Chapter 47 - What happened in New Hampshire, stayed...
The building was quiet, even for a Monday morning with most people at work and especially considering that school was still on the last couple of weeks of summer break. It wasn't all that early in the morning anymore, but Tony was still a little bit worried that she might not even open the door. After a long night shift, she might just sleep in. It wasn't an excuse to stall himself from knocking on the door. Well, maybe it was. A little bit.
Tony took a moment, collected himself, cracked his neck then took a deep breath. A small ritual, but an effective one that had his 'Tony fucking Stark' mask slip into place before he did knock.
It stayed quiet at first. He waited for what seemed like a little too long, wondered if he should try again when there was a bit of a commotion on the other side of the door just before it swung open.
She was a little more disheveled than he had so far encountered her, but that was May Parker right in front of him alright, looking right at him. It took her a moment. She saw his face but he knew the signs. It was a little choreography that was the same almost everywhere he happened to show up unannounced. People would look at him, a couple of small question marks in their faces like they might have when meeting a random stranger and then they'd see him. Their eyes would widen in recognition, most of them would feel the surprise so deeply that their mouths started to gape. Depending on the person, this could variate from lightly parted lips to full-on jaw drops.
May Parker was not one of the people whose jaw dropped all the way to the floor. She had a little more control of her face. Most of the surprise lingered around her eyes that turned round and wide. Tony didn't quite know where to class that expression on her face. Genuine surprise or nervous worry? If only he could remember more details from that original meeting of theirs. When he had just found the boy's address and shown up at their apartment, but he had not had his guard up that day. Not regarding the aunt to the level he should have in hindsight.
"Mr... Mr. Stark? What..." Her eyes widened a bit more. "Is... where is Peter? Is he... is he okay? Did something happen?"
Tony tilted his head at her, still studying her. It was hard to say if she knew what she was doing. If the concern was put on, it was done very well. Not just the face that was drawn in surprise but also the one hand that was clutching at imaginary pearls. His own arms were in front of him, one hand holding onto his other arm's wrist, in more formal circles a sign of a dignified posture. For Tony right there, it was moreso a practical solution as his fingers traced the nano bracelet containing his combat glove, just as a precaution.
"Maybe we should talk inside?" He kept his voice low, as hard as he found it not to let his anger and frustration seep into it.
"Of... of course." She stepped aside at once and waved him into the apartment.
Tony didn't hesitate at that. He walked right inside, didn't even think twice about heading straight for the living room. A careful glance around the apartment did prove what he had thought he remembered. It might be a cozy place, warm and homey, but that personal family touch was missing. There weren't really any family pictures, nothing at all from when the boy was little. That all made a little more sense now. Tony turned and she had followed right behind him. He pointed to the couch in the middle of the room.
"Please. Sit."
The woman just stood there, frozen. She was only halfway into the room and he really wanted to get himself between her and the door before this went into the next gear. He couldn't have her run. Not that he wouldn't catch her, but he could do without the publicity.
"Mr... Mr. Stark. You're scaring me. What is going on?"
He narrowed his eyes at her. "I think I asked you to sit."
Her throat was working as she swallowed hard. Her hands clenched into fists as her fingers nervously moved around her thumb but then she complied. She didn't look at Tony as she walked past him and slowly came to sit on her own couch as he had directed her to. She did look back up again after a few deep breaths though.
"Where is Peter?"
He huffed, eyes narrowing on her again. "Peter... that is a good question, isn't it?"
She blinked at him as a shudder ran visibly through her. That was a nice touch. "Please, I don't..." She took another couple of deep breaths. "Where is my... where... where is—"
"Your nephew." Tony crossed his arms in front of him. "Your nephew, or your son?"
"I..." She shook her head. "I don't know... I don't know what you—"
"I did always wonder. He doesn't call you that all that much, you know. His aunt. Only when he gets tired or nervous. I always wondered why but I guess you tried to train him out of that, didn't you?"
Her eyes were wide, straight on him and the fear was written crystal clear all over her face. Natasha had been right about one thing, May Parker really was no criminal mastermind. Honestly, it was astounding that she had made it this far. Without the anonymity the city offered, they would have probably slipped up a long time ago.
"I... I mean, I..." Her eyes were wandering from left to right like she was looking for a way out. "I mean, technically... yes, technically. Of course I've... we've adopted him. But... but it was never a question of... Peter, he... he always preferred it this way, so that's how... that's how we do it."
Her stammering was all over the place, but he had already elected to ignore her deception. "I know what you did." He was looking straight her waiting for her to break the eye contact but she didn't. "I know."
"I... I'm not sure what you think you know, there—"
"Mary and Richard Parker." Tony had pulled out his phone, squinting at the display like he'd need a reminder of the couple's names. Like they weren't already engraved in his memory forever.
"I—Wh—what?" May Parker's face lost the little color that had remained in her cheeks.
"At least that's who the boy says his parents are. Mary and Richard Parker. That's your late husband's brother, isn't it? Richard Parker."
"I... Mr. Stark, I... I don't know what Peter told you. His... his imagination with... with all the trauma when he was little, Peter sometimes tends to... to spin up tales that—"
"Let's not." He had a hard time trying to keep the anger out of his face. Even with years of practice, he was getting close to his limits with this one. "Let's not do this little dance where you insult both of us with trying to pretend that I misinterpreted what the kid said or..." He shook his head in distaste. "Or even worse, imply that he's just making shit up."
He pulled up both the Parker families' adoption papers and had them projected from his phone into the space between himself and the woman on the couch. Her breathing was heavy, eyes darting to the front door of the apartment before she caught herself and turned her gaze down to the floor, away from the projection.
"Where... where did you get these? Those documents are private. I don't... I don't understand how you could—"
"They'd put you in jail for this." He kept his eyes on her, studying every twitch on her face, every muscle she moved. "But you know that, right? You know if this gets out, you'll be in jail for a long time. A long, long time. Even with just the initial identity theft, especially with how serious your home state takes those laws."
She stayed quiet, collected herself before she looked back up, straight at him. There was something in her face that changed at that.
Tony kept his face mostly impassive, all business in contrast to her. "Kidnapping across state lines. Identity theft. Do you need me to add up how many years in prison you're looking at?"
She pulled her shoulders back, held her chin high. "Are you threatening me?"
He couldn't help but respect her fire. "I don't really care all that much what would happen to you." His tone was as light as he could manage. "I do care about what would happen to the boy when your scheme falls apart."
She huffed out a humorless laugh. "When is it?"
"You're not all that good with this, Mrs. Parker. You and your husband might have managed to smudge your trail but it's still there if you know what to look for. I guess after your husband's death, things have been a bit more difficult to hold together."
Her eyes were positively burning now. The husband was a sore spot then. Tony had figured as much. No matter the unsolved circumstances of his passing, it was unlikely that she had anything to do with that particular crime then.
"What do you want from us?"
"Us?" Tony did laugh at that. "I want nothing from the boy."
"I can't give you anything. I don't have anything to give you."
"Well, I think you do." He crossed his arms, eyes narrowed at her. "I want some answers."
"Answers?"
"Yes, answers. I want to know exactly what you did. I want to know why."
"Didn't you just walk in here 5 minutes ago, proudly claiming you already knew what we did?"
He tilted his head at her, careful to swallow his annoyance at her flippant tone. "I know enough. Enough for the police to get interested in this case and do some digging. I think it's safe to assume that you'd rather not have me to take that particular route."
She gritted her teeth.
"The boy's not your son. He's not Peter Parker."
For a moment, Tony thought she'd deny it again, but then her low voice rang surprisingly strong. "He is now."
Tony shook his head. "Try again."
She stayed quiet, her lips no more than a thin line. Tony weighed his approach. Who did she think the boy really was? Just a random kid her brother and sister-in-law had adopted? Just her nephew that she needed to protect? He had to decide on how to play this now. How much did she truly know and more importantly what details was she possibly not even privy to? How likely was it that May Parker would sign a permission slip to allow a hidden Aiden Elliot Stark to attend an internship at Stark Industries if she knew who she had been hiding all along?
"Charles Richard Parker. That's the boy's real name." Tony crushed the inside of his lip hard to drag his mind away from what the boy's actual name really was. He waited another beat for her to speak, but she just sat there, quietly. "Mrs. Parker..."
"We were trying to keep him safe." Her voice was nothing more than a whisper, eyes not on Tony but on the table between them.
"By kidnapping him?"
Her eyes shot daggers at him. "We didn't kidnap him! We protected him. We..." She swallowed hard, an obvious attempt to steady her voice. "We had no other choice. He had just lost everything. We had just lost everything."
Tony had his gaze fixed on her, eyes narrowed. "Tell me what happened."
"Why?" She snarled.
"Because I'm asking you to. Pretty nicely so far."
He had a hard time keeping his tone somewhat civil, even with the increased emotional state May Parker was in. He waited and waited and was just about to open his mouth again to press her for answers when she finally did speak.
"They... It... It was just a short trip. Had been planned for... for months. Mary..." Her face crumbled and she took a couple of deep breaths before she was able to continue. "Mary and Rick, they had organized tickets for this... this show. A circus from China. Only performance in the state was on that weekend. Rick had gotten tickets through someone at his job. Two children and two adults. Both the kids were so excited. They... they loved acrobatics, were always... always practicing little performances whenever Mary and Rick would come over for dinner. Or drop Charlie off when they both had to work late. Petey... Our... our son, they gave him the ticket for Christmas. He was so excited, but then... Peter—then Charlie..."
She shook her head as she corrected herself. Tony's eyes were glued to her, careful not to miss anything, not just regarding that story but also May Parker's body language.
"Charlie, he got sick. A bit of stomach bug. They had planned that trip for so long. It was the only date and Mary, she... she was so sad that she'd have to stay behind, offered me to go instead because she was going to stay home with Charlie. They were... were Petey's godparents. It was a bonding thing. They—they had promised to go, just them and the kids. Mary had even taken the time off from work. I didn't... I didn't want to disappoint my son. He had..." Her voice broke and her hands tightened on the fabric where she was clutching the edge of the sofa. "He had been so excited to go with his godparents. So... so, I offered to take care of Charlie for the day. I stayed home with him, with... with my nephew and then... and then on their way home the... the accident happened. We... we were heartbroken. We lost our child and... and our best friends."
Her hand shot up and covered her mouth, eyes pressed close. He felt for her, of course, he did. He knew all too well what it felt like to lose a child. Even with the miraculous development of the past days, the years of pain were still buried deep in his bones, would never be forgotten. He gave her a moment, used the time to organize his thoughts. Peter Parker, the real Peter Parker had truly died with Mary and Richard then. He had figured as much from all the snippets they had gathered so far.
"There is no information about that accident anywhere. No mention of it." If neither him or Natasha could find it someone must have tried to keep it hidden. "Why? What happened?"
"I..." She swallowed hard, then shook her head, wet eyes looking up at him. "It was just a freak accident. No... no third-party involvement. Likely... likely just a bit of black ice next to the riverbed."
"Likely?" He narrowed his eyes on her. "Your son died in that accident and you didn't bother to find out the details of what happened?"
"Didn't bother?" She huffed out a dry laugh, her eyes hard. "Not all of us have unlimited resources to pay private investigators. Didn't bother..." Her jaw cracked as she gritted her teeth. "No foul play meant they closed the case and that was that. Welcome to the real world, Mr. Stark. Must be a rude awakening in comparison to the cushy life in your ivory tower."
He resisted the urge to cross his arms in front of his body, to physically brace himself against her attack. He wouldn't take the bait, needed to keep his head clear. He'd been accused of far worse.
"So, your son dies in that accident. Your brother and sister-in-law die as well and you just decide to pack up your nephew and make a run for it."
"No," she hissed at him.
"No? I'll need a bit more detail than that."
"The agency, they... we didn't know at the time. Not the extend of it. They..." She swallowed hard. "It was all about the money for them. The contract it... the contract stated that in case of the parents' deaths the agency would regain legal guardianship. We'd... we'd have lost him, too. They would have just taken him back and sold him to someone else. We couldn't... we couldn't risk that."
"That's ridiculous. How could you even sign something like that?"
"Ben, he—" She turned her head away from him, clearly fighting to push down the emotions that came with talking about her late husband. "Ben had done all the paperwork for the adoption. He... he knew so much more about all the small print, all the details. I... I only found out when... when we were on the way to the morgue, that's when he told me. Told me that the agency would likely reclaim him." She pulled in a deep breath, her gaze lost somewhere between the kitchen and the bookshelf. "We had lost our child, our best friends. Ben lost his brother and then... then they were going to take Charlie away from us as well." She shook her head. "We couldn't... we couldn't allow that. Would've never been able to live with ourselves if we had given him up."
Tony's stomach did turn at the thought. Taking a 5-year-old away from the only people he trusted just after his parents were killed. But then... then he hadn't been their son. He was his son. The son that was stolen from him.
"Did you ever even have the contract checked? This doesn't even sound legal. They can't just reclaim a child. It's a human being, not a dog!"
"And when were we supposed to do that? To risk that? Charlie, he..." May Parker took a deep breath, somewhat collected herself. "We had to take him with us when the police called. Couldn't leave him behind. He was asleep in the back of the car and he looked so peaceful. He had no idea, no idea what was going to happen. After everything he had been through before he came to live with Mary and Rick. We couldn't risk having to give up on him. We owed them that and Charlie as well. It was the only way to keep him safe."
Tony's eyes had shifted away from May Parker to the empty space between himself and the table.
The only way to keep him safe.
What if they hadn't done that? What would that agency have done with his boy? Those people who had hidden his son away in the first place... Maybe they really would have just sold him to the next highest bidder? Who knew where he'd have ended up. Among all this chaos, there was one thing that he was sure about and that was that Peter Parker loved his aunt. Charles Parker. The kid. His kid, he loved that woman, would do anything for her. He wouldn't if they hadn't kept him safe, if they hadn't loved him and cared for him. Yes, Tony could admit that and he could find solace in that.
Not that solace did much for him right now. He didn't need solace, he needed a solution. This whole switcharoo complicated things even more. It smudged the trace of who was to blame for this, who Tony could rip to pieces for it without demur. But his revenge would have to take a backseat for now. There was only one thing that was more important than all that: His kid needed to stay safe. Stay safe... not like he had been very safe recently. Even before this recent kidnapping. Swinging from buildings, being shot at. Facing the Avengers.
Tony felt sick at the thought. There was a lot that May Parker didn't know about the boy's life, how unsafe it really had been over the last months. How much of that had been Tony's responsibility.
He pushed the thought away, looked up at the woman who still sat on her own couch where Tony had put her.
"So when the police contacted you to identify the bodies of your husband's brother, sister-in-law and the boy who died in the that car with them, he just went to the morgue, looked at his son and told the officers that it was his nephew instead. Am I getting this right?"
She swallowed hard and wiped away tears from both her cheeks before she nodded.
It was a decent plan, Tony could give them that. A random accident, a close relative who identified the bodies of a small family. Who would investigate something like that? Who would ever be able to prove or even suspect that Richard and Mary Parker had been traveling with anyone but their own son? Who would even benefit from investigating if Benjamin and May Parker's son had ever been anyone than the boy they were pretending it was? At 5 years old the kid should have been young enough to be made to forget, to accept a different name and swallow whatever story they told him and for any average 5-year-old it might have worked. But not for his son. Not just because he obviously never took to accepting them outright as his parents, but because unlike most children, Aiden Stark was traceable by fingerprints, by DNA.
"Mr. Stark, where... where is he? Where is Peter?"
He looked straight at her, trying not to let the mental image of that traumatized kid in the med bay bed impact the mask he had set on his face. "He's at the Compound. Still asleep, I'm sure."
May Parker's face twitched but she didn't look away from him. "What... what is it that you want from us? What do you want me to do?"
Tony stared at her. He wished he knew. He wished he knew what he needed from her right now, how to fix any of this. He wanted his boy, he needed his boy by his side. The thought of Aiden, of Peter leaving the Compound and going anywhere but home to the Tower with him had the first progenitors of a full-on panic attack brewing in his veins, but he had no way forward right now, saw no pathway that would lead them from their present situation to where he needed all of this to go. Above all, Tony needed more time. More time to weigh options, to find the best solution that would keep the kid safe but also content.
Keeping the boy at the Compound indefinitely would not just require an explanation, it meant that Tony would have to tell him the truth and fast. It would also mean that he would have to tell May Parker. Tell her at least some form of the truth. She wouldn't just go down without a fight. Peter would not just abandon his beloved aunt. Not for the distant promise of a father he didn't remember. Not for Tony.
He needed more time to figure out what to do.
"Nothing. I don't want you to do anything." There was a way out of this, there simply had to be. There had to be something he could do to convince the authorities that needed to be convinced to let him keep his son without revealing the boy's most important secret, for the boy's DNA gave away more than just his ancestry. "You will just keep on doing what you've been doing. Nothing's gonna change."
"I... I don't understand. Why are you here then? What—"
"I need to protect myself and my company from criminals, make sure that the behavior of the people I associate with won't hurt either. I'm sure you can see that."
"Of course. Yes, I... of course. This... you... you don't have to trouble yourself with any of this. We can be out of your hair in—"
"Stop. Don't even bother with that tactic." His eyes were glued to her every twitch and movement. "You can't outsmart me, Mrs. Parker. I do think you're savy enough to understand that. You won't be going anywhere." Out of his hair... He wouldn't have that. This woman would not get to gamble away his son's future just so she could keep him no matter the cost. What the kid would need most was stability, to keep his friends, his life and to feel safe after everything he had gone through. Tony would make sure that he had all that. "I don't want to wake up one day just to find that you pulled the kid out of his environment and moved him to..." He shrugged. "Kentucky or something."
Her breathing was uneven. "You don't tell me what to do. You want to pretend that you care about Peter all you want, but I know people like you. You don't control our lives, you don't get to blackmail me and my—"
"Blackmail." He cocked his head to the side. "That's a big word, Mrs. Parker." Deep breaths. He couldn't afford to lose his temper with her. "I do care about the boy's future. He deserves the best shot he can get and he won't get the shot he deserves if you drag him into the middle of fucking nowhere just to avoid the consequences of your actions. So, you'll stay put. You'll let him thrive right here, in New York City." He took a step closer, unable to hold back. "Let's get one thing straight for now, Mrs. Parker. You don't know me. You don't know people 'like me' or what I'm prepared to do. You know nothing."
"Go ahead then, turn me in. You think you can buy Peter's affection, try and find out what good that'll do you."
Tony narrowed his eyes on her. "He doesn't know, does he?"
"I... of... of course he knows. You... you just said yourself that—"
"He doesn't know what you really did though, does he? He doesn't know that he's not 15. That he's a 13-year-old boy who you passed off as your son. You trained him like a little monkey to take on the identity your son left behind. You stripped him of his own past so he would fit into your life. Does he even know he's adopted at all? That he then just replaced your son? What really happened that day of that accident?"
"That's... that's not... we didn't. We didn't do that! We just protected him from—"
"Yes, yes, it was all for the boy's sake." He shook his head, letting his anger rush through him. "You put his well being above all else which is why you lied to him, tried to keep the memory of his dead parents away from him so he would forget and not ask any questions."
May Parker's face was red, her eyes wide. He had hit a sore spot. It was just a hunch from how uncomfortable the boy was about the memories of his childhood, how obsessed with those videos he found not even knowing that he had been watching himself. Something Tony still hadn't told him about. Something he had lied about, tried to keep quiet about in front of his boy. Tony pushed the thought away. He couldn't dwell on that right now. It would rip him apart.
"You can't control us. We're not your puppets." The woman had stood up it last, pointing a finger at him. "I don't have to do anything you say!"
"You will, if you don't want to exchange your lovely apartment for an even smaller cell."
She did cry at that and there was a part of him that felt like an asshole treating her like so harshly. There was no other option though. He couldn't tell her the truth. He couldn't trust what she would do with it. If at the end of the day, she would act in the boy's best interest or her own. If her idea of what was best for the boy would even align with Tony's.
"Mrs. Parker..."
Her face was buried in her hands. Her efforts to hide her sobs were unmistakable.
He sighed. "Mrs. Parker, there is no need for you to fear me as long as you stick to putting the boy's best interests first. As long as you do that I gain nothing by putting you in a cell. I wouldn't..." He cleared his throat. "I wouldn't do that to Peter."
She sniffed out a dry laugh. "And I'm... I'm supposed to believe that."
He waited for her while she rubbed one of her hands across her face. Waited till she looked up at him. "I don't really see a different option for you right now than to believe me."
She looked at him, then blinked a couple of times and sat back down. He didn't stay for much longer. May Parker would need a bit of room to breathe and come to terms with what had just happened and Tony needed all the time he could find to figure out how to tell his son the truth and preferably by then he would know what to do about that truth.
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(author's note: Thank you all for reading and the lovely comments. I know it's a cliché but it's true that they help with the motivation to get the chapters out sooner ;)
Thank you as well for all the lovely well-wishes! I really appreciate it. Stay safe and social distance where you can!)
