Chapter Text
The irritation that sweeps through Peter at the telltale chime of the restaurant’s front door opening pairs perfectly with his disgust as a jet of water hits the soup ladle he’s washing at just the wrong angle, spraying dirty suds directly into his face.
His eyes cut left to share a look with his coworker Sara as she heads to the front to serve the charming customers who decided to come order two minutes before closing. Scrubbing a hand down his face to dry it off, Peter reluctantly walks over to turn the burger grills back on.
The night’s been slow, monotonous but easy, and they’d started closing early in the hopes of heading out for the night at a decent time. This group’s thrown a wrench in their plans, and Peter can see his dream of a decent night’s sleep slipping away right before his eyes.
It was a stretch anyway; his molecular bio paper won’t write itself and Spiderman patrol tends to require his active participation. Still, the bags beneath his eyes are becoming pronounced enough that even Ned has started squinting at them over Facetime and comparing them to craters on the moon.
As the orders come through and Peter settles into the quickfire habits of grilling, flipping, and assembling the food, a game plan forms in his mind. Espresso to get through his paper, six shots should probably do the trick. If he’s done writing it by three, he can have a few hours of uninterrupted patrol with enough time for a power nap before his eight am. That’s doable.
It really is. It’s just - college is hard. It’s all the usual stuff; moving into a dorm and not having May just a few walls away any time he needs her, classes that challenge him for the first time he can really remember, Ned and MJ scattered at different schools around the country. He’s constantly stressed, broke, and sleep deprived.
Then there’s the nightmares, new villains and old memories blurring together until they become a single mess. The most recent adventure into Peter’s subconscious had him fighting the weird sewer shark he’d actually encountered in Brooklyn the week before, except this time on Titan. Thanos had watched as the shark turned to dust only to snap it back, stronger than ever as it took a ragged bite of Tony’s arm. Peter could only watch on helplessly. He’d woken on the floor of his dorm room to an annoyed sigh from his roommate and sweat soaked sheets tangled around his legs.
The dream felt all too real to Peter, and he’s had a hard time trying to shake it off. Not the shark, or even the memories of Titan. Tony really had lost an arm though. Tony had almost died. Peter could do nothing but watch as Tony saved the universe, stitched it back together with a snap of his fingers, and nearly paid for it with his life.
Those few hours after the battle, waiting outside the operating room, unsure if he was about to lose yet another person he loved - those were more than enough fuel for Peter’s inevitable nightmares.
It’s all okay now though. Tony survived. He lost an arm and built a new one, all bright eyes and whirring mind and never, ever the victim. Months have gone by, as Peter finished high school alongside best friends and total strangers alike, graduated, and accepted his full ride offer to Columbia. Tony returned to the lakehouse, to Pepper and Morgan, to his family.
And that’s another thing. Tony has a family now. Peter knows Pepper was family to Tony before the snap, but it’s just… different now. Father, mother, daughter. Picturesque house on a lake - a home. Tony finally has everything he ever wanted.
And Peter missed it all.
And he knows it’s irrational, but there’s a small, insistent part of his mind that can’t help but wonder if Tony finally managed to have everything he wanted because Peter wasn’t around to worry about anymore.
Most of him knows it’s ridiculous. He can still picture the excitement in Tony’s eyes the first time he showed Peter around the lakehouse; the first time he introduced him to Morgan.
The real kicker of it is that Peter adores Morgan. How could he not? She’s incredible. Already ridiculously smart, funny and silly and sweet, so much a child in the way Peter knows Tony himself never got to be that it makes something in him ache.
Morgan grew up on stories of Spiderman. She grew up with framed photos of Peter Parker gathering dust on shelves. She grew up with a secondhand loss, a muted hole in her life that she could never quite understand.
Peter doesn’t know if Morgan felt a shift when he came suddenly into her life, if something in her settled into place the way it did for him when he met her. He just knows she was happy to have someone who indulged her in her Spy Kids conspiracy theories that first day, and in everything since.
So Peter loves Morgan. He loves Tony, and he loves Pepper. He loves lazy weekends at the lake house; lab days and game nights, boat rides and pancake breakfasts, the feeling that unfurls in his chest soft and sweet like honey.
But he’s been keeping his distance.
Not actively, not noticeably. He’ll still answer Tony’s calls, voice bright and grin wide. He’ll still pin Morgan’s drawings to the cork board above his desk, clearing away the clutter for a place of pride front and center. He’ll still smile when Pepper sends him recipes she’s tried out and thinks he would like, will still respond with a new photo of himself eating a hotdog or week old takeout.
He hasn’t visited in a while though. His excuses are understandable - school and work and Spider Man don’t exactly equal a whole lot of free time, and he has to account for going home to May as well. It’s bullshit, really, but close enough to some semblance of the truth that nobody’s pushed him too hard on it.
Peter’s glad for that. He wouldn’t know how to say out loud, in a way that makes sense, that it’s for the best if he doesn’t get too involved. Peter had his time in the sun, and it ended in ashes.
He can still cherish the warmth; let it soak into his fingers, tilt his head up to catch the closest rays. He won’t step into it, though, not now. Not when he can see how perfect, how whole and complete it is without his shadow tainting it. Not when he knows how much it would hurt him to have it go away.
So he’s working the closing shift. He’s finishing late and he’s going to write a paper and fight some crime. He hasn’t been home in two months and he misses May’s hugs and Tony’s hair ruffles and Morgan’s giggles and Pepper’s nose scrunches and Happy’s sighs. He misses Ned’s rambles and MJ’s rants and he’s been running on fumes for so long he gets lightheaded standing up too fast. And it’s fine, it has to be fine. There’s no one else to blame if it’s not.
He and Sara finally finish closing up for the night, locking the doors and heading the same direction back towards campus. Sara scrounges for enough small talk options to last until they part ways, blowing through the weather (“Decent, cloudy though”, “Yeah, and not even one cool dinosaur shaped one. The audacity.”) and summer classes (“Shitty”, “Really shitty, like I wish I could just hire a plumber.”) in about two minutes flat.
She shoots off a quick text, pocketing her phone before glancing at Peter mildly. “Any big plans for Father’s Day this weekend?”
It’s an innocent question, completely undeserving of the way it sends Peter’s heart shooting through the floor so fast he’s surprised it doesn’t crack the pavement.
“Uh, nope.” His voice comes out surprisingly steady considering how close he feels to shaking apart.
“You get stuck with the weekend shift? I barely remembered to book it off on time.”
“Nah, it’s just....” Peter blinks, and a handful of memories flash with sickening intensity behind his eyelids. Richard Parker, scooping Peter off the pavement beside an upturned bike, pressing first a bandaid and then a kiss to the ragged scrape on his right knee. Ben Parker, weaving through crowded streets with Peter perched on his back, supporting his legs as Peter wrapped tired arms around his neck and closed his eyes, falling asleep to the feeling of safety and home. Tony Stark, clapping in the audience as Peter crossed the stage at his high school graduation, a soft, private smile on his face and a shine to his eyes.
“It’s just that I don’t have a dad.”