Chapter Text
“I know exactly what happened,” says Morgan, and Peter blinks and starts and stares at her. No five-year-old should sound that cold. “Daddy loved you almost as much as he loves me,” she continues. Her little hands are balled into fists and the set of her jaw as she glares up at him looks like a rooftop and an argument and I wanted you to be better. “You were gone, now he’s gone. He swapped himself for you, but I don’t want you. I want my Daddy. You aren’t worth my Daddy.”
Peter’s mouth opens involuntarily, and then closes, and then opens again. Afternoon sun streams through the big windows of the lake house and warms his shoulders as he sits at the kitchen table with Tony Stark’s daughter looking at him with real hate in her eyes. Any minute now Pepper will be back from the store with the orange juice she promised them.
Morgan had bided her time, waiting until she was certain her mother had left before abandoning her toys on the rug and advancing on Peter, laying the blame for Tony’s death squarely at his feet. It’s almost a relief. She’s the only person telling him the truth.
He hears Pepper’s footsteps in the hall and leans towards Morgan.
“I know,” he whispers. “You’re right.”
Morgan frowns and then nods. Again Peter sees the expression on another face.
“I’m not old enough, but you are,” she says. “Bring my Daddy back. Work it out or just swap back. Go away again so he can come home.”
Peter nods solemnly as Pepper opens the door.
“Whatever it takes,” he says.
Pepper enters the room empty handed and looks almost surprised to see Peter there. He smiles weakly at her.
“Orange juice...” she says softly. “I left it in the car.”
Morgan’s bottom lip trembles as her mother leaves again. “Mommy doesn’t forget things,” she says, her dark eyes shiny with held-back tears.
It’s pure instinct that moves Peter to pick her up and hug her. Morgan hits him.
Then there’s a scream from outside and Peter doesn’t stop to put her down before he’s running.
He jerks to a halt steps away from the front door. There’s a smell of iron and meat from the other side and the sound of Pepper murmuring rapidly into her phone, her voice strained with desperation.
Peter turns and Morgan immediately starts struggling in his arms. Her sharp elbows and feet dig into his sides hard enough to bruise even Spider-Man.
“I wanna see! Let me see! Mommy! Let go I wanna see my Mommy!”
“Your mother is not in danger, Little Boss,” says FRIDAY, and Peter breathes a sigh of relief as Morgan stops fighting him. He’d been so afraid of hurting her. “But you might be if you continue with this behaviour.”
Morgan pouts. “Sorry, FRI,” she says, not looking very sorry at all.
“It’s not me you need to apologise to.” The AI sounds for all the world like a big sister telling off her naughty sibling. It’s one of the weirdest things Peter has ever experienced.
Now Morgan looks downright mutinous. “Sorry, Peter,” she says. Peter wonders how it’s possible for a five-year-old to apologise and so clearly convey fuck you . He suspects that comes from Pepper.
She seethes quietly as he carries her up to her bedroom. It’s with a faint sense of surprise that Peter realises he loves her completely. This angry, sad little girl who hasn’t spoken a single pleasant word to him has somehow found the backdoor key to his heart and made herself comfortable inside. Maybe it’s because she’s so like Tony. Maybe it’s because her hurt is his hurt. Whatever the reason, Peter knows he will follow her to the end of the universe to keep her safe.
He leaves her sitting on her bed, arms and legs folded, glaring at him like he’d just told her he doesn’t believe in Tinkerbell.
“FRIDAY?” asks Peter. “How long can you keep her distracted in there for?”
“If she’s determined to get out? Twenty minutes.”
“That’ll have to do,” says Peter, jumping down the stairs in two easy leaps.
He sprints to the end of the hall and opens the door and there is War Machine landing next to Pepper who is kneeling on the floor beside-
And there is Dr Strange and the light and sparks of a portal leading to a hospital and doctors and nurses preparing a stretcher to lift-
And there are Happy and May, arriving in the middle of the chaos because now is when they were supposed to be picking Peter up and instead they’re seeing-
And there is blood. Blood across the ground and soaked into Pepper’s clothes and covering Tony, living breathing unconscious Tony, lying pale and motionless and still in his suit but alivealivealive on the stretcher.
And then he’s carried through to the hospital and Pepper and Rhodey follow him and Peter is left with a choice and then May looks at him and he chooses.
Peter ducks through the portal just as it closes.
***
Hospitals are the worst for smells. Peter is periodically hit by the reek of blood or urine or infection or worse, and the whole terrible miasma is constantly drenched in the overwhelming scent of antiseptic. It’s a stabbing pressure at his temples the entire time he waits.
Pepper and Rhodey wait with him. None of them talk. Peter is certain that the other two are just as afraid as he is that this is all some big trick. The worst episode of Punk’d of all time. They watched Tony die. They’d all seen the light leave his eyes. They’d all wondered if saving the universe was really worth it. They’d each thrown a handful of dirt into Tony’s grave.
The moment any one of them speaks might be the moment the spell breaks, and Tony isn’t at the end of the hall having surgery anymore. Tony hadn’t miraculously shown up on his own front doorstep three months after his funeral. Tony hadn’t pulled of this one last greatest surprise.
Peter is certain Pepper and Rhodey are thinking that too.
So no one talks.
Rhodey taps his foot and the metal of his braces makes it a sharp staccato rap against the hard plastic floor tile. Pepper chews on her lip until it’s bloody. Peter is concentrating on breathing. He seems to have forgotten how. If he doesn’t make a conscious effort to move air in and out of his lungs his throat closes up and his chest freezes.
It’s actually a welcome distraction.
Every so often his phone will buzz in his pocket. Each little vibration against his leg is a reminder that he’s loved, by May or Ned or MJ or Happy or any number of others. Peter suddenly understands Morgan intimately. He doesn’t want their love. The only affection in all the world, in all the universe, that he has any interest in is the gentle gruffness of Tony Stark.
The waiting room eats up all sense of time passing. The analog clock on the wall is stopped at sixteen minutes past six, and the second hand makes small jerking movements as it stays stuck in place.
In the artificial fluorescent light, everyone looks sick. Pepper and Rhodey are no different. The lights cast their skin as dull and waxy. Peter has just begun to wonder if he should attempt to persuade Pepper to sleep when the door swings open and an unfamiliar surgeon in green scrubs is followed into the room by Dr Strange.
Pepper shoots to her feet. “Dr Wu?” she says, somewhere between a plea for information and a greeting.
“Mrs Stark,” replies Dr Wu, then darts a glance at Peter.
“He should hear,” Pepper says quickly.
The surgeon takes a deep breath. Next to him, Dr Strange wears an expression carefully crafted to give nothing away but a vague sense of sympathy.
“He’s stable for now, but Tony’s heart physically isn’t strong enough to beat without assistance,” says Dr Wu bluntly. “And with the state his chest is in, a transplant simply wouldn’t be viable.”
Peter’s own chest feels horribly tight. He can see Pepper swaying slightly, only kept steady by Rhodey’s solid hand on her shoulder. She holds her trembling fingers over her mouth and nods minutely along as Dr Wu talks.
“I’ve known Tony for a long time, I’ve seen him beat astronomical odds. I don’t want to watch him die, which he will,” he says, his composure slipping slightly.
Peter’s heart drops into his stomach and he imagines he can feel it begin to be digested by the acid there, but Pepper seems to appreciate the surgeon’s forthrightness. Her arms drop to her sides as her spine straightens and her chin rises defiantly.
“Or he would have done. I hope you can understand, Mrs Stark- Pepper . That man deserves to live.”
“ What did you do? ” says Pepper in her most dangerous voice, the cold and quiet one.
“His pacemaker has been replaced with a modified version, which runs off a re-implanted arc reactor. The procedure was invasive and risky and will require a long convalescence but it worked.” Dr Wu sounds like he’s justifying his actions to himself just as much as he is to Pepper.
“The reactor’s back in and he’ll live? He’s alive ? That’s it?” Pepper’s incredulity almost sounds angry.
Peter finds himself looking around for hidden cameras again. The universe simply doesn’t grant wishes like this.
“He has extensive scarring on his right side and there’s possible reduced mobility in that arm. He’ll never be as he was, there’ll be significant physical limitations. But otherwise it’s likely he’ll make a full recovery.”
Pepper makes a funny little gasping sound and collapses into a chair. Rhodey hadn’t moved a muscle throughout the entire conversation, but now he slowly drops the raised hand that had been gripping Pepper’s shoulder to rest on his braces. They look at each other. Then Pepper is sobbing and flinging herself at Rhodey who is laughing and laughing and laughing.
“Son of a bitch,” repeats Rhodey between peals of hysterics. “That son of a bitch.”
Peter has been hit by a similar wave of relief. It surges up out of the pit of his stomach and makes him shiver. The horrible cocktail of emotions he’s been suppressing is suddenly pushing its way up his throat.
Literally.
He’s literally going to throw up.
He grabs a garbage can and heaves. All he brings up is bile and shitty hospital coffee but his face is wet with tears by the time he’s done. Pepper is rubbing soothing circles on his back and Peter takes several long breaths.
Tony is alive. Peter won’t believe it until he sees him.
Dr Strange clears his throat.
The muttered conversation between Rhodey and Dr Wu about the chances of Tony waking from his coma anytime soon stops. Pepper’s hand freezes on Peter’s back.
“I ran some tests,” says Dr Strange, and hesitates.
“And?” Pepper’s voice is imperious. She doesn’t like Dr Strange.
“It was definitely a magical resurrection. As far as I can tell it only healed the direct cause of death, meaning Tony has no radiation damage but retained his other injuries. A spell like that has a cost, but is probably not fatal to the caster. Probably.”
“What exactly are you saying?” snaps Rhodey.
Pepper has gone very pale.
“I’m saying that someone, at some point in the timeline, traded an awful lot to bring Tony back here.” Then Dr Strange stops and does something Peter’s never seen him do before. His whole body sags and he runs a hand over his face. “When he arrived there was a lot of blood. It wasn’t Tony’s.”
“Oh god,” murmurs someone, and Peter can’t be sure if it’s him, Pepper, or Rhodey.
“It was Morgan’s.”