When he finally emerged from the blackness for the last time, it was a slow process.

Things funneled back in one by one.

First, he simply became aware; that he was awake, that he was thinking, that something was happening around him and something else had happened but his thoughts were coming too slowly and he didn't have enough memory or information to figure out what.

His hearing came next. Suddenly he realized he could hear the low hum of machines in the background, a quiet, intermittent beeping, and the grounding rhythm of someone else's steady heartbeat and breath from somewhere not too far off. And the best part was, it didn't hurt. His senses weren't stressed out to the max again. The sounds didn't automatically feel like something stabbing into his eardrums, weren't piercing despite being at a lower than normal volume, as they had been for what seemed like ever after going into the cave.

The quiet helped lull his already muted senses into a sense of security, enough that he was curious what had happened and actually wanted to wake up. So he concentrated, and slowly, but surely, managed to crack one eye open, then the other.

After not being able to see much of anything besides darkness whether he was awake or asleep for almost as long as he'd been gone, even the muted light in the room, soft, more dark than light but just bright enough to actually be able to see, his eyes still felt strained. But he blinked a few times to counter it and forced himself to keep them open, trying to sit up to scan the room.

That was when the problems came.

The moment he tried to lift his chest and get his arms under himself to sit up in the bed, pained flared all down the front of his body, muted from the drugs he was surely on, but not muted enough to not drag a startled cry from his mouth before he could stop it.

Instantly, the steady breathing cut off, and someone was at his side.

"Hey, hey, stay down. You're still healing and they messed you up pretty good, okay?" A pause, and he could feel the hovering of a hand just above his shoulder, ready to push him down should he have tried to sit up again, but he had no intention of that. Then, "Hey, kiddo, can you look at me? Or do you need the lights turned down more?"

He hadn't even realized he'd cinched his eyes closed again immediately upon realizing how much pain he was in. It was a defense mechanism, he supposed. But no, he needed to open them, needed to get a better view of where he was and who he was with. Because it sounded suspiciously like someone he'd already left behind, but… no, that couldn't be, right? Because they didn't care about him, couldn't care about him-

But despite the impossibility of it, when he opened his eyes, it was Tony Stark standing above him, watching him with concerned eyes.

For a moment, they just stared at each other. Then Peter dropped his eyes, clearing his throat a little. It was scratchy, and it had been forever since he really had been allowed to, but he knew he could talk, if only because he'd just cried out without meaning to, and he had to have a voice to do that.

"No, I'm-" His voice cracked, and he stopped and then tried again. "I'm okay. It's fine, thank you."

"You're far from okay, Pete, but I'll leave the lights, if you insist," Tony countered, but his voice held no bite. He hovered over the edge of the bed for a moment, then asked, "Do you mind if I sit?"

Peter shook his head. "I assume it's your tower, so I couldn't stop you if I wanted to."

Tony sighed, but settled carefully on the edge of the bed before responding. "It's as much my tower now as it is yours, Peter. And I'm not forcing you to do anything. If you want me to leave, just say the word."

Peter frowned. His brain was still fuzzy and muted from wherever drugs he's on, and the words just didn't seem to compute. "What do you mean? How is it my tower? And didn't you rescue me for a reason?"

Tony stared at him, a look of mild horror and not-so-mild worry taking over his face. "Peter, I rescued you — we rescued you because you needed our help. Because we put you in that position and you didn't deserve to be there. No one deserves to be there. I didn't… this isn't me abducting you again or something, okay? When you're able, if you really wish to, then you're free to go wherever you want. You don't have to stay here, but…" He stopped, looking hesitant.

"But you want me to stay." You're going to make me stay, is what he was really thinking, and the words seemed apparent even though they were left unspoken, if Tony's expression was anything to go by.

Tony rubbed his temples. "No, I-... I mean, yes, I would like if you would stay, and so would the rest of the Avengers, very much. I told you, kid, you have a place here, and I meant it. But it's more… I don't know where else you would go."

Peter's brows furrowed. Again, he felt fuzzy, like he had all the pieces to some crucial puzzle but it's just too far away and out of focus for him to recognize what he'd seen. "I don't understand."

Tony sighed, placing a hand over one of Peter's, the motion unexpectedly light, almost careful. "With the information we managed to gather from you and Wanda, and Shield's resources, we were able to locate where Hydra was holding you and take out the lot of the ones in that… body of Hydra. We took out or arrested a lot of people, Peter. Including your parents." His voice lowered a few notches, as if he thought saying it too loudly would evoke some sort of negative reaction from him.

It probably should have, honestly. But if he were being truthful, the revelation was more crushing than surprising. He'd seen them in the first video Tony had showed him, so of course he knew that they were involved, that they knew the things they were doing at least to Wanda; but he had never imagined that they actually knew what they were doing to him , that they'd been around and helped or even just let them do it.

Maybe his dreams of being visited by them when he was there weren't just dreams. Could they have been real? Could they really have been okay with Hydra hurting him like that? Experimenting on him?

Had they known the first time, too? Had they known about his powers? Had everything up to this point in his life been a lie?

His growing panic must have been obvious, because Tony squeezed his hand, quickly trying to reassure him but mistaking the reason. "Hey, easy, kiddo. They're alive, alright? I made sure they were. But they're going away for a long time."

Peter locked eyes with Tony, chest heaving as he struggled to control the rising emotion in his chest, which burned something horrible, although from the panic attack or from whatever the hell they'd done to him, he didn't know. "They knew-"

"We don't know that-"

" I know that! I was there! They were there! They let them…" He stopped, breaths coming way too fast, and God, was it painful, even with the drugs he knew he was on. It radiated from his chest all the way down his body and the harder his heart pounded the more his head throbbed and-

"Peter. Kid, you gotta focus up. Look at me." Tony tilted his chin up, cupping his face and making him meet his eyes. "Breathe. I know how this feels. I do. But you need to calm down right now before you seriously hurt yourself. These injuries you have? You'll be feeling the full extent of them again if you get too worked up."

He knew Tony was right, but it was hard, having his world crash down around him again and trying not to have a panic attack. He knew he was only hurting himself right now, and that, yeah, if anyone understood how badly this hurt him, being betrayed by people who he had thought were his family, it would be Tony. But it was just so much. Too much for his currently fragile state.

What had his parents known? Why would they do this to him? And what was going to happen to them now? They were going to jail, probably, and likely the high-security kind. They were working for a group of known terrorists, after all. It could be years before he would be able to see them again, if ever. And he honestly didn't know how he felt about that at this point.

But even more pressing than that, what was going to happen to him? Sure, Tony had said he could stay here, at the tower, but… there was no way that would work, long term, right? He was a minor. His parents were in jail. The state would come for him; and likely even if they didn't, Shield would, since there was no way they didn't know who he was by now. And superhero or not, he couldn't just be left to live alone without a guardian. If someone didn't come for Spider-Man, someone would come looking for Peter Parker. Even if this whole thing was kept tightly enough under wraps, he'd been missing from school at the very least for… ages, now. Someone will have noticed.

All of these thoughts bombarded him at once, and he barely noticed that he'd started shaking, the way the pain had started to rise and crack his barely put together facade, and it was only when Tony gently cupped his face and sighed, apparently realizing that there was no calming him down, "It's alright, kiddo, you can let it out," does he suddenly and violently break down, throwing himself into the elder man's arms despite how that made the pain radiate through every muscle in his body, and started to sob.

He cried for everything that had happened up to this point — the kidnappings, the torture, the want and fear and loss and pain he just kept feeling but kept forcing himself to push down, even clear back to the first time Hydra had kidnapped him, because allowing himself to feel that would be to admit that he wasn't okay or that something was wrong, and he had been desperately afraid to do that before. But now there was nothing left to lose, no more secrets to hide, and nothing to hold him back.

Tony just held him silently the whole time, rubbing his back in soothing circles and mostly just letting the teenager freak out and soak his shirt until his sobs finally started to subside. When he finally cried it all out, he just stayed there, tucked into Tony's arms, face hidden in his now-wet chest. He knew he should move, that Tony probably was bored and irritated and hadn't signed up for this amount of responsibility when he rescued him, but he was just too exhausted to move.

It was Tony who finally moved, but he didn't push him away like Peter expected. He carefully turned himself so that he was beside the exhausted boy, settling Peter in beside him a bit more comfortably for them both and tucking the blankets up around him. Peter didn't resist, too tired to even open his eyes.

"Get some rest, kiddo," Tony murmured, and Peter felt gently fingers stroke through his curls, massaging right over where the headache from crying had begun to form. His body pulsed with aches and pains, but his exhaustion was so deep that even that had no chance of keeping him awake.

Still, he managed to hold on to one last thought, and he murmured, "Mr. Stark?"

He felt him sigh. "Yeah?"

"How can I stay at the tower if the state people are going to take me away?"

There's a brief pause, and he felt as much as heard Tony take a deep breath, considering his answer. "No one is going to take you anywhere you don't want to go ever again, Peter. That's all there is to it."

"But my parents…" He couldn't keep his eyes open anymore. "They're gone and you're not…"

"Don't worry about that. Don't worry about anything, okay? Just get some rest. We'll take care of it when you wake up."

And Peter went to sleep, unable to resist the blanket of exhaustion that seems to have settled in his very bones any longer. But this time it was deep and peaceful, not induced by drugs and trauma, and the most restful sleep he'd had since this all began months ago. And though he didn't know it yet, this time he had a whole team of superheroes on his side determined to make it last.