They've been out for a long time.

Tony knows this because when he opens his eyes, the end credits are playing for a film they weren't even watching. Gentle string music whirs away in the background stereo speakers, turned down, faint, to keep them asleep.

Despite this, it's strangely quiet. No people in the common area.

Tony keeps his lids at half mast, soaking up Pepper's drowsy weight against his chest and the slow thrum in his veins. It throbs against his injuries, the punctures in his spine, the bruises painting his face, the pain decorating his chest where Steve's hands had ripped at it.

Hands shaking from that memory image, Tony closes his eyes in Pepper's strawberry hair. She smells like lavender and lime, an alluring and sharp combination.

When he asked her a few days ago what she thinks of all this, his decision to press charges, she took Tony's face in her lovely, soft, indestructible hands—

"I'll support whatever you decide, so long as you move forward with your words and not your fists."

Now, anger does not dominate the world anymore. Oh, he wants it. Yearns deeply, fiercely for it like a long lost lover. It never remains.

Instead, Tony is reigned by a flaking kind of tiredness. A more poetic man might call it hopelessness. Achy sorrow. He doesn't like that term as much.

No Man's Land, that fits better. It's a Nothing eating away at the honeycomb structure of his heart and all its defenses. The Nothing's sticky tendrils have reached so far inside Tony that he's not sure he ever wants to move again.

He doesn't realize he's drifting off again until a humming floats into the room.

Preceding it is the muted drum of rubber wheels on the carpet. The chatter of voices is low, and Pepper doesn't wake at all, but Tony hears the distinctive tones and opens his eyes.

Natasha takes the open spot on Tony's right. The couch dips when she lifts Peter from his chair and nestles the boy between them.

"He was asking for you," Nat whispers.

It's nearing two in the morning, way past when Peter should be awake, but Tony just loops an arm around his bony frame.

Peter is far more alert than Tony expects. His big chestnut eyes look up at the adults with a crackle of something Tony can't read.

Maybe he's got a case of the Nothing too.

At the thought, Tony pulls him closer. Peter rests his head on Tony's free shoulder. It's delicious, exactly the way the world should feel, wife on one side, his child on the other.

Nat must be more tired than she seems, because as soon as she sees her charge cared for, her eyes droop. They've all been running on adrenaline since the incident.

He's here. Tony can't even begin to calculate how affluent and blessed he is to have Peter's warm fingers bunched in his shirt. He didn't die. He's here and almost in one piece.

Tony is no hero, and knows this, knows he hasn't done anything to deserve the trusting expression, the curly strands, the perfect little ears.

His eyes burn with unshed tears.

Peter must sense this somehow, for his head lifts and he just searches Tony's face for a long minute.

Two orphans gazing at each other.

Peter's eyes are terribly old. Too old for the cherub face with its fading rosiness and bruises around his neck.

Then he opens his mouth in a hesitant whisper—"I'm hungry."

Tony snorts before he can stop it. Pepper shifts but doesn't wake.

"How does turkey sound?" Tony leans down to tap Peter's nose with his own. "I'll even use some of my mom's secret sauce."

Without waiting for an answer, Tony carefully slides out from under Pepper, stands, and swings Peter up into his arms. He's neither tall or strong enough to set him on his hip, but Peter doesn't seem to care.

Once he has Peter settled on the counter by the stove, Tony rummages through the fridge and retrieves the jar of Italian sauce, turkey, lettuce, and some thick white cheese slices.

Peter nibbles at a banana, eyes intent and cozy on Tony while he assembles a hasty sandwich on thick artisan bread.

"There." Tony steps back with two jazz hands in a 'ta-da!' motion. "What do you think, chef?"

Peter brightens. "I can eat it?"

Tony's plastered on smile falters a little. He pokes Peter in the stomach just to hear his husky laughter, so much like Bruce's. "Why would I have made you a sandwich at this ungodly hour just to keep it from you?"

With a shy, grateful look, Peter takes a huge bite.

"'S good," he declares, mouth full. "Thanks! Your mom made good topping. I bet she was a great cook."

Tony's heart pangs but he finds himself grinning softly. "Yeah…she was."

How she would have treasured Peter. His bright, sage outlook on life, his enthusiasm over those he loves, the way he can design things with enough dexterity to rival Tony.

The screen lights up with another movie, auto played, and the alabaster light sheens off Peter's front curls, the ones that have grown extra long near his eyes.

A little too tired, in too much pain, a little too bright eyed, Tony whisks Peter off his spot and sits at the island, Peter in his lap. It's indulgent, but he doesn't care with the boy's shoulder pressed into his chest, heartbeat palpable under Tony's hand where it's wrapped around the thin stomach.

Peter doesn't bat an eye at the change, munching away.

He looks sad now too, though. Thoughtful.

When he offers the sandwich, Tony takes a noisy bite just to see Peter crinkle his nose in exasperated humour.

"Reminds me of the p-plane," says Peter. He finishes chewing a bite. "When we flew to Siberia."

Tony stiffens. Then forces himself to relax, to remain at ease for Peter's sake. "You ate a sandwich on the plane?"

Peter nods. "Didn't taste as good as yours. Bucky fed me."

No reply comes to Tony's tongue except ugly words not for this kid's ears, so he says nothing.

"We sat just like this," Peter continues. There's a dot of sauce in the floret corner of Peter's lip but Tony doesn't wipe it away. He's mesmerized by the sight of Peter eating Mum's favourite sandwich. "We shared it then too. Sort of. He made me eat most of it myself."

Tony gathers Peter tighter to his chest and presses kisses over the unruly hair.

Later, when Tony is finally following his wife's lead to bed, he passes by Peter's room and hears rubies of shining notes falling through the door.

He stops. It's Natasha—singing a Russian lullaby to Peter while helping him into bed.

Tony doesn't breach the sanctuary space of his son's room. He sits on the floor, back to the wall next to the door frame, and closes his eyes. The syllables are unfamiliar and too intimate all at once, the Slavic diction tender. Nothing like The Winter Soldier's muttering on the embassy rooftop.

"Friday?" Tony breathes. "What is Barnes doing right now?"

A pause.

"I think it would be indiscreet to say."

Tony's mind jumps through all sorts of bizarre possibilities until Friday pulls up a hologram of Bucky, still in his prison hospital room, swung to the side of his bed. He can't go far, with the cuff, but his head is bowed.

Tony squints at the live feed. Then Barnes sniffs, looking out the barred window, and Tony understands.

Barnes is crying. Not a lot, not great fat drops like Steve does sometimes.

But two chase each other to the ground and Tony thinks those rare tears, like Peter, are probably one of the most valuable things in this compound.

He sits there for so long that his legs go numb, listening to Nat's lullaby and his son's sleepy whispers that transition into deep, even breaths.

Natasha comes out and closes the door, then kneels to squeeze Tony's shoulder. She doesn't say anything either. But her eyes are warm, so very at peace, that Tony's finally spill over.

He sits there and thinks of Mum's cooking, Russian songs, and his antithesis—weeping two floors beneath his socks over a lost future, just like he is—until the sun comes up.