed, still supporting Peter, and pulls out another hundred dollar bill. He tosses it into the front of the car and kicks the back door closed.
“Sorry for…you know,” Tony says, hauling Peter into a standing position, winding one of his arms around his neck. “Swear I’m not kidnapping him. You know who I am. Try not to, like…advertise this.”
“I won’t,” the guy says.
“Mr. Stark, you’re like—so close, you’re really close,” Peter says, his head bobbling like a kid’s toy.
“Okay, we’re gonna split,” Tony says. He hears the guy say something else but he doesn’t really pay attention, one hand gripping Peter’s wrist and the other tight around his waist. He definitely didn’t think this shit through. He took the suit just because he wanted to get here fast enough to intercept, but now he can’t picture flying Peter back without him raining puke down on everybody below or completely destroying his suit.
They hobble over to the side of the road where the suit is waiting, and when they get close to it Peter gasps.
“You’re—there’s two of you—” He gapes, reaching around and touching Tony’s far shoulder.
“Kid, why the hell are you drunk right now?” Tony asks, trying not to yell, because he’s definitely close to yelling.
“Uh—uh—what? Drunk, drunk, noooo—”
Tony scoffs, and holding him up like this is too fucking much, not because the kid is heavy but because he’s swinging back and forth and knocking into Tony over and over and Tony kinda regrets coming here at all.
Peter goes full dead weight.
“Oh my God,” Tony gasps, trying to keep his hold on him.
“Sit. Sit.”
“Peter, Christ—” He slowly lowers them to the ground and helps Peter into a sitting position, and takes his place sitting in front of him. Peter drops his head into his hands. “Is May at home?” Tony asks.
“Work trip,” Peter says. “Work weekend. Um. Tomorrow. Tonight, sushi.”
“Sushi?” Tony asks. He shakes his head. “You know what, never mind, original and most importantly—why are you drinking? Where the hell were you going in an Uber? From where, Peter? To where? Explain the whole thing.”
“So many questions—”
Tony sighs. He grabs his phone and dials Happy.
“Tony?” Happy answers, after the first ring. “You alright?”
“Sorry, Hap, you think you can come get me and the kid?” Tony asks. Peter is currently throwing his head back and forth in his hands, which is probably a one way ticket to another puking session. “We’re on, uh…108th and 63rd in Rego Park.”
“Yeah, of course,” Happy says. “Everything okay?”
“Uh, you’ll see,” Tony says.
Happy hums a little bit. “Okay, on my way.”
“Expect a bigger bonus at the end of the month,” Tony says, before he hangs up. He sends the suit home, watches as it cuts through the starry night and back towards the tower.
He sighs, looking at Peter. A goddamn mess. He tries to put himself in the right mindset. “Pete, is this like—a bad anniversary or something?” he asks. “A weird day, did something—did something happen?” He feels like he should have known May was out of town. They’re pretty good at exchanging information. He’s got too much going on, he needs to pay better attention. He hates that he was sitting around doing nothing tonight when the kid was clearly doing some dumb shit that could have been avoided.
“Nothing,” Peter says, swaying back and forth.
“Kid, come on.”
“Ned and I were—partying it up, just, you know—drinking, having fun—”
“Building Lego BB-8? Yeah, sorry, I don’t believe that for a second.”
“Okay,” Peter says, still not looking, running his hands through his hair. “I was—at a college party. Doing body shots off girls.”
“Okay, young Tony Stark.”
Peter laughs, and it hardly sounds like him. It sounds drunk and bitter and too off kilter.
“Um. I was. I was, uh—”
“Stop with the lies, your brain capacity is depleted so nothing you’re coming up with makes any sense.”
Peter looks up, and there’s a miserable honesty on his face now. “A building fell on me,” he says.
Tony stares at him. His heart may or may not be giving out. “What?” he asks, slowly.
“Before,” Peter says. “In the past, like…previously.”
Tony can’t think. “What—when—”
“Not the point—”
“No, yes the point,” Tony says. “Very much the point.”
“Vulture, Coney Island, before—no suit, no suit,” Peter declares, throwing his hands through the air. “He just—plopped the building—right on top of me—just cement and it weighed a lot and it was—bad. Bad, bad—very—very scary.”
Fuck. Fuck. Why the fuck is he just finding out about this now?
Peter rubs at his eyes. He’s all clammy looking. “No blame,” he says. “Not—not you, not from me—I got out, stopped him, is fine, all fine—but there’s just, like—nightmares.”
Even drunk out of his mind, Peter is still looking out for other people. Tony clears his throat. He feels fucking awful. “So you had…a nightmare, and you drank something?”
“Vodka.”
“You drank vodka.”
“Many. Many lot.”
Tony sighs. Peter hangs his head and Tony reaches out to ruffle his hair. He’s glad he came now, because he feels deeply, deeply sorry, like a complete asshole, like an even bigger asshole because he didn’t know about this shit until now. Fuck, it sucks. It sucks so goddamn hard and it’s in the past and there’s nothing he can do about it now. Now he’s got a kid with nightmares and a drinking problem.
He narrows his eyes. “Where were you going in the Uber?”
“A place,” Peter says.
Tony rubs the back of Peter’s neck. “C’mon, kid, where were you headed before you started spilling your guts all over that guy’s Toyota?”
Peter grabs for his pocket, misses a couple times before he sinks his hand in there, and then he pulls out his phone. He unlocks it and shoves it at Tony without looking at him.
This thing is cracked to hell. He needs a new one, which Tony puts on the list. He opens the Uber app, sees the last ride with Brent (cancelled now) which was headed towards—Stark Tower.
Tony closes his eyes. He’s been staying there lately because he actually is a sentimental bastard and the sales keep falling through because he’s making them fall through, and he keeps thinking he can turn it into something else. He probably isn’t gonna let it go. Peter knows this, and has hung out with him there a lot in the past couple weeks. But this, even seeing this, makes Tony feel horrible and all fond and happy at the same time.
He doesn’t get what it is about this kid.
“Peter,” Tony says, tipping Peter’s face up to look at him. Peter’s eyes are wide and bloodshot, and he looks miserable. “No Uber ever. Okay? Tony or Happy.”
“Tony or Happy,” Peter says. “Tony is happy.”
“Sometimes,” Tony answers quickly. “Happier when you call him, when this kind of shit happens. Happy when you tell him things like the building story even though you’re trying to protect him by hiding it. He wants you to know you’re the goddamn one that needs to be protected.”
“Mmmm.”
“I’m sorry,” Tony says, still holding Peter’s face.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“No! It’s fine. Fine.” He wrenches away a bit, squeezing his eyes shut.
Tony sighs. “This drunk thing? Not gonna happen again til you’re twenty one. Sorry, I know I’m a rule breaker but not with this one.”
“Ugh.”
“But when you need a ride. Anywhere. When you want to come see me. What are you gonna do?”
“Call.”
“Call who?”
“Brent.”
“No. Brent does not like you, Peter.”
“Ugh, why? I said nice things. I told—I told him I liked his hair, and—that his car was fast, and, uh—I told him—I said that—that he was a very good driver.”
“I’m sure you did,” Tony says, trying not to laugh at him. “But you also puked in his car like, a lot. You can puke in my car and not rack up fees, remember that. Uber charges for that shit.”
“Don’t tell May,” Peter slurs.
Tony squints. “Um…yeah, we’ll see.”
Peter makes a horrible face and he drops his head, puking in the space in between them. Tony winces, watches it splatter, and sighs to himself, palming the back of the kid’s neck again. “Great,” he whispers.
~
They’re both sitting in the back of the car. Tony had tried to clean them up as best as he could, but they still stink. It reminds Tony of days past, of when he was very much on his bullshit, and it makes him never want to drink again, purely to keep the kid from doing it.
“Is he using you as a footrest?” Happy asks, looking into the rearview.
Peter has his feet in Tony’s lap, and Tony looks down at them and shrugs. “Seems so, yes,” he says.
Happy grunts.
“Hey.”
Tony looks over at Peter.
“Hey! Hey!”
Tony blurts out a laugh that isn’t supposed to meet the air. “Are you hey-ing me? Are you shouting ‘hey’ to get my attention?”
A little grin sneaks across Peter’s face. He’s stuffed himself into the corner and he’s got his arms tucked around his middle, his hoodie bunched up around him. “Tony.”
“Glad that drunk Peter is better about using my first name—”
“Where’re we going?” Peter asks. “Moving real fast.”
“We are going to the tower, just like you were trying to do.”
“Oh, wow,” Peter says.
Tony pats the kid’s ankle. He’s trying to stay here, in this frame of mind, because he keeps thinking about a fucking building falling on Peter. He stands by his decision to take away the suit—it was a lesson, and a good one—but shit, of course the kid is a hero and won’t let not having a suit stop him, and Tony should have thought about that. He still managed to catch the bad guy, even without the suit, which like, yeah, maybe the lesson got through. But of course a fucking building had to fall on him while the lesson was being learned. Tony knows all about nightmares, how they wrap around you and squeeze, and he knows this must be bad if it’s coming back in Peter’s dreams.
“Kid, what kind of vodka did you steal from your aunt?” Tony asks, looking over at him.
“Um. Steal from my own house.”
“It can happen, you did it.”
Peter makes a horrified face and kinda looks like he’s gonna cry. “Grey Goose,” he says.
“Nice,” Tony says. “Happy, we’re gonna have to get a bottle of Grey Goose we can slip into Peter’s apartment before May gets home. Maybe take a little bit out of it so it looks like it did before Peter tore into it.”
“Okay,” Happy says.
Peter swings his legs onto the ground and crawls over slowly, like a spider, which is really apt for the million dollar suit he’s wearing under his dirty hoodie and stained jeans. Tony tries not to laugh, looking at him.
“Everything is moving,” Peter says, wobbly.
“Then stop moving,” Tony says.
“So much.” Peter crashes down into Tony’s shoulder, face first, and Tony sighs, draping an arm around his shoulders.
“Okay, kid, okay. Don’t puke on me.”
“Oh, is this a hug?” Peter asks, hopefully.
“Um, maybe. Half hug. Almost there.”
“Would I get a full hug if I grew a goatee like you?” Peter asks, still really, really wobbly.
Tony winces. “That image is literally the worst thing I could have ever imagined. No, that would not get a hug. That wouldn’t even get a handshake.”
Peter sighs, grumbles, closing his eyes.
“Don’t let him fall asleep,” Happy calls, looking back at them again.
“Why?” Tony asks. “That’s just with concussions, I won’t let him choke.”
“Because if he’s asleep we’ll have to carry your spider kid into the tower ourselves.”
“Peter,” Tony says, shaking him. “Stay awake.”
“Tony, am I—am I an Avenger?”
He’s not looking at him because Peter is focusing on melting and slumping and Tony sighs, patting his shoulder. Peter isn’t gonna remember this anyway. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, you’re an Avenger. The strongest Avenger.”
“Oh my God,” Peter says, in wonderment. “No way.”
“Oh yeah,” Tony says. “Thor wouldn’t stand a chance against you.”
“Oh my God, I’m gonna puke.”
“Okay, okay,” Tony says, helping Peter bend over and put his head between his knees.
“Should I pull over?” Happy asks.
“Nah, it’s fine, we’re almost there.”
“What? Ugh, c’mon.”
Tony snorts, rubbing Peter’s back. Peter is humming and mumbling something, and Tony leans in closer.
“Has…he…lost his mind…can he see or…or is he blind…”
~
They don’t have to carry Peter in, which is a small mercy, because he still doesn’t seem to know how to walk straight, his feet slip sliding on the ground between them. Tony gets a little paranoid about alcohol poisoning and has FRIDAY run diagnostics. He seems okay overall, just intoxication and a raised heartrate, so they haul him up to the room that Tony has made up for him, the only room other than his own, the lab and the workshop that still has shit in it here.
“So I guess we’re not selling,” Happy says, eyeing the kid between them suspiciously as they make for his room.
“Um, we might be.”
“You’re bringing more things in, after we took it all out.”
Tony shrugs. “We’ll see. I don’t know. I make dramatic decisions and then I regret them. This is a good location, it’s easier to be here. Maybe just not with…everything we had here.”
“Alright,” Happy says, kicking the door open.
They drop Peter into the bed and Tony swings his legs up into it, taking off his shoes and his hoodie so he’s just wearing jeans with the Spiderman suit. Tony tries not to laugh, quickly tucking Peter in and fluffing the pillows behind his head. “Hap, can you grab me a couple water bottles and our biggest pot for the kid to puke in if he needs to?”
“Sure,” Happy says. “Hopefully we’ve still got something laying around….”
Tony watches him go, and then turns his attention back to Peter. He sits on the edge of the bed. “Have you texted May tonight?”
“Told her goodnight earlier.”
“Good, perfect,” Tony says. It’s pushing two in the morning and he’s glad they don’t have to contend with a bunch of texts and calls from May. He hasn’t decided yet if he’s gonna out and out lie about this—he looks at Peter’s miserable face and thinks probably. “Okay, what have we learned?”
“Too much vodka is too much vodka.”
“And?”
“Ubers are bad. Tonys are good. I should cut my hair like Brent.”
Tony shakes his head. “I guess that works,” he says. He sighs, scoots forward a little bit, and brushes Peter’s hair out of his eyes. “Listen, the nightmares—one, I’m—I’m so sorry that shit happened, Pete, and happened when it did. Makes me sick, for real.”
“No,” Peter says, covering his face.
“Yes,” Tony says, peeling his hands away. He can barely talk about it. He’s gonna have his own existential crisis about it, as soon as he’s alone again. “Pete, you listening to me? If you remember anything from tonight, let it be this.”
“Yes, listen.”
“I have to deal with nightmares all the damn time, so I’ve figured out a couple things that help me. When you have them, and you wake up, just sit on the edge of your bed—try to ground yourself, start naming things in your room, so you know where you are and that you’re safe. Keep water by the side of your bed, try and ground your senses too—I know that’s way worse for you, so it’s even more important. Music is always good, keep a playlist for yourself, and breathing—really important, in through your nose, and out through your mouth.”
Peter is staring at him. Tony doesn’t know if he’s getting any of this. “You have nightmares?” Peter asks, quiet.
Tony nods. “Way more than is probably…normal. So don’t hesitate to call me or message me when it happens,” he says. “I’ll probably already be awake.”
Peter nods. “Tony,” he says.
“Yeah?”
“My head feels like—like a monster’s head right now,” he says. “Like—ten times the size it’s supposed to be—”
Tony snorts. “Don’t worry, it’s still the right size.”
“You sure?”
“Yup.”
Happy walks back in then, sitting the bottles on the bedside table and the pan next to the bed on the floor. He walks over to the window and sinks into the lounge chair. “So I take it we’re sleeping in here with him tonight?” he asks.
Tony had already pretty much decided on that for himself, and he drags the other plushy chair closer to the bed, collapsing down into it. “You don’t have to stay,” Tony says, watching as Peter yawns.
“Well, I wanna make sure he doesn’t die,” Happy says.
“Die?” Peter asks, wide eyes looking over in Happy’s direction.
“Yeah, kid, teenagers die when they drink alcohol,” Happy says.
“But we’re saving you,” Tony says. “Because we like you, and because your aunt would murder us otherwise, whether we had anything to do with it or not.”
“Oh, okay,” Peter says. “Thank you.”
“No problem, Pete, it’s our pleasure,” Tony says, shooting Happy a look. “I haven’t gotten to see somebody this blitzed since it was…me.”
“Fun,” Peter says, pointing over at him, grinning.
“No,” Tony says, shaking his head. “A lot like this. Do you feel fun? You’re swaddled in a bed like a newborn with a pan on the ground just for you.”
Peter groans, closing his eyes.
Both Happy and Tony pull out the footrests on their chairs at the same time and this feels like the most domestic thing Tony has done probably in ever, and he strips off his jacket, tossing it aside.
Peter is already starting to snore.
“Well this is a setup I never would have expected,” Happy says, bracing his hands behind his head.
“You are free to go,” Tony says.
“I’m staying,” Happy says, stern.
“Then stop commenting on it, fairy godmother.”
“Uh, I think that’s you.”
“No, I’m the king of the castle,” Tony says. “No, you know what? I’m like Aragorn, and the kid is like Frodo. And you’re like—”
“Don’t say Legolas.”
“Fine, Boromir.”
“He’s dead.”
Peter shifts a little bit, wheezing through his mouth. “The hobbits the hobbits the hobbits….”
“Okay, we gotta shut up,” Tony says, trying not to laugh.
“You first.”
Tony rolls his eyes. “Just. Be security. Keep watch.” His phone buzzes in his pocket and he fishes it out, sees it’s from Pepper. It’s like the middle of the day in Beijing, but she knows he’s not asleep. He isn’t usually, but tonight’s definitely gonna be later than usual.
You heading to bed soon? Better be!
He rolls his eyes again. Had a drunk spider situation, so we had to make sure he didn’t die.
She messages back fast. Oh no, is he okay??
Tony looks over at him. He’s definitely drooling, but he’s not puking in some random guy’s car, so Tony feels better. He’ll call May in the morning and let her know he’s here, keeping all the details quiet, but at least she’ll know he’s here and he’s safe.
“Hap,” Tony whispers, and Happy looks up at him. “Selfie with the drunk kid?”
“Oh, definitely,” Happy says.
They both get up and hover on either side of Peter, and Tony has to hold his phone up really high but he gets all three of them in the frame. He grins, throws up a peace sign and takes the picture, and tries not to laugh too hard. They both sit back down and Happy shakes his head, smiling.
Tony types up a reply to Pepper and attaches the picture to it.
He will be, it’s fine. Love you and miss your face :)
He knows Pepper likes emojis, and so does Peter—they both overuse them and Tony tends to copy when he sees it so damn much. He’s glad they get along, because he has a feeling the kid is gonna be around a lot more often.
He takes one last look at Peter and closes his eyes, sinking a little further down into the chair. “Night, kid.”
“Goodnight Iron Man.”
Tony snorts, shaking his head. Oh man, he’s definitely bringing that back up in the morning.