Present day.
Pepper and Morgan and Happy are crowded around the hospital bed, and Peter feels weird even being here, so he's been sitting in the corner. He's trying not to watch and doing a really bad job of it. It's probably fine, though—nobody's paid him a second glance since he got back an hour and a half ago.
God, it's been an hour and a half. An hour and a half since everything changed. He doesn't know how much longer he can wait for something—anything—to happen, especially considering everything that's happened—everything he's done—to get to this point.
The monitors say that Tony's been pretty much conscious for about six minutes now, but he has yet to open his eyes. He has yet to even twitch, actually—it's like he's taunting them or something. Pepper's being incredibly patient, one hand lightly rubbing his arm and the other stroking Morgan's hair, but there's a look on her face that suggests she might resort to light strangling if he doesn't get his act together soon.
"Come on, Tony," she says, voice strained. "Open your eyes."
Suddenly Happy shakes himself, then pushes back away from the bed. "I can't do this," he says, voice stiff. "Let him know I was here; I'll be back."
Pepper tries to protest, but he waves her away.
"I need to see his eyes open," he says, and nobody argues, because they're basically all feeling it too. "Right now, he just looks—" But he glances at Morgan and doesn't finish that sentence.
He casts one long look back at Tony, expression carefully neutral but tears dancing in the corners of his eyes. Then he leaves, carefully shutting the door with a click behind him.
Pepper pulls Morgan closer and sighs.
Quiet as can be, probably not even understanding what's going on, Morgan blinks slowly. One of her hands is tangled in the blankets draped across the bed, and the other is stuffed in her mouth. She hadn't sucked her thumb before all this; it started right around the time of the funeral. Part of Peter had really hoped she'd stop again now—he knows firsthand how much the inevitable braces suck—but it's probably a little early to expect such a big change. After all, Tony hasn't even woken up yet.
Off in the corner where he lurks, slowly suffocating under the weight of his conscience, Peter's hands are both clasped in his lap. If he let go, stopped squeezing desperately, he thinks they'd shake so hard they'd rattle apart.
Or disintegrate. Blow away on the nonexistent breeze.
Pepper breathes slowly—in and out, in and out, the perfect picture of a forced, deceptive calm. Morgan blinks. Peter squirms.
But finally, after an hour and thirty seven minutes—six months—an eternity—Tony opens his eyes.
He looks … disoriented, at first. Between the fog of unconsciousness still lingering behind his eyes and the dimness of the room, lit only by the screens of the instruments measuring his vitals, he takes a minute to focus. His fists open and close around the blankets draped over his legs, feeling the texture and imagining the context, trying to place himself in space and time. He coughs a little as he tastes the air, stale and cool, free of the expected dust and fear and death.
Then Pepper's hand finds his. His wild gaze lands on her face. "Hey, Pep," he breathes, and tiny sob wrenches its way free from Pepper's throat as she grips him so hard her fingers turn white.
Peter has to look away.
He glances back just in time to watch Morgan slowly crawl onto the bed and into Tony's lap. She sits facing him, one hand on each shoulder, head tilted just a bit as she stares silently into his eyes. Peter can't see her expression, but he figures it's equally skeptical and challenging and finally happy—she has a way of packing a lot of emotions into a tiny, tiny face. There's silence as she considers him, taking it all in.
"You are in big trouble, Mister," she says finally, and Peter can tell just from her tone that this is something he's said often—jokingly, he's sure—to her. Tony laughs abruptly and shortly, like he's surprised himself at the sound, and then immediately crushes her to his chest.
"I thought I was never gonna see you again," he whispers against her, meeting Pepper's eyes over her tiny brunette head, and then Pepper's on the bed too and they're all crying and whispering and acting like such a perfect heroic family that Peter doesn't even know what to do. Five years ago, the Tony he knew would have probably gagged at the thought of being vulnerable like this—whether because of his past in the harsh spotlight, his own far-from-perfect father, or his history of getting stabbed in the back by friends, he had a habit of cloaking any rogue emotion in sarcasm or squashing it down into an abyss of insomnia and self-loathing. Even as young and naive as he'd been then, Peter had seen that. He'd even imitated it, on occasion.
But now Tony leans into it, wears affection and relief like a life vest keeping him afloat out at sea. It suits him in a way Peter realizes he wasn't at all prepared for. It was one thing to hear about Tony being a husband and a father, to see Pepper and Morgan talk about him fondly and move carefully around the void he left in their lives. It's quite another to see him step back into the role as if no time has passed, comfortable and oh so capable. Peter can't wrap his head around it.
He loses track of what's happening as he ponders. He can't hear them anymore—he redirects his super-hearing because he doesn't think he should be able to eavesdrop on this moment. They deserve this happiness, this togetherness; he does not, certainly not now. Honestly, he'd leave if he didn't think it would distract them from the moment, and if he could force his tired limbs to move.
And so time moves strangely and irregularly, like a clogged hourglass or a slide coated in molasses. But after a while—minutes, hours, maybe a day—Pepper gathers a drowsy Morgan close and slides her feet back down to the floor.
"Get some rest," she says at a regular volume, the sound ringing in Peter's ears. Tony nods, reaching out to run his fingers along Morgan's arm one more time, and then Pepper makes to leave.
On her way out the door, she comes over to Peter and squeezes his clasped hands.
"I'm not going to ask too many questions about what you've done," she says. He shrugs—that's probably a good idea. He's not sure it'll save him from the consequences, but he appreciates the thought.
"Okay," he says dully.
She shakes her head and squeezes harder. "Thank you, Peter. Thank you."
The sincerity in her voice dazzles him; he practically sees stars. How could she be grateful to him when this is only just the least he could do?
"You don't need to thank me," he says, but she's already turning away. With one last lingering look at Tony, she shifts Morgan to her hip and leaves the room.
Deep in the corner, so still he might have been a statue, Peter stays.
"So, you've been quiet."
Peter starts, raising his head. Tony reclines in the bed, looking far too leisurely for someone who's been dead for six weeks, even taking into account the pinched corners of his mouth and the way something dark dances behind his eyes. There's something so Tony about the tilt of his head, the quirk of his eyebrows, the way he's teasing and concerned all at once.
Peter can hardly stand it.
He wants to say something—starts to, even—but any and all words get stuck in his throat.
"Come on, kid," Tony says, sitting up a little now. "I wait five years for a decent conversation with you and you let a cat get ahold of your tongue now?"
"Five years?" Peter splutters, and yup, there's his voice. He doesn't remember it being so strangled, but he'll take what he can get. "Do you know how long you've been gone?"
A hint of discomfort flashes across Tony's face. "Pepper said some … six weeks?" He is clearly aiming for nonchalance, but lands somewhere eerily flat instead.
"Six weeks," Peter confirms, trying to force stubborn tears away. He stands suddenly, tentatively takes just a few steps closer.
When Tony speaks again, his voice is so soft Peter can barely hear it. "Not that it's a competition, but six weeks is hardly five years, Pete."
"I wasn't ready to lose anyone else," Peter says, voice breaking, and then he's running forward, collapsing on the bed, arms around Tony's middle and tears staining the front of his hospital gown. Tony pats his back, and once upon a time this might have been awkward, but he's had training now—thanks to Morgan whipping him into shape, he might just be the most comforting person out there.
Well. Maybe not more comforting than May. But pretty close, at least.
Because his silence was making Tony suspicious—or maybe just because it's been so long—he starts talking as he sits up, because that's what he does in situations like this. "I have so much to tell you now that you're back," he rambles, gearing up to babble until he's cut off. "I'm sort of friends with Ant Man now—I know you don't like him but you have to admit he's kinda cool—and Bruce Banner helps me with my homework sometimes. Not that he could replace you. But he's still great. And we have to talk about your kid, because she's a menace—" Don't say anything about time travel, his inner monologue reminds him as he talks. Don't say anything about time travel.
But before he has the chance to betray himself, Tony shakes his head and shushes him. "Five years," he says softly, letting his eyes sweep slowly over his face, "and you haven't changed one bit."
If only he knew.
"I mean, lots of things have changed," Peter says vaguely, because that could mean a lot of things. It was true even before. "So many things are different now, different than they were…"
He trails off. He still doesn't like to talk about the snap.
Tony nods sharply, a more businesslike expression on his face. "Pepper said we won this time?"
"We did," Peter says immediately, forcefully, because it's good to remember the feeling of watching Thanos and his minions disappear, seeing people reunited with their families, especially amid everything else that's happened since. "The universe is safe, because of you."
"I stopped Thanos?"
Peter nods. "You did."
"And then…"
And then.
Peter could kick himself; he should have been ready for that question. Tony was calculating, scientific, like him; of course he'd need to know the details: how the gauntlet worked, who all disappeared, what they'd done with it, what they'd done since. But he'd been so focused on this moment that he hadn't prepared for anything after.
"And … and then?"
"I don't remember using the gauntlet," Tony says, frowning. "I certainly don't remember what came next. But what I really can't work my brain around is how I survived, and survived apparently unscathed, but didn't wake up here until six weeks later."
Oh, shit.
"SHIELD stuff," Peter says shortly, shrugging and hoping that's the end of it. Apparently he's decided to bet everything on the fact that SHIELD gets away with basically whatever, and that Tony has remained stubbornly insistent on paying approximately zero attention to their many distasteful activities. "Cutting-edge medical intervention. I only understand the basics—not a lot of people were allowed to know."
"People think I'm dead?"
"The whole world thinks you're dead."
Tony grins suddenly. "I guess I could get used to that."
Peter doesn't know how to tell him that a world where Tony Stark is dead—real or just apparently—is not a world many people are actually happy living in.
Suddenly Tony runs his thumb down Peter's grimy cheek. There's fondness in his expression, of course, but confusion, too. "Hey kid—if the battle ended weeks ago, what's with all the dirt?"
And, oh yeah.
An hour and a half and he didn't even think to rinse his face off.
"You know Queens," Peter says, unable to stop himself from looking away. "There's always something going down. I came right over from patrol when I heard you were waking up."
He's lucky they've been apart for so long. Five years ago, Tony would have immediately known he was lying.
Even so, Tony looks bothered, either by what he said or how he said it. "Peter—" he begins, but Peter jolts off the bed, nearly tripping over himself in his sudden haste to get away.
"Speaking of Queens, I'd probably better get back," he says, scrambling for an excuse—any excuse. "People to save, dinner to eat, don't want to keep May waiting—"
He waves a quick goodbye, ignoring Tony's protests. As he stumbles into the hall, he nearly collides with Happy, who stares at him long and hard before making his way into Tony's room.
"What was that?" he hears Tony ask.
He doesn't stick around long enough to hear Happy's answer.
