"Is there anyone I can call for you Peter?"
Peter blinks through his daze and stares at the lady crouching in front of him. It took him a few moments to remember who she was and why she was talking to him, but it eventually clicked.
She was from Social Services.
He was in the waiting room of the hospital because he had gotten a call when he was at home that May had been in an accident. He had rushed there in nothing but his pajamas in the hopes that she was okay and that the hospital was just following their policy to contact family, but it was wishful thinking. They let him in her room to say goodbye, and the moment he saw her lifeless body, he shut down. He was supposed to cry, scream, rage...but he felt nothing.
He felt empty.
He didn't even know how he got back to the waiting room. He shut out his surroundings in an attempt to try to feel something...anything. Hysteria would have been preferable at this point.
"Peter?"
"...M-Mr. Stark. Tony."
The lady gives him a bit of a skeptical look but he ignores her and zones out again when she walks away to contact his mentor. He was a busy man but he was the only one Peter could think of besides Ned and his parents, and he wasn't about to burden them with his problems. At the very least, Tony would send one of the Avengers to pick him up and look after him until Child Protective Services put him in the system.
He really was an orphan now. He had no home and even if they found one for him, there would be no more Spiderman. It would be hard enough to explain his metabolism and his rare sensory overload attacks. On the upside, he would only be in the system for about two and a half years until he turned eighteen, then he could be his better half again.
"...roos...Peter!" The teen claws himself back into reality and finds himself looking at Tony. "Hey kiddo. Stephen's going to sit with you while I go deal with some paperwork. Then we'll get you home." The billionaire waits until Peter nods numbly, and Tony stands back up to follow the social services lady while another body occupies the empty chair next to him.
Not only did Tony come himself, but so did Stephen. Peter really liked the sorcerer and had recently added him to his mental list of parental figures. He always listened to Peter ramble about anything, sometimes gave him advice if he needed it, and even made sure he was fed.
Kind of like a mom.
While he wasn't feeling anything but numbness, he craved some physical contact so he silently rests his head on Stephen's shoulder. A gentle hand brushes through his hair in response, and Peter closes his eyes at the familiar gesture. Never again would he get to experience this again, so he soaked up every second of the attention. Foster families wouldn't be as attentive to his needs.
"...in shock." Stephen's voice draws part of his attention.
"Let's get him home."
"He's way too quiet. It feels wrong." Tony finally says five minutes after getting Peter into bed when they got back to the tower.
"This is just the calm before the storm." Stephen joins him on the couch. "What happened with your lawyers?"
Tony bites the tip of his thumb.
"Well...apparently May put me as a preferred guardian in her will so that will help me get custody. I will fight tooth and nail to keep that kid out of the system."
"You really want to do this." It was a statement, not a question, but Tony still gave him a bewildered look.
"Of course I do! If I didn't, I wouldn't have bothered picking him up! He's my kid!" The genius nearly shouts.
Stephen merely smiles at his outburst. "That's good to know. If you didn't, I would have."
Tony visibly deflates at his boyfriend's words. Here he was yelling at someone that was trying to keep him calm and support both him and the sleeping teenager, and Stephen still stayed. They both knew the situation was stressful and that Tony was damn near close to pulling at his hair because that little part of his brain was telling him that none of this would work out. Social Services would find the smallest fault and he would lose Peter. He did not let that boy wiggle his way into Tony's icy heart just to have him ripped away and leave that Peter sized hole gaping open.
"It's late. You should get some sleep." Tony mumbles. "I'm going to stay up and keep an ear out for him."
Stephen studies him carefully and then conjures some coffee for the engineer, and some tea for himself. "You're not alone Tony. I care about him too."
"...thank you."
The doctor nods and the couple spends their all-nighter watching tv and drinking their caffeinated beverages, until about six o'clock in the morning when Peter emerges from his room. Tony mutes the television when the teen stands in the entryway in absolute silence, and then scrambles to his feet when fat tears finally roll down Peter's cheeks. He pulls the boy into a tight embrace without a second thought, and the younger tightly fists his hand in Tony's shirt as he sobs into his shoulder.
They would stand there as long as Peter needed it.
By some miracle, Tony was given permanent guardianship of Peter, and once the teen was over his grief and got his okay on the matter, the billionaire adopted him. The press were ignored while Peter adapted to his new life, and Tony hired some people to pack up May's apartment and store everything in an empty room in the tower until the teen was ready to go through it. Stephen, throughout it all, watched Peter like a hawk and made sure he ate and slept, and kept him company when Tony couldn't get out of something SI related.
To the adults relief, Peter agreed to talk to a grief counselor, and since he was already talking to Tony and Stephen about May, he only needed the therapy for a few weeks. It was really just to be sure he was actually doing okay considering the circumstances, and the counselor gave them some signs to watch for after Peter's last session. Thankfully the teen really was recovering and seemed happier than he did in months.
He was actually eating voluntarily, so Stephen didn't have to nearly shove food down his throat, and was starting to talk about going out as Spiderman again. He hadn't donned the suit since May died.
Currently, Peter was eating one of the hamburgers the sorcerer made for him as Stephen started on another. "Do you think Dad will let me go out on patrol tonight?"
That was another new thing. Peter started calling Tony 'Dad' a few weeks after the adoption was validated, and it was completely by mistake. It slipped out of his mouth one day while they were in the lab, and before the teen could apologize, Tony smiled and answered the boy's question. It was enough to tell Peter that the mechanic didn't mind the term one bit. Although he did ask Tony through some adorable stuttering a few days later if it was actually okay.
Stephen slides the second hamburger onto Peter's plate just as the teen tosses the last bit of his first one into his mouth, and the teen builds his second hamburger while Stephen finally starts on his own. "Are you ready for that?"
Peter swallows the first bite of his second burger and nods. "Yeah. I haven't really left the tower since the...funeral...and I want something familiar in my day again. I kind of miss being Spiderman."
"I don't see why not then. Have you finished your homework for Monday?"
Peter nods again as Stephen builds his own hamburger and bites into it. The teen had stayed home the first couple of weeks after May's death and the school sent his assignments by e-mail, and then for another week after the adoption. Peter actually asked to go back to school so he had some normalcy in his life again, and promised to call one of them if it got to be too much.
It actually helped a bit with his recovery.
"Please tell me you made me one of those." Tony drags himself into the kitchen covered in oil smudges and Stephen pushes the lone plate with a finished hamburger over to him. The man practically moans at the first bite and slumps against the counter. "I really needed this."
"Are you done having a foodgasm over there?" Peter asks and causes both men to nearly choke on their food in surprise. "Can I go out and patrol tonight?"
Tony hits his chest and coughs to clear his airways before answering. "Homework?"
"Finished."
"You're sure you're ready to go out?"
"Yes."
"Then yes, on the condition you call one of us if you get something as small as a scratch."
"If it bleeds."
"...fair enough."
Tony already had protocols in Peter's suit, so he tried to lay off any extra rules besides the typical homework first (and in the future, not when sick. If Peter had the sniffles, Spiderman stayed in bed). So with some excitement, Peter suited up later that evening and crawled out of the window FRIDAY opened for him. While he was gone, some of the Avengers came up to the (newly titled) family floor to watch movies, so when Peter returned to the tower at midnight on the dot (his weekend curfew that Stephen surprisingly set) he was half asleep on his feet and not aware of the extra inhabitants.
"I'm home Mom...I'm going to bed."
Peter freezes in the next instant and looks at Stephen with mortification as the sorcerer stands and walks over to the teen. Stephen gently leads him to his room with a small smile, quietly reminds him to brush his teeth, and closes the bedroom door before returning to the living room to find all of the Avengers staring at him. Then Tony broke the silence by laughing hysterically.
When his laughter died down just enough, the engineer wipes the happy tears away. "FRIDAY, send that recording to Rhodey and Happy."
"Way ahead of you boss."
It was the start of Stephen's protective Mama Bear side.
