Chapter Text
Peter didn’t like to talk about ‘the blip.’ Ned couldn’t stop talking about it, because it had changed all of their lives in strange ways, but the two of them hadn’t experienced ‘the blip’ in the same way. Ned had been in class when it had happened. He’d been dusted midway through a math test, along with MJ, Flash, and about 70 other students and teachers at Midtown High. Then he’d returned five years later to find his parents and grandparents still alive, his apartment as it always had been, and Midtown High ready to accept him back to repeat his sophomore year along with the other kids that had been dusted.
Peter had come back to find aunt May dead and another family living in his Queens apartment.
He’d been dusted in Tony’s arms on an alien planet with a red atmosphere, and come back to find himself on a battlefield fighting Thanos yet again, confused and disoriented. Tony had found him there on the battlefield outside the mostly destroyed Avenger’s compound in upstate New York and then pulled Peter into a tight hug, tears in his eyes and voice choked. “Oh my God, kid, you’re really here. You’re back. I never got to tell you that I love you.”
Peter had barely been given three sentences to describe what was going on before being forced to fight yet another horde of aliens across an expansive battlefield. “It’s been five years. We brought you back. We have to get the glove away from Thanos and kill him before he kills all of you again.”
It had only taken a few seconds after that for Peter to notice that Tony’s gauntlet had six empty spaces. Spaces the size of magical stones. He’d known then that Tony had plans on using the stones… on being the one to kill Thanos. He’d also known that there was no way he would survive if he did. There was no way Peter was going to let that happen.
A lot of the battle was a blur for him after that. Bruce had told him later that it had gone on for another fifteen minutes after the dusted had been brought back, but that’s not how Peter remembered it. It felt like only moments. He’d tailed Mr. Stark around the battlefield with one goal: keep Mr. Stark alive. He hadn’t known at that point that aunt May was dead… that he didn’t have a life in Queens to return to. All he knew was that he loved Mr. Stark and couldn’t let him die.
Steve and Thor had wrestled the glove off of Thanos and Clint had pried two of the stones out of it. Mr. Stark had the stones into his gauntlet before Peter could stop him. He tried to snatch the third stone Clint had pried out of the glove before Tony could get it, but Tony got to it first. There was only one thing Peter could do in that moment, and that was to take Thanos’ glove. Clint had dropped it and dove into a crater to avoid a blast from a Chitauri weapon. When Mr. Stark turned to take another stone, he found Peter wearing the enormous glove.
“What’re you doing Pete?”
“You can’t have the other three.”
“This is the only way. There’s a plan in place.”
“Then change the plan. You just told me I was dead for five years. I’m not gonna come back just to watch you die.”
Thanos had gotten free from where nine people were holding him down, and was coming after the glove and the stones. Before Mr. Stark could argue with Peter about it, Peter reached forward and took his hand, Infinity stone gauntlet to Thanos’ glove. “Snap together to get rid of him!” Peter had shouted. He hadn’t given Mr. Stark a choice but to comply because Thanos had lunged at them, arms outstretched for the stones. Then they had snapped. Together. Thanos hit the ground in front of them, bursting into gray dust, his army of aliens turning to dust all around the battlefield. Mr. Stark and Peter hit the ground, arms still tangled together, Infinity stones turning to dust. That was how the others found them, Peter unconscious lying across Mr. Stark. That had been six months ago.
Peter slammed his locker in the hall of Midtown high a little too hard, causing Ned to look up at him, frown firmly in place. He’d been going on all morning about how odd it was to be going to school as sophomores when the seniors had only been middle schoolers when they’d ‘blipped’.
“You ok Peter?” Ned asked.
Peter gave him a tired look and said, “Fine. I’m fine.” He was tired. He hadn’t slept well the night before. He’d dreamt of the two months after the battle, lying in bed in Mr. Stark’s cabin upstate recuperating. It had been painful, but his body had healed his burnt arm and face. It had been even more painful lying there knowing that aunt May wasn’t coming to see him… to pick him up and take him back to Queens. Mr. and Mrs. Stark had gained full custody of him. It was both the best and worst thing that had happened to him. He’d lost aunt May and gained a father in Tony, along with a mother and little sister. He never slept well these days. He knew Tony didn’t either, mostly because he was still recovering. It had taken Peter two full months to heal physically, even though it had taken him another three to be strong enough to start training to be Spider Man again. It had taken Tony four months just to be able to get up out of bed, and another two for him to regain full use of his left arm. He didn’t have Peter’s healing abilities, and his left arm would be scarred for life. At least he was alive.
“Move it Penis,” a senior sneered, shoving between Peter and Ned. Ned sneered at the guy’s back.
“What’s his problem?”
Peter shrugged. At least one thing hadn’t changed for him. No one knew he was Spider Man. No one knew he lived with the Starks back in Stark Tower. He was still just the dorky kid with a single friend that everyone at school liked to pick on. It was different kids picking on him now, because most of the kids he’d gone to school with before were off at college, but it didn’t matter.
“What’s wrong with you Parker?” Flash asked, also shoving past him, knocking into him hard enough that he had to take a step back to catch himself from falling. Flash was one of the few kids he still knew there. A lot of the kids that had blipped at Midtown had been from other years. Peter, Flash, Ned, MJ and four others were all that had come back after the blip to repeat their sophomore year.
“I want to take comfort in the fact that school hasn’t changed at all,” Ned said, “but this actually sucks.”
Peter murmured his agreement as they started towards history class. It had only taken a few days of Flash’s loud mouth for the name ‘Penis Parker’ to start floating around the school again. By the end of Peter’s second week back, there were a dozen upperclassmen calling him names in the halls, trying to trip him at lunch, and laughing at him as Flash knocked the books out of Peter’s hands. They flocked to him like sharks who caught the scent of blood in water. All it had taken was for Flash to cut him once.
The world knew that the Hulk had snapped the dusted back into existence, and that Iron Man and Spider Man had snapped Thanos and his army away, removing the threat of everyone disappearing again. No one knew that innocent, exhausted looking Peter Parker, sitting in the back row of history class was a hero. Peter preferred it that way. He had never even been able to get the kids at school to believe he’d had an internship at Stark Industries. No one would believe that he was Spider Man, and he was too tired to fight with them about it.
* * *
Peter flopped down next to Tony on the couch in the penthouse living room, backpack at his feet. Tony looked up from the Stark tablet he was working on and looked Peter up and down. They both had bags under their eyes. “You look beat kid,” he commented.
Peter hummed in agreement. “What are you working on?”
“Still catching up on work. For five months all I heard was, ‘take it easy, you can work later.’ Now all I hear is, ‘Tony, you’re so far behind. You’ve got to start catching up.’”
Peter laughed. He’d heard Pepper getting on to him for the last few weeks to go through the thousand emails that had piled up. There were important documents he needed to catch up on signing, and months old projects from R and D that needed to be reviewed. Peter would gladly skip school for a couple weeks (or the rest of the year) to help him if he could.
“You know you could just let me do homeschool and then I could have time to help you.”
“No can do, you know what Pepper said. You have to try school at least until spring term before we’ll consider an online homeschool program.”
“I can tell you already what I’m going to say at the end of January,” Peter said. They wanted him to try to get back into a ‘normal routine’ at Midtown. Peter had as far as attending classes went. He had a 4.2 GPA, only one point lower than what he’d had before the blip. But he had hated every minute of it. School was loud and overwhelming for him and for his senses. It always had been, but now that he was lacking sleep and frequently flashing back to Titan, it just made him miserable.
They were quiet for several minutes as Tony continued to scroll through months of back emails. By the time Tony looked up at Peter again, he found him asleep, head resting against the back of the couch. A nap sounded like an excellent idea to Tony. Peter was tired because his sleep was broken every night. Tony was tired because he was still trying to recover. He put the tablet to sleep and then scooted down on the couch a little so his head could rest against the backrest too. Neither of them woke forty minutes later as Happy came up in the elevator with Morgan.
“Come on, I’ll take you to see auntie Nat,” Happy said, not wanting Morgan to wake them.
“No uncle Happy. I wanna nap too.” She went to the couch and climbed up, wedging herself between Peter and Tony.
Happy went over and turned the TV onto her favorite cartoon, making sure the volume was low, and then went to get her a snack in the kitchen. He wasn’t supposed to be babysitting, but didn’t want to just leave Morgan there with no supervision. Morgan loved spending time with Peter, and preferred to be there in the penthouse with him if he was home.
It seemed Morgan wasn’t lying when she’d said she wanted a nap too. By the time he brought over a sliced up apple and a juice box for her, he found her sleeping soundly across boss and mini-boss. Peter’s head had slipped sideways and was lying on Tony’s shoulder. Happy set the sliced apple on the coffee table with the juice box, and left them there to sleep, heading back to his office ten floors below.
* * *
Uncle Ben had always said that a curse had been placed on their family. They were never sure by who, but the mysterious curse was known as ‘Parker luck.’ Whenever something bad happened, it was due to ‘Parker luck,’ or rather, a lack thereof. Parker luck had been responsible for the plane crash that had killed Peter’s parents. It had been responsible for Uncle Ben being gunned down in the streets by a trigger happy mugger. It had been responsible for aunt May dying in a car crash the day of the blip. Peter had begun to think that it wasn’t ‘Parker luck’ but just Peter. His parents, May and Ben didn’t have bad luck. Peter did. Shitty things happened to him on a frequent enough basis that he was certain he must be the unluckiest Parker to ever have lived. It didn’t surprise him then to find out that the Alpha level students in the Midtown Honor Society would be going on a field trip to Stark Industries in the last week of Winter term as a reward for their hard work.
The last time Peter had gone on an honor society field trip at the end of the 8th grade, he’d been bitten by a radioactive spider. Sometimes that felt like bad luck and sometimes it felt like the best thing that had ever happened to him, because he loved being Spider Man. Sometimes Parker luck worked like that though. Get bitten, become Spider Man. Be Spider Man, die on Titan. Lose aunt May, get Tony Stark as an awesome dad. One thing always gave way to another. He just wished it didn’t have to be that way.
“So, are we excited for this field trip or not?” Ned asked Peter cautiously as they left school and headed out to the black SUV waiting for them. Ned was supposed to stay the night since it was Friday afternoon. “Because, if you’re excited, then I’m excited, and if you’re bummed out, I’m bummed out.”
Peter appreciated his friend’s attempt to sympathize, but looked at him as they got into the back seat and said, “You can be excited if you want to you know, even if I’m not.”
“Right,” Ned said, “but I’ve seen the tower already, and besides that you’re way more important.”
“What are you talking about?” Happy asked by way of greeting from the front seat as Ned and Peter buckled up and he pulled away.
“We have to go on a field trip to the tower next week,” Peter said.
“I hate tour groups at the tower,” Happy commented. Peter didn’t say it out loud, but he and Happy were in agreement. “Why are you unhappy about it?” Happy asked, seeing Peter’s stony face in the rearview mirror.
Ned didn’t give him a chance to answer and said, “Because 90 percent of the school are complete jerks to us.”
“To me anyway,” Peter mumbled. Ned could have other friends if he wanted to, but he chose to stick by Peter’s side for some reason. Peter had never understood why, though he appreciated it all the same.
“Jerks how?”
“Well there’s this one guy, Flash-”
Happy didn’t give Ned a chance to finish the thought.
“Is he bothering you again?” Happy asked Peter. “You haven’t said anything since going back to school so I thought maybe he didn’t blip and was already gone.”
Back when Peter really was just an intern and had been going to the tower three afternoons a week before the blip to spend time with Tony in his lab, Peter had frequently gotten into Happy’s car bruised, brooding or both, and it had come out rather quickly that he’d been getting bullied by Flash Thompson.
“No he blipped too,” Ned said. “Now we’re stuck with him. It’s not just him though. Almost everyone’s a jerk.”
“That still doesn’t explain why a field trip to the tower is going to be bad.” Happy turned down a different street, and then pulled into a drive through at McDonalds. When Ned stayed the night every other Friday, they always got McDonald’s on the way back to the tower. Then, one Saturday a month when Peter went to stay over at Ned’s house, Peter picked up pizza on the way there. Two for Ned’s family, and two for Peter and Ned.
“When Peter said he had an internship at Stark Industries no one believed him except me, because I was already his guy in the chair.”
Happy snorted at that. Ned always called himself Peter’s ‘guy in the chair,’ despite that he rarely ever did any kind of techie side-kick work for him, especially since Tony had installed Karen into the spider suit.
“This is going to suck,” Peter said. He looked at Ned and said, “We are not happy about this field trip.” Ned gave a nod to say he understood and then tried to match the stony look on Peter’s face. It only made Peter laugh though.
After they got their food (six bags of it, including a bag for Tony and Morgan, who they would be picking up from school in a few minutes on their way to the tower), Happy looked in the rearview mirror and said, “You’re more than just an intern, you’re the future CEO of the company. Don’t let the jerks at school get to you.”
“Morgan’s the future CEO of the company,” Peter mumbled, digging around in one of his bags of food to get to the french fries.
“You’re older and you’re the one Tony and Pepper chose. Even just for the Emergency Transfer Protocol, there’s no way Morgan could take care of things as a 5 year old.”
Ned watched Peter as he stuffed several fries into his mouth, but Peter didn’t explain what Happy meant by that. He knew Ned would pester him later after they got back to the penthouse and to his room, but he didn’t want to discuss it in front of Happy. Right now he wanted to just eat and then see Morgan. As soon as they picked her up, the car would be filled with happy chatter about learning to read and playground disputes with other Kindergarteners. That was often the highlight of his day, at least until he got to sit down with Tony and Morgan to watch a movie, or to spend time with Tony in his lab after dinner. If he could just boil his day down to those things then life would be a lot better in his opinion. If he had his way he’d skip this field trip, and skip every other day at Midtown High as well. He wanted to learn, he just didn’t want to be part of the mass of mindless students thrumming in the hallways anymore.
* * *
Ned waited to ask about the Emergency Transfer Protocol until they were playing video games later that night around 10 PM, both sitting on the floor at the foot of Peter’s bed on a soft gray rug, pillows and sleeping bags piled around them. The lights were off and the glow of the huge flatscreen TV on the wall lit up their faces as they played Fortnite. Peter had FRIDAY projecting a separate screen next to the big screen for Ned to play on. Morgan was sprawled across the foot of the bed behind them in her pajamas, sleeping, one arm hanging off the bed, the other clutching a stuffed alpaca wearing a pink tutu named Gerald. She’d wanted to be part of the ‘sleepover’ too, but she had conked out around eight thirty. Peter was sure Tony would come in soon to take her back to her room.
“So-” Ned started, trailing away.
Peter already knew what he was going to ask about though.
“You already know they made me future CEO,” Peter said. He’d told Ned that months ago, back when school had started. Peter had still been recovering, but had been well enough to start school at the start of the year with the other sophomores.
“Yeah.”
“The Emergency Transfer Protocol means if something happens to Tony and Pepper now, I become CEO right away. Or if they were incapacitated and someone needed to step in right away.”
“Holy shi- cow dude,” Ned said, curbing his language as he turned to look over his shoulder at Morgan, sleeping above him. He didn’t want to be told off for cursing in front of her. “But you’re like… 15.”
“I know. I’ve been trying not to think about it. I told them they shouldn’t, but da- Tony and Pepper both insisted. Something about a guy that once stepped in as temporary CEO for Tony until he was 21 and messed everything up or something… I don’t know.” Peter still wanted to ask about that and get more details, but it had seemed like a sensitive topic, at least for Tony, so he hadn’t asked for clarification. Maybe he’d ask Pepper or Happy, or Rhody the next time he saw him.
Ned set down his controller since he’d already died in the game and turned towards Peter. Bathed in the glow of the TV and holo screen he said, “So let me get this straight. At any moment you could become CEO of Stark Industries? You’d be like… so freaking rich! Dude, we could like, fly to France or something, just because!”
Peter gave him a sideways glance. “What would we do in France?”
“I don’t know,” Ned said, “that’s not the point. The point is we could just up and go.”
“I don’t think that’s what they had in mind. I’m supposed to do whatever’s best for the company and make sure it’s still here for when Morgan grows up to take over.”
There was a knock on his bedroom door, which was slightly open, and they looked up to see Tony leaning on the doorframe, arms crossed. “That’s not what you’re supposed to do,” he said quietly, eyes moving to Morgan’s sleeping form on the bed. “It would be nice if you didn’t dissolve the company or tank the stocks, but if that happens, it happens. We have two trust funds set up in any case, one for you and one for Morgan. The point isn’t for you to take over until Morgan’s ready. At some point after Pepper and I retire, the company will be yours Pete.”
Peter frowned, setting his controller down too and looked up at Tony. “Morgan’s your daughter though. It should be her company.”
“And I know you’d put her in a high paying position here if she ever wanted it,” Tony said. “She’s not our only kid though. You’re our son, and the oldest, and you have an interest in science, tech, and green energy.” Morgan wants to be a ballerina who lives in an ice castle when she grows up, went unsaid. She was only five though. Peter was sure in a few years she’d be into computers and science too.
Tony moved across the room and scooped Morgan up into his arms, stuffed alpaca balanced on top of her. “You’re not going out tonight, right?” Tony asked Peter on his way out the door. “I don’t want to explain to Ned’s mother again how the two of you ended up in New Jersey at four AM when you were supposed to be here sleeping.”
“I took that tracker off of my phone,” Ned called after him, but he was already out the door and headed for Morgan’s room on the other side of the penthouse. Ned looked at Peter and said, “Are we going out? Cuz I was just gonna ask if we could have FRIDAY connect to my phone and route any incoming calls to your cell. I did take that tracking app off of it, but you know my mom. I have a feeling she probably installed another one that’s disguised as something else.”
Peter huffed a laugh and then turned back to the game so they could start another one. Two months ago Ned had insisted he go out with Peter to see Peter in action fighting crime. A wild series of events had led to them crossing the George Washington Bridge into New Jersey, where Peter ended up getting hurt. They had realized at that point that they had not brought any money to take a cab or bus back into New York. Ned’s phone had been on silent all night, and he hadn’t realized his mom had been calling to ask what he was doing wandering around New York and then crossing into New Jersey. They’d ended up calling Tony to come get them, who then had to come up with a crazy excuse about Peter and Ned being in the car with him all night as they helped Happy find his missing dog, a toy yorkie who had run away. Happy didn’t have a dog, but to this day Mrs. Leeds still asked Peter whenever he went over to Ned’s how ‘Little Mr. McFluffin’ was doing.
“You know you already told me they adopted you right?” Ned asked, bringing Peter out of his train of thought.
“Huh?”
“You already said they adopted you. A lot of times you go to call him dad though, and then you stop and say Mr. Stark, or Tony instead.”
Peter’s cheeks started to heat up. “I know.”
“Just sayin’, I’m right here. You don’t have to pretend.”
He sighed. He did think of Pepper and Tony as mom and dad. He called Tony dad when they were alone, and sometimes called Pepper mom. It always made them smile. He’d thought of Tony as his dad for a long time… since before the blip, even though he’d only been an ‘intern’ back then. He knew the teachers at school had to know, because his report cards came to the tower, and Tony and Pepper were listed as his contacts. Happy and Rhody were listed as his emergency contacts. He hadn’t told anyone else yet though. He would be made fun of and called a liar, but that wasn’t the only reason. Telling others would make it real. It was real. Aunt May was dead, but somehow having everyone else know would mean that this was permanent and that aunt May wasn’t coming back. He’d never got to go to her funeral… to see her being put in the ground, but he remembered what that was like, seeing uncle Ben’s casket go into the ground. That had felt so permanent… so final.
Ned seemed to know what Peter was thinking because he said quietly, “May would want this.”
“What?” He frowned. “Did I say that out loud?”
Ned turned and dug around in his backpack, pulling out a huge bag of gummy worms and opened it up, holding it out to Peter so he could take one. “No. I just know you dude. May would want you to be happy though… to have Mr. and Mrs. Stark, and Morgan.”
“Yeah.”
Ned handed another gummy worm to him and said, “And she’d want us to jet set off to France instead of going to second period Spanish class.”
Peter snorted and took the gummy worm he was holding and threw it at him.
As they slept later that night, sometime after one in the morning after Ned’s mother had insisted Ned send her a photo of them in Peter’s room in front of the clock, Peter lay in his sleeping bag staring at the ceiling. Money wasn’t important to him. He’d been happy living in the little apartment with May and Ben. Living here with the Starks… having money didn’t even come close to the best thing about this.
Having Tony come to pick them up at four am after sneaking out, and then making up a ridiculous story to give to Ned’s mother… falling asleep on the couch watching a movie and waking up in a pile of tangled limbs because Morgan was sprawled across all of them… knowing there was someone to come home to each day no matter how crappy his day at school had been… those were the best things. Who cared about money when he had a family?