Work Text:
Tony had been up since six, working on the half-finished circuit board that sat on the bench beside him, but mostly he’d been waiting for the sound of the elevator and the burst of energy that meant Peter was awake. The kid never walked anywhere; he arrived, all momentum and talk, like life hadn’t yet taught him moderation.
“Morning,” Peter said around a mouthful of toast, already leaning over Tony’s shoulder to see what he was doing. “You started without me?”
“I started at a reasonable hour,” Tony said, taking a slow sip of coffee. “You were still dead to the world.”
Peter rolled his eyes. “Normal people sleep.”
“Normal people don’t mix metal filings with crumbs, either,” Tony replied, flicking a few away from his work. “Eat first, then touch the expensive toys.”
It was easy, this rhythm they had. The quiet hum of the lab, the mild scolding that wasn’t really scolding at all, Peter’s laughter that filled every corner of the place. Tony hadn’t realised, not really, how quiet the tower had been before Peter moved in, how soundless success could feel when there wasn’t anyone to share it with.
Peter perched on a stool and talked while he chewed, his conversation a patchwork of the day ahead, a quiz he hadn’t studied for, and a new design idea he wanted to try. Tony listened with half an ear, letting the words wash over him.
When the boy left for school, the lab felt hollow for a moment, the way a room does after laughter fades. Tony cleaned up the crumbs Peter had left, muttering to himself about teenagers, but the smile stayed on his face. He liked the routine: morning chaos, long quiet, evening noise again. Predictable and safe. It had been like that for 9 years, ever since he picked the kid up and signed the papers Tony’s whole life seemed to revolve around Peter. He loved it, it gave him a real purpose.
By noon he’d buried himself in paperwork, the kind he hated but did anyway because stability came with maintenance. He was halfway through a report when the email arrived. It slipped into his inbox without fanfare—no subject line screaming for attention, no familiar address to warn him. Just a name.
Richard Parker.
For a long time Tony stared at it, the cursor blinking beside the unopened message. He hadn’t thought about the man in years, not really. The system had contacted Tony after Mary Parker’s death, asking if he would take temporary guardianship until a relative came forward. None had. Tony had seen that Peter's father was alive, but had never answered the calls. Mary had written Tony into her will, as a colleague, friend and someone she clearly trusted to care for her child when his own father couldn’t.
Tony remembered the hospital hallway, the small boy sitting on the edge of a plastic chair, clutching a backpack that looked too big for him. That was the day he’d said yes, before he could talk himself out of it. Richard’s absence had been the quietest part of the whole tragedy, a missing piece everyone politely ignored.
He clicked the message before he could change his mind.
It was brief. Civil even. Something about wanting to reconnect, about having made mistakes and wanting to fix them. There was an apology that read like it had been rewritten too many times, the edges sanded down to nothing. And at the end, a phone number.
Tony leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling. The air in the lab felt too still. For a while he didn’t move at all, then he closed the email, reopened it, and finally deleted it. His hands shook more than he liked. Ten minutes later he pulled it from the trash.
He told himself he wasn’t angry, there was no point. But underneath the practiced calm, something old and mean pressed against his ribs. He thought about the boy who had once sat in that hospital waiting room and how many nights it had taken to teach him that he wasn’t on his own and that no-one would leave him again.
When Peter got home that afternoon the tower filled up again, noise spilling into every corner. He was still in his school clothes, sweater crumpled, hair a mess, talking about a lab experiment gone wrong. Tony tried to focus, tried to keep his face neutral, but Peter noticed anyway. The kid always noticed.
“You good?” Peter asked, dropping his bag onto the couch. “You’ve got that look. The one that means something blew up but you’re pretending it didn’t.”
Tony forced a smile. “Nothing’s blown up. How was school?”
“Boring,” Peter said easily, but his eyes stayed on Tony for a beat too long before he let it drop.
Dinner was quiet that night. They both pretended not to see how distracted the other was. Tony asked about grades, Peter asked if they could order pizza on Friday, and everything sounded normal except for the space between sentences where something unsaid kept breathing. When Peter went to bed, Tony stood for a long time in the doorway, watching the steady rise and fall of his chest. It should have been comforting. Instead, it felt like standing on the edge of something fragile.
He went back to the lab, reopened the email again, and read it until the words blurred.
The rest of the week blurred. Tony kept busy, it wasn’t difficult. There was always something to fix, to sign, to design. He started new projects he didn’t need, dug into old ones he’d abandoned. Every time he paused, the thought returned: that name sitting in his inbox, that phone number. He hadn’t replied. He didn’t know what would happen if he did.
Peter noticed. The silences around Tony had changed it was longer, heavier, as if he was measuring every word before speaking. At first Peter thought it was work, some new contract or design headache. But it wasn’t. Work made Tony talk too much, not too little.
On Thursday evening, Peter came home to find him sitting at the dining table with his laptop open, just staring at the screen like it had betrayed him. There was a take-out box beside his elbow, untouched. The television played quietly in the background, some news anchor’s voice dissolving into white noise.
“You look like you lost a fight with your conscience,” Peter said, trying for lightness.
Tony startled slightly, then smiled without conviction. “You’re not wrong.”
“You gonna tell me, or do I have to hack your emails?”
“You wouldn’t dare.”
“I totally would,” Peter said, grinning, but the grin faltered when Tony didn’t fire back. “What’s going on?”
Tony rubbed a hand over his face. “It’s nothing you need to worry about.”
“That’s what people say right before it turns into something I should definitely worry about.”
“Eat your dinner, kid.”
Peter sat down anyway. The smell of noodles filled the space between them. “You’re being weird.”
Tony almost laughed, but it came out as a sigh. “Weird’s part of the package.”
Peter watched him for a long moment. “You know you can tell me stuff, right? Like, I’m not eight anymore.”
“I know.” Tony looked up then, and for a second something raw flickered across his face before he hid it behind a small smile. “Finish eating. I’ll be fine.”
Peter didn’t believe him, but he let it go. For now.
That night Tony sat in his office again, staring at the email. The words hadn’t changed, but they felt heavier every time he read them. He’d imagined Richard’s voice carrying the weight of too many years, but he couldn’t picture the man’s face without anger getting in the way.
He thought about calling Pepper, asking what she’d do, but it wasn’t her decision to make. It wasn’t really his, either. The choice belonged to the boy asleep down the hall.
At three in the morning Tony finally closed the laptop. The light from the screen left a ghost image in his vision. He poured himself another cup of coffee and tried to get to sleep.
Friday brought a kind of brittle calm. Tony forced himself into normal routines. He made pancakes, argued with Peter about sugar content, let himself laugh when the kid tried to flip one and hit the ceiling. For a while the noise of it drowned out the static in his head. Then Peter caught him looking, too still, and the moment cracked.
“Seriously, what’s up with you?” Peter asked. “You’ve been… I don’t know, off.”
Tony hesitated. He could still lie, could still buy himself another day. But the longer he waited, the more it would feel like betrayal. He set the pan down, wiped his hands on a towel, and leaned against the counter.
“Someone contacted me,” he said finally. “About you.”
Peter frowned. “About me? What do you mean?”
“Your Dad.” The words came out low, almost swallowed by the hum of the stove. “Richard. He reached out.”
For a moment Peter didn’t move. The colour drained from his face so quickly Tony almost stepped forward. Then Peter laughed once, a small disbelieving sound. “That’s not funny.”
“I’m not joking.”
“He’s...no. He doesn’t get to—” Peter shook his head, backing away a step. “What did he want?”
“He said he wants to reconnect.”
“Reconnect?” The word came out like it tasted bad. “After all this time?”
Tony didn’t answer. He didn’t have an answer that wouldn’t make things worse.
Peter’s hands were shaking. “You knew? How long have you known?”
“A few days.”
“A few—” He laughed again, brittle. “And you didn’t tell me?”
“I was trying to figure out how,” Tony said, voice quiet, careful.
“Well, you figured it out now,” Peter said, and there was something in his voice that Tony hadn’t heard in years—an old hurt, unburied. “So go ahead. Tell me. Tell me why he suddenly gives a damn.”
Tony opened his mouth, but the words stuck. “I don’t know. He just wants to see you again”
That was when Peter broke. The anger came fast, bright, overwhelming.
“Why?! He wasn’t here! He left me! He left me and Mom, and then when she died they called him and he didn’t even show up! And now he wants to talk? About what? About how I turned out without him?” His voice cracked. “I needed him, Tony. I needed him when I was six and everyone else’s dad showed up for bring your dad to school day. I needed him when I broke my arm learning to ride a bike. I needed him when Mom…when she—” He stopped, breath hitching. “And he wasn’t there. So why the hell would I need him now?”
Tony stepped forward slowly. “You don’t,” he said softly. “You don’t have to see him. I just…legally I had to tell you. You have the right to choose.”
Peter pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes. “Then I choose no.”
“That’s fine,” Tony said, voice steady now. “Whatever you want, kid.”
For a moment neither of them spoke. Then Peter let out a shaky breath and stepped into Tony’s arms, the way he hadn’t done in years. Tony held him without saying anything, the quiet filling the room like an answer.
Peter pulled back first, wiping at his face as if the gesture could erase everything that had just fallen out of him. His chest rose and fell in short, uneven breaths. Tony stayed where he was, hands half-lifted, unsure whether to reach for him again.
“He can’t just do that,” Peter said suddenly, voice rough. “He can’t just decide he wants to be my father again, like the past twelve years didn’t happen. What right does he have to walk back into my life like none of it mattered, and expect me to smile and act like it’s fine?” His words gathered speed, sharper now, grief turning back into anger because the anger was easier to hold. “He doesn’t get that, Tony. He doesn’t deserve any of it. He wasn’t here. He left me. And I couldn’t care less about him. He could be a rotting corpse for all I care. I hate him, Tony, I hate him.”
The last word came out small, almost childlike, and that was the one that tore through Tony. He stepped forward carefully and put both hands on Peter’s shoulders. “Hey. Look at me.” Peter didn’t. His gaze fixed somewhere on the floor, jaw locked, tears drying on his cheeks. “You don't have to do anything you don't want to,” Tony said quietly. “You’re allowed to hate him.”
Peter shook his head, a sharp movement. “I don’t even know what to do with it. I want to—” He broke off, words failing him. “Why now? Why after all this time?”
“I don’t know.” Tony admitted.
Peter gave a sound somewhere between a laugh and a sob. “I don’t want to talk to him. I don’t want to think about him. But I can’t stop thinking about him.”
“I know,” Tony said. He moved one hand to the back of Peter’s neck, pulling him in, grounding him. “It’s a lot. You don’t have to sort it out tonight.”
Peter finally looked up, eyes red, expression crumpled with exhaustion. “What if he tries again? What if he comes here?”
“Then he deals with me,” Tony said, and there was steel under the softness. “You don’t have to face him unless you want to. I mean it. I’ll get the lawyers on the case if that's what you want, but we can figure it out tomorrow.”
For a long time Peter said nothing. The fight had drained out of him, leaving something hollow and trembling behind. He leaned forward until his forehead touched Tony’s shoulder, the contact more surrender than comfort. Tony wrapped an arm around him and held on, unsure which of them needed the steadiness more.
They stayed like that until the room went quiet again, no words, just the faint hum of the appliances and the uneven rhythm of breathing. When Tony finally spoke, his voice was low, meant for the space between them rather than the air. “Don’t beat yourself up about how you feel, kid. You don't owe him anything.”
Peter nodded, the movement small against his shoulder. “Okay,” he whispered, though he didn’t sound convinced. The word hung there anyway, fragile and necessary.
Later, when Peter had gone to his room, Tony stood in the kitchen long after the lights dimmed, staring at the window where his own reflection looked older than it had the week before. He thought about the boy in his room down the hall, more of the little eight year old he adopted who cried himself to sleep most nights. It almost scared him how he would do anything for that kid.
The week settled over them like bad weather, never quite storming, never quite clearing. Tony told himself that things were fine, that Peter’s blow-up had been the worst of it and now they just needed time, but the world refused to cooperate.
The first phone call came two days later. Private number. Tony didn’t pick up the first time, or the second, but by the third he answered just to stop the ringing. He listened long enough to hear Richard’s voice say his name before hanging up. The sound stayed in his head for hours, the shape of it heavier than he wanted to admit. He told no one.
Peter was quieter now, moving through the tower like someone trying not to make the floorboards creak. The usual chatter about school, projects, and movie nights dwindled into single-sentence updates. When Tony asked how his day had been, Peter just said “fine” and retreated to his room. The space that had once been easy between them started to feel crowded with things unsaid.
Tony tried to overcompensate. He filled the kitchen with the smell of real food instead of take-out, left small gifts on Peter’s desk—tools, gadgets, whatever he could make in an hour that might say I’m here for you, kid without demanding anything back. Sometimes Peter smiled, sometimes he didn’t. Once, Tony caught him sitting on the floor of the lab, just staring at the half-built circuit board they’d been working on before the email came. He didn’t interrupt; he just stood there and felt something twist tight in his chest.
By the following Thursday Tony’s own temper began to splinter. He barked at Happy over a missed security update, snapped at Pepper about scheduling, even swore at the coffee machine when it sputtered. The tower felt too loud, the kind of loud that comes from inside your own skull. He spent more and more time in the lab, staring at blank screens, hands restless with nothing to fix.
On Friday night Peter came down around midnight, eyes red from sleeplessness. “You’re still up,” he said, and it wasn’t really a question.
“Yeah,” Tony replied. “Couldn’t sleep.”
Peter hovered by the doorway. “He’s not going to stop, is he?”
Tony’s breath caught. “I’ll make him stop.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
Tony looked at him then, really looked. The kid was trying to sound calm, but his fingers were white around the doorframe. “I don’t know,” Tony said finally. “But you don’t have to deal with it. I will.”
Peter nodded, but his eyes didn’t leave Tony’s. “You can’t fix this the way you fix everything else.”
“I can try,” Tony said quietly.
Peter nodded and went back to bed. Tony sat at the bench until morning, staring at the pale light gathering behind the glass. When the phone rang again at nine, he didn’t answer. He threw it across the room and told FRIDAY to block every number that looked even remotely unfamiliar. His hands shook as he poured another coffee. It tasted bitter, burned, but he drank it anyway.
Outside, the city went on with its noise and movement. Inside, the tower felt like it was holding its breath, waiting for the next knock on the door.
The call came while Tony was still pretending to work. FRIDAY’s voice was careful. “Mr Stark, there’s a situation in the public lobby. Security requests your presence.”
He didn’t ask which situation, he already knew. By the time the elevator opened onto the ground floor, his pulse had steadied into something colder than anger.
The lobby was all glass and marble, sound carrying too easily. A few onlookers had been shepherded toward the far exit; the rest of the world continued on the other side of the glass, unaware that everything in Tony’s chest felt one movement from breaking. Richard Parker stood in the middle of it, hands visible, voice even. “I’m not leaving until I speak to my son.”
Tony stopped a few paces away. “Mr Parker,” he said, tone polite enough to fool exactly no one, “if you could be so kind as to get the hell out of my building, I’d appreciate it.”
Richard turned. The resemblance was there in the jawline, faintly in the eyes. Tony hated that he noticed the similarities between this man and Peter.
“You know why I’m here.”
“I do,” Tony said. “And I’m telling you it’s a bad idea.”
“I just want to see him,” Richard said. “A conversation, that’s all.”
“Peter doesn’t want that conversation,” Tony replied. “You had your chance—about, oh, twelve years ago, and you missed it.”
Richard’s mouth tightened. “He’s still my son.”
Tony laughed once, short and mean. “Sorry your son? He’s as much your kid as anyone in this lobby. You share a few strands of code. Congratulations.”
“I have a right—”
“You don’t,” Tony said, stepping closer. “You lost that right the day you walked out. And before you say it, I don’t care what noble reason you think you had. You weren’t there.”
Richard’s calm started to fray. “You’re keeping him from me.”
“I’m keeping him safe from you,” Tony said, voice sharpening. “There’s a difference.”
Richard’s composure flickered. “He’s my son.”
Tony exhaled slowly, as if deciding whether to bother. “Let’s test that theory,” he said. “You want him to be your kid? Tell me his favourite food. What keeps him up at night. The movie he can quote start to finish. The song he plays too loud when he’s trying to be funny. His best friend’s name. His shoe size. What calms him down when he panics. Go ahead. Pick one.”
Richard’s mouth opened, then closed. The silence stretched until the hum of the security scanners filled it.
“You can’t,” Tony said softly. “Because you weren’t here. You don’t know him. You didn’t even show up when his mother died. They called you. You didn’t come.”
“I wanted to—”
“Then where were you?” Tony’s voice cracked, raw through the calm. “Where were you when he sat in a hospital hallway with a backpack too big for him, waiting for someone who never came? When he broke his collarbone and couldn’t sleep? When he asked why his dad didn’t want him? You want to play father now because it suits your conscience? No. You don’t get to.”
Richard looked down, then up again, something desperate flashing across his face. “I made mistakes. I can fix them.”
Tony shook his head. A door opened behind him, soft but enough to make both men turn.
The elevator doors opened to the soft hum of the lobby, and Peter almost turned back before stepping out. He hadn’t been told much, just that something had come up and Tony needed him to stay upstairs. But the tension in Happy’s voice over the comms had been enough to make him drop everything. Now, standing there, he felt the strange hush that comes before a storm.
Security stood in a loose circle by the glass wall, their postures too stiff, too polite. And in the middle of them, someone turned at the sound of the doors.
Peter froze.
He hadn’t seen that face in over a decade, but his body recognised it before his mind could catch up. A tall man, hair more silver than he remembered, a nervous smile that didn’t reach his eyes. For a heartbeat, the years fell away and Peter was five again—knees scraped, backpack half-zipped, looking up from the doorway as his father told him he’d be back soon.
“Peter,” Richard said. Just his name. Soft, like an apology wrapped in surprise.
Peter’s throat closed. The name came back, unsteady, before he could stop it. “Dad?” The word hung there, fragile and wrong. It felt like it didn’t belong to him anymore. Peter wanted to take it back the second that the words fell out of his mouth.
Richard took a small step forward, hands half-raised in a gesture that was meant to be reassuring. “You’ve grown up,” he said, voice trembling on a laugh that wasn’t really a laugh. “You look so much like—”
“Don’t,” Peter said sharply, because he knew that name would follow. “Don’t you dare say Mom.”
The sound of footsteps echoed, Peter could tell they were Tony’s. “Pete,” he said quietly, “you don’t have to—”
“It’s okay,” Peter interrupted, though it wasn’t. His heart was hammering against his ribs, his mouth dry. He couldn’t seem to look away.
Richard was still speaking, slow and careful, like approaching a frightened animal. “I know this is a lot,” he said. “I know I don’t have any right to just show up, but I—”
Peter’s laugh cut him off. It was small and bitter, more a choke than a sound. “You think?”
“I made mistakes,” Richard continued. “I thought…God, I thought I was doing the right thing back then. But I never stopped thinking about you.”
The words should have meant something, maybe once. Now they just made Peter’s skin crawl. “You never stopped thinking about me?” he repeated, his voice climbing without permission. “Where were you then? Where were you when Mom died? When I was eight and everything fell apart? When people were calling, when they were looking for you? They told me you couldn’t be reached. I guess you were too busy thinking about me, right?”
Tony shifted to stand by him, trying to comfort him with his presence alone.
Richard’s mouth opened, closed. He looked smaller now, but Peter couldn’t stop. The words kept tumbling, raw and hot, dragging every buried year with them.
“You don’t get to just show up,” Peter said. “You don’t get to walk in here like the last twelve years didn’t happen and expect me to…what? Hug you? Smile? Pretend you didn’t leave?” His voice cracked, but he didn’t care. “What right do you even have to walk back into my life like none of it mattered? You weren’t here. You left me.”
The silence after was thick enough to choke on.
“I know,” Richard said finally, his own voice rough. “And I hate myself for it every day.”
Peter shook his head, eyes burning. “No, you don’t. If you did, you’d have stayed gone. You’d have known I didn’t need this.” His chest ached, and for a moment, just one cruel second, he wanted to believe the man. Wanted to believe there was something worth salvaging. But then the memories came back: the birthdays that went unanswered, the letters that never came, the empty space where a father should’ve been, and the want curdled into fury.
“I needed you,” he said quietly, almost to himself. “I needed you when I was sick and Mom didn’t know how to drive to the hospital because she was crying too hard. I needed you when she died, when everything was gone and nobody was left. I needed you when I was ten and the kids at school called me a freak. I needed you then and you weren’t there.” His voice broke completely. “So why the hell would I need you now?”
Richard flinched like he’d been struck, but Peter couldn’t stop. The words were acid; they burned on the way out. “You don’t deserve to know me. You don’t deserve any of it. You weren’t here, you left me, You weren’t here.” His hands were shaking now, his breath coming in short, uneven bursts. “I hate you. I hate you!”
Peter turned to Tony falling into him, “Tony, I hate him—” he muttered into Tony’s shoulder, tears muffling the words.
Tony was already there, catching him before he hit the floor. “I know, it’s okay Pete, you’re okay.” He murmured, voice low, steady, all the edges gone. “I know. I know, it’s okay, you’re okay.”
Behind them, Richard stood rooted in place, pale and hollow-eyed. Security moved forward, uncertain, but Tony didn’t look at them. He just held Peter tighter until the trembling slowed, until the sound of the boy’s breathing evened out.
When he finally did look up, his expression was calm in a way that was worse than anger. “Get him out of my building,” he said quietly, but with venom that pierced.
They didn’t speak on the way up. Peter’s steps were fast and uneven, hands tight in fists. He wasn’t running, but it felt like he was escaping something bigger than the lobby, bigger than the man who had just tried to call himself his father. Tony fell into stride beside him, steady, his presence like gravity against the whirlpool in Peter’s chest.
Once the door to his apartment closed behind them, Peter sagged against it, knees trembling. He pressed his face into his hands, trying to shut the world out, trying to make the echo of Richard’s voice stop.
I hate him. I hate him. I hate him. The mantra repeated in his head, but it didn’t help. Not really. Because buried under the fury was something he couldn’t name, something that felt like shame, or guilt, or a longing he wasn’t supposed to feel.
His legs gave way, and he stumbled, clutching the doorframe like it could hold him upright. His chest felt like it was being crushed, ribs tight, heart hammering so hard it hurt to breathe. The images and memories of the man he used to call Dad collided with everything he had learned to protect himself with, and now they were screaming at him all at once.
“I—” He couldn’t form the words. His throat felt closed. “I can’t—”
The panic surged, a tide too strong to fight. His vision blurred; sounds bounced off walls and ceilings and collided in his skull. Why is he here? Why now? I hate him. His mind spiraled, fragments of memory, rage, and confusion all tangled together.
Tony was beside him before Peter even knew he was moving, hands firm on his shoulders, grounding him. “Hey, hey, kid. Look at me,” Tony said, low and steady.
Peter shook his head violently, tears streaming down his face. “I hate him.” His voice was raw, strangled, his words crashing out in desperate bursts. “And I don’t know why I feel like… like I—I…” He gagged on a sob, shaking violently. His legs giving way as he sunk to the floor.
“Pete breathe with me, okay?” Tony crouched slightly to meet him at eye level. He didn’t ask questions. He didn’t lecture. He just breathed, slow and measured, right alongside Peter.
Peter tried. He gasped, coughed, choked, then tried again. His hands clawed at his arms, his legs quivering. His thoughts were a jumbled mess of hate, guilt, confusion, shame, all colliding in a way that made him feel like he was dissolving.
“I… I feel… I shouldn’t feel… I hate him… I hate him but I—” Peter’s body shook, and he collapsed forward. His forehead pressed against Tony’s chest as if the man could absorb the storm tearing him apart.
Tony held him without moving, whispering gently, “I’m here, kid. I’ve got you. I’m right here.”
Peter couldn’t form sentences anymore. He just let himself fall into the hold, trembling violently, sobs wracking his body. Each heartbeat felt like it might break him. He hated that he still carried a flicker of longing for someone who had abandoned him, hated that he even wanted a shred of what Richard had taken from him.
Tony murmured over and over, steady, unwavering: “I’m here. I’m right here.”
Slowly, the tidal wave started to lose some of its force. Peter’s tears soaked Tony’s shirt. His body was spent, shaking in tremors that didn’t stop, but the sound of Tony’s voice, the warmth of his arms, and the grounding presence that radiated from him tethered Peter to the present.
Finally, after what felt like hours compressed into minutes, he sagged entirely against Tony, arms loose, breathing ragged but a fraction more steady. His thoughts were still scattered, chaotic, ungraspable but for the first time since the lobby, he felt a thread of safety, and he clung to it like it was all he had.
Tony didn’t let go. He whispered until Peter’s ragged breaths found some rhythm. “I’m not going anywhere. I’m here. I’ve got you. Always.”
Peter’s face pressed into Tony’s chest. He couldn’t answer. Words had abandoned him.
Tony’s hands rubbed slow, soothing circles on his back, his voice low and steady, whispering that it was all okay, and Peter let himself lean into it. His mind, still fuzzy and trembling, started to sort through the years; the scraped knees Tony had bandaged, the nights he’d stayed up when Peter couldn’t sleep, the mornings he’d made breakfast and listened to the kid chatter about school experiments, the evenings spent laughing over failed inventions, the countless little moments that had built a life around care and presence.
And in the middle of it all, the stark absence of Richard loomed like a shadow – no birthday calls, no school visits, no questions about homework, no comforting presence when the world felt too big and painful.
The contrast made something inside him settle. He had a home. He had a father. Not Richard, but Tony, the one who never left, who had always been there, even when he didn’t have to be. For the first time in a long time, Peter could breathe through the ache in his chest. He didn’t need the man who had abandoned him, he never had. All he had ever needed was here, in this room, in these arms, Tony.