Work Text:
As soon as Tony turns the corner into the main hallway, he feels it.
Sharp pain, and it takes control of his whole body and he’s frozen, paralyzed and he can’t even yell out, he can’t even scream for his son to hide, and he falls backwards into someone’s grasp and he can see the man with the food at the fucking door, but Tony gets dragged away, over to the living room.
Obie deposits him on the couch, lowering him down.
“Never thought we’d have an ending like this, Tony,” he says, and he’s holding the goddamn sonic taser, the one the government wouldn’t approve because it was considered too inhumane, and Tony’s paralyzed, he’s fucking paralyzed—
Obie sits down next to him like they’re gonna watch TV together.
And the worst case scenario settles firmly on Tony’s shoulders.
“Now I get to talk,” Obie says. “Now I get the stage. It’s always you, isn’t it? The center of attention. I can never get a word in edgewise.”
Tony can’t move he can’t fucking move.
“It’s been a hard road, trying to figure out what exactly to do with you,” Obie says, putting his arm around him. “You were a wild horse, for a while, and I thought killing Mary and the baby might calm you down. Might put some things into perspective.”
The world narrows.
He’s sucked into a black hole.
It feels like everything stops, like he’s dying, like every one of his memories is flashing before his eyes.
“But the baby wasn’t in that orchestrated car crash, now was it?” Obie asks, laughing, and he sounds far away, and Tony feels like—he feels like—he feels—
He killed he killed her he killed he tried to kill he tried he—
“So we only lost Mary. And you had the nerve to step up, after that, to fall in love with the kid, which I didn’t plan for, so I had to rethink some things. I thought he’d distract you, I thought maybe I could sweep the company out from under you, but you kept your claws in. That little event at the Christmas gala? That moronic man took the drink I intended for you—it wasn’t even supposed to kill you, it was just supposed to get you out of the way, get you to think.” He scoffs, shaking his head.
That was him? He’s the reason Ben was poisoned too?
What the fuck?
“A little while after, I tried again. The kidnapping.” He turns towards him and smiles.
The kidnapping.
Peter’s kidnapping.
Obie…Obie did that? Obie did that? That?
He did that? One of the worst fucking things to ever happen in Tony’s entire life? One of the times he’s been the most lost? One of the things that’s still affecting him to this day?
“I thought about the details. How long it should last. How hurt he should be. If he should die. I imagined a tiny casket. How that image might look on newspaper covers, with you lying prostrate in front of it.” He sighs, and turns towards something on his other side.
And Tony is screaming inside his own head. He’s screaming so much that that’s all he hears now, his own screaming inside himself, and he can’t move but if he could, he’d tear him limb from limb.
All of those things all of those fucking things were all him—
“But I turned it around, made myself the hero,” Obie says. “And it made you move across the country, which made some things a little easier. Strained some relationships that needed straining.”
He’s got something in his hands now, and he shoves Tony’s shirt up and attaches it immediately to the arc reactor. Tony grunts with the motion of it, and it starts to drill in, making smoke, and pain and pain and pain, then he detaches it. He pulls the reactor all the way out, out of Tony’s chest, and Tony gasps, watching as the wires come undone as Obie draws it away from him.
The thing keeping him alive.
“You and your mistakes, Tony,” Obie says, still holding the arc reactor.
Tony already feels like his body is failing. And he’s still screaming, inside, the pain and the rage overcoming him.
His child. His child.
“And this one, a little cockroach following you around for seven years now, every single day. A goddamn mistake, a blot on your legacy, what you should have been. I should have choked the life out of him the day you left me alone with him.”
The world tilts like they’re on a sinking ship.
Obie smiles at him. “Do you remember, Tony? Do you? He’s been afraid of me ever since, I think. Babies remember. Gave him a little scare. Thought he couldn’t breathe.”
Tony grits his teeth, his eyes nearly bulging out of his head.
What the fuck does that mean? What did he do? What the fuck did he do to his baby? Couldn’t breathe? Couldn’t breathe?
Obie laughs and stands up, admiring the reactor. “You should have known you could never keep this to yourself,” he says. “You were supposed to die over there, Tony, another one of my plans that didn’t work out.” He sighs. “Yes, since we’re secret telling, I sold you to them, I sold your location, I sold the convoy, I sold all of those lives to them, and you were supposed to die—but they twisted things, twisted the agreement, and I suppose it was just fate that you made it out of there. Because you gave me this. Your greatest achievement. And now, when you’re gone, we’ll reset the weapons manufacturing, and this’ll be at the heart of all the new products. Including my new prototype. Something along the lines of what you’ve been working on—yes, I know about it, though mine is a vast improvement.”
He puts the arc reactor in a case he’s got on the couch, and Tony wants to kill him, he wants to kill him, he wants to kill him right here.
He’s dying, himself, he can feel it—
How could Obie, how could he, all of that—all of it—
“The child is in the house, isn’t he?” Obie says, smiling.
Tony breathes hard through his mouth, and he has to move, he has to, he has to. He can’t. He tries and he can’t.
Obie taps his own chin. “Now, I’ve been thinking about what I might do. You won’t last long without this, I’m sure, and I’ve been considering taking the child under my wing. Locking out the aunt and uncle is easy enough, and he’ll be mine to mold, mine to discipline, because you never did enough of that. I always thought Howard ought to have used the belt more. Soon enough, Peter will be a shadow of what you once knew. Or I could kill him right here.”
He starts striding over to the stairway like he knows he’s down there, and Tony can’t move and he’s grunting trying to scream and he’s panicking and no no no fucking way not his baby, no, no, don’t touch him don’t fucking touch him
And he tried to kill him before and HE’S TRYING TO KILL HIM AGAIN, GOD DAMMIT, NO, NO
But he hears the sound of Jarvis’s protocols going into effect. Of the stairs retracting and the entrance being sealed off so Obie can’t access the workshop.
The Peter Protocols.
Anything to keep him safe.
“Oh, you can’t get away that easy,” Obie says, and he starts smashing his foot into the cover over the stairs, but it’s steel-plated, and there’d be no fucking way he could get through it. But Tony’s whole body tenses anyway, and he has to move, how long does this shit last, how fucking long—
And Obie stomps and stomps and screams and tries to pry it up—
—and he strides back over to Tony after a few agonizing moments, breathing hard, and Tony wants to explode, he wants to explode. Obie smiles again and Tony wants to rip it off his face.
“What would be worse, huh, Tony?” Obie asks, grabbing his case. “Me killing him in front of you? Holding him up by his little neck until he turned purple and blue, can’t even speak or call out for his Daddy? Or me raising him? Me walking out of here with him and you knowing I’ll be his father?” His face goes cold, and he sneers, and Tony’s nostrils flare. “You should worry about Pepper too. You should worry about all of them.”
He looks him up and down, and then he leaves, walking until he disappears into the front hallway.
And for a moment it’s like the abyss. Drowning, all those horrible things, and Obie is dead, the Obie Tony knew was dead, and was he ever alive in the first place? Drowning, drowning, darkness—
Tony breathes hard, trying to move, trying to move. His body is already failing and he’s got the one prototype in the house and that’s it, that’s it, the one in Pepper’s gift to Peter. And he has to get to Peter. He has to get to him.
“Sir, I am trying to get through to Miss Potts,” Jarvis says, “but her line is otherwise engaged. As soon as the threat leaves the premises, I will turn the protocols off and the workshop will unseal.”
Thank God for the fucking protocols. Thank God Tony is one of the most paranoid people on the fucking planet.
He’s able to move slightly, slightly, and he collapses off the couch and onto the ground. He can barely breathe and he’s sweating and he already feels more sluggish, he already feels like his vision is getting blotchy, his heart stuttering, and no no, no, no, and the things Obie said the fucking things he said the goddamn things he did, the things he did, things that have haunted Tony for years, things that have altered his life, caused so much pain and suffering, Obie was behind them all, all of them, god fucking dammit, and what he’s capable of, it all fell into place within five fucking cursed minutes, and Tony was so goddamn stupid so stupid so stupid, and he tries to crawl he tries to crawl towards the stairway for when it opens—
And he hears it unseal, hears the stairs rising back up, and he hears tiny feet rushing up them. Like he’d been waiting.
“Daddy? Daddy?”
And Tony is terrified to even have Peter here where Obie was, here where he was saying all of those things—
And his heart, he’s—
He’s able to gasp, able to move one arm out in front of him—
And Peter appears, rushing up the stairs, and he looks horrified when he sees him.
“Daddy Daddy Daddy oh my God oh my God oh my God,” Peter says, collapsing next to him. He’s grasping at him, holding onto him with desperate hands. His face crumples and he shakes his head, like he’s trying not to cry. “What can I do? What can I do how do I fix it tell me how to fix it—”
“Arc,” Tony breathes.
Peter’s eyes widen. Tony is on his stomach and he tries to turn over but Peter grabs his shoulder, grunting and groaning but managing to turn him over on his own. He grabs his other shoulder and tries to ease him down, and the paralysis is wearing off but Tony is still a lead fucking balloon.
Peter sees the lack of glow under Tony’s shirt. He shoves it up, and gasps when he sees the empty spot where the arc reactor was.
“Oh my God,” he says again. “Oh God, it’s—who—” He stares and shakes his head and blinks and he gently cups Tony’s face. “Can we use the old one the first one that I have? That’s mine?”
He’s so smart. He’s so smart.
Tony nods at him, blinking slowly.
“Okay,” Peter says, so fast. He scrambles to his feet. “One second one second one second—”
His voice fades away as he runs down the stairs, and Tony hears him fall and get up again and he’s muttering to himself and Tony is gonna have a stroke. He blinks up at the ceiling and he thinks about everything Obie said.
Everything he’s done.
Right under his nose.
Peter was in so much danger all the time, because of this man Tony insisted on keeping in his life. One that was actively trying to hurt his son. Actively trying to kill him.
Killed Mary. Killed his mother.
“Okay okay okay okay,” Peter says, getting closer. Tony hears him slamming up the stairs again, and it’s getting harder to breathe, and he feels like he’s becoming detached, fading.
“Okay okay,” Peter says, appearing in his line of vision again. He skids down alongside Tony and grabs his shoulder. “Okay it’s in glass so I have to do something bad I have to break it. I’m sorry but I’m sure it’s okay. I’m sorry.” He gets back up and runs away from him, and Tony can gently turn his head to see Peter slamming the box up against the far wall.
“Careful, baby—” Tony breathes, blinking, and he’s fading, he’s fading—
Peter hits it again and he yelps when it shatters, and he bends his knees and catches the reactor before it falls to the ground. He rushes back over, pure concentration on his face, and Tony can see the blood on his hands and feet as he disconnects the old reactor from the base Pepper made, tossing it over his shoulder. He doesn’t even seem to notice that he’s bleeding.
“Okay, okay, Daddy it’s okay, it’s okay,” Peter says, and he kneels back down beside him. “I remember. It’s okay. It’s okay.” He takes the old wires and reaches down inside the hole in Tony’s chest and connects them, and it’s like a jolt of adrenaline, and Tony gasps, blinking rapidly. Peter locks the reactor down and it engages, and Peter pushes Tony’s shirt down again and throws himself on top of him.
“Are you better?” he sobs, as Tony’s facilities start to come back to him. “Is it better? Is it better?”
Tony wraps his arms around him, loosely at first and then tighter, running his hand through his hair.
“Daddy,” Peter sobs, clutching at his shoulder.
“You…saved my life, monkey,” Tony says, holding him. “Thank you. Thank you so much, baby. My baby, my baby.” He gathers him up and holds himself as tight as he can.
He thinks of everything Obie said. Everything he’s done. Everything he’s wanted to do.
He can’t stop thinking about it he can’t stop thinking about it—
The front door slams open, and Tony is about to panic when he hears Rhodey’s voice.
“Tony? Tony? Where are you? Where are you?”
He rushes into the room just as Tony’s trying to sit up with Peter. Rhodey sees them, and nearly trips trying to get to them, collapsing down next to them. He holds Peter’s face, holds Tony’s, looks back and forth between them, eyes wide and panicked. “Did Obadiah do this? Did he?”
Tony nods, feeling dizzy and sick. “Peter’s bleeding, he—cut himself on glass—”
“It’s okay,” Peter says, scooting up a bit and wrapping his arms around Tony’s neck, burying his face in his shoulder. “I’m okay. I’m okay it’s just small.”
Tony holds onto him as Rhodey helps him to his feet, and Tony is shaking and he can feel himself falling into a black hole. He can hear everything Obie said in his head, over and over like some discordant melody, and he clutches at Peter tighter.
“Pepper?” Tony asks Rhodey, as Rhodey leads him over to the couch.
“She’s with Happy and a bunch of agents,” Rhodey says. “They’re heading to arrest Obadiah, but if he was just here—”
“It was him,” Tony says, holding the back of Peter’s head. “All along. He—he’s the reason Mary’s gone,” he half-whispers. Not knowing if Peter should hear it, but saying it anyway, because he can’t stop himself, because he’s spiraling, because it’s all happening in his head over and over, everything on top of everything else. “Ben being poisoned, the kidnappings, Peter’s, mine, everything, all of it, it’s him, it’s been him, all along.”
Peter groans, holding onto him tighter. “He’s always been bad. The worst bad guy. I knew it. I knew it. I always knew it.”
“He tried to take Peter from me,” Tony croaks, shaking his head at Rhodey. “Over and over. And now he’s—he’s—I don’t know when the hell he lost his mind, but it sounded like he made a suit too and he took the reactor, and he’s gonna, he’s gonna…”
Spiraling.
Peter was supposed to be in the car when Mary died.
Baby Peter. Tony could have lost him then. Then, way back then, before he even held him, before he even let him into his heart.
Tiny casket.
Obie kept planning after that.
He kept trying.
Tony knows he’s pacing around the room and he can vaguely hear Rhodey calling to him and Obie left and he’s about to do some crazy fucking shit but Tony can’t let go of Peter, he’s terrified, the amount of times he almost lost him, because of Obie, because of this person that he kept in his life, he’s been here because of Tony, because Tony was fucking blind, even though Peter knew, Peter knew—
He killed Mary, he killed Mary, he wanted Peter dead then too—
And that moment, in the office, and Tony never forgot, and what did he do, what did he do?
Too many moments too many opportunities and Tony, Tony, it’s his fault, it was his fault, May’s sister, his fault, his fault, almost lost Peter, almost lost him, forever, and it’s his fault, his fault—
The room chips away and he’s in darkness, and he has to stop him, he has to, he knows now, he knows now and it’s past heartbreak it’s past losing someone he saw as a father figure, it’s past that, they skipped that step as soon as he revealed himself and the fact that he killed Mary, and he’s been trying to hurt or kill Peter for years, and years and years and years—
But he’s frozen.
He’s frozen.
He’s standing in the middle of a desert plain, and all the horrors are swirling around in a dusty tornado, and he’s holding Peter, he’s still got him, he has to protect him—
How can he ever let him go again?
He shouldn’t have trusted Obie, he should have known—
And Tony closes his eyes and hugs his son because he’s still holding him and the world is just him and only him and he could have been gone, he could have been gone, and he feels Peter’s hands on his shoulders and squeezing him and rubbing his back.
“Daddy.”
“Tony, please, talk to me—”
“It’s bad, he’s scared, he’s really scared.” Peter squeezes him and brings him back to life a little bit, and Peter hums to himself, petting Tony’s hair and kissing his cheek. “It’s okay Daddy I love you. I love you.”
I love you.
He’s never loved a single person or thing more than he loves Peter. And now he knows that Peter will never be safe with Obie out there. Even if they out him to the public for what he’s doing, Obie won’t stop—it’s more than the company, or legacy, Obie is just gone, beyond gone, out of his mind, and from everything he’s said, it sounds like he’s been deteriorating for years.
Trying to kill his baby. Terrorizing him in his playpen.
He wanted to kill him right now. He was threatening it. He was trying to get to him.
Pepper’s in danger too. So are Ben and May and Happy and Rhodey. They all are, as long as he’s out there. The whole fucking world is, since he’s planning on starting the weapon manufacturing again, especially with the arc reactor.
Tony swallows hard, and the world reassembles around him, and he’s over by the wall by the front hallway. He can see the Chinese food sitting by the front door through the window, innocuous. From a time before.
Obie. Obie. The Obie he knew is dead. Was he always alive? Was he always this guy?
He can’t stop thinking. Repeat repeat repeat.
Tony clutches at Peter, but he looks at Rhodey beside him. “I need you to help me,” he says.
“What can I do?” Rhodey asks, holding his arm.
“I need you to stay here and protect Peter,” he says. “And I need you to keep the skies clear, because I’m going after him. Obie. Who knows what the hell he’s gonna do, but if he’s got a prototype that’s like mine, I need to stop him right now. Especially if Pepper’s in his line of fire.”
“I’ve got you,” Rhodey says, nodding at him.
Tony nods at him, nods his thanks, and he walks away and peels Peter off of him, setting him down and kneeling in front of him.
Peter lets out a little sigh and braces his hands on Tony’s shoulders.
Tony caresses his cheek. His perfect little person, and he tears up just looking at him. “I’m sorry I said that in front of you, what—what Obie said he did.” He shakes his head. “I wasn’t—you know sometimes I—my brain—”
“You were in your brain,” Peter says, nodding. “He’s bad. He’s really bad. He’s the worst bad person, he did all the bad things and I know you have to go. I know you do because you’re the hero and you keep us all safe.” He leans in and hugs him before Tony can say anything else. “Please just be careful, please I love you, just come back right after all safe, please, you can’t go anywhere I can’t follow you again. You can’t. I just will. I’ll follow you this time no matter where. Okay? You heard that?” He sniffles a little bit and Tony nods, kissing his temple.
“I’m gonna come back every single time so you don’t have to worry about that,” Tony says, kissing him again. “I just gotta take care of this. I need to put him away so he never has a chance to even look at you ever again.” He kisses him one more time, and pulls back to look at his face.
He hears Obie’s words. Everything he did everything he did all the people he hurt the people he killed and Tony allowed that he allowed that and he can’t allow a single second more not a single second.
“I believe in you and I’m proud of you okay and all the stuff you do,” Peter says, nodding. “And don’t say do I deserve that because duh you do. I love you. I love you.”
Tony leans in and presses his forehead against Peter’s. “I love you more than anything.”
“And I love you more than anything so turn on all the suit safety precautions and have Jarvis on ultimate mode. Grand master ninja fighter.”
“I will,” Tony says, hugging him one more time. “Stay here. Lock yourselves in. I’ll be back.” He gets to his feet, kissing the top of Peter’s head and starting towards the workshop. “I’ll be back.”
Tony sets his jaw, and he hears Rhodey coaxing Peter over.
And Tony wants to kill Obie.
He wants to fucking kill him.