Sooooo, hi everyone. I'm back, after way too long. Did anyone else go into this time of quarantine and reduced hours thinking that they'd use all the extra time to work on their projects, and instead ended up spending their days staring at the ceiling contemplating how meaningless the universe is? sigh

Anyway, I finally managed to crank this out, Hopefully I can keep the momentum going. Enjoy and let me know what you think :)

When Tony finally started back to his room, there was a low-grade headache pounding behind his eyes.

Well, that went pretty much exactly like he was expecting. Fucking Ross.

He pressed the pads of his fingers against his eyes. Okay, it was okay; it was fine. It was over. Rhodey was safe, Ross was briefed on the world-ending situation, and he was going to spread the word. Get that international cooperation ball rolling. Wins all around.

And now that this endless shit day was finally over, he could sweep Pepper off her feet, make things up to her. Then he could fall into bed with her in his arms. And sleep. For a week, if he could manage it.

He rounded the final corner, already rehearsing the necessary groveling, and then came to a dead stop.

May Parker was pacing at his doorway.

Well, shit.

Tony winced. May was a deceptively terrifying woman, when it came to all things Peter. The tirade she'd launched when Peter accidentally told her he was moonlighting as a crime-fighter, with Tony's help — thanks for that, kid — had been impressive, and not something he wanted to repeat. He really wasn't looking forward to her reaction to the revelation that her boy had been kidnapped into space because of him.

She looked especially agitated right now, wringing her hands. Probably imaging getting them around Tony's throat.

His stomach sank. Still, he cleared his throat and stepped forward.

He could do this. He was Iron Man. Iron Man faced down terrorists and alien armies and genocidal space tyrants with universe-destroying magic powers. Facing down the angry aunt of a teenager was nothing.

Shit. Shit, shit.

"May," he called quietly.

Her eyes snapped up to him with such intense laser focus that he continued in a rush; "Look, before you say anything, just let me try to explain—"

May sprang forward.

Shit, shit, shit.

Tony stumbled away, flailing his arms. He braced himself, twisting away with a yelped complaint of "I got stabbed!" Because she wasn't angry enough to beat on someone who'd already been stabbed. Right?

She ignored him, slamming into his chest hard enough to push him back a step. Tony had enough time to resignedly think 'apparently not' as May's arms clamped around his neck. He threw his hands up to ward her off.

Then she planted a firm kiss squarely on Tony's mouth, and all of his higher level brain functions abruptly switched off.

"Okay," was all he could think to say.

Tears shimmered in May's eyes. She buried her face into the crook of his neck, holding tight.

"Thank you," she mumbled. "Thank you, thank you, thank you."

Tony stiffly patted her back. "I'm really confused."

She sniffled again, somehow clinging to him even tighter. "Peter told me what happened today."

"Yeah. That's, um, why I'm confused."

May leaned back, clumsily wiping her cheeks. "You rescued him. You went after a spaceship for him; you followed him into space."

Tony was quiet for a beat, waiting for the rest. For the reminder that he was the reason Peter needed to be rescued from space in the first place. Nothing came.

"Well, yeah," he finally said.

She sniffed a watery laugh and yanked his face down for another kiss. The cobwebby strands of shock finally started to clear from his mind, just a little. He grinned.

"May, you're starting to give me the wrong idea here. I've got a woman I'm very devoted to, right on the other side of that door."

May snorted, shoving his shoulder. "Shut up."

Tony let himself fall against the wall, still grinning. It didn't take long before anxiety came crashing back. His chest tightened and the smile slowly slipped away.

Dragging a hand over his face, Tony sighed. "Look, I...I feel like Peter must have been a little soft on the details. He's a sweet kid that way, and there's no way he told you everything."

"Oh, yes he did. Honestly, he told me a little too much." She smiled wryly, shaking her head. "He wanted to make sure I knew it wasn't your fault, so I wouldn't be mad at you."

"Ah-ha," Tony shouted, jabbing a finger at her. "See, that's how I know he left something out. You're not nearly mad enough about this."

May cocked her head, a funny pinch creasing between her eyebrows. "Do you want me to be mad at you?"

"No. Yeah. Maybe. I'd know how to handle that at least." He threw his hands up, pacing away.

May nodded, smiling in a gentle way that finally made her look like someone's aunt. "That's because I've been hard on you never since I found out about Spider-Man. Which I had every right to be angry about," she added immediately. A familiarly angry glower flashed across her features. "Seriously, how dare you drag a fourteen year-old boy into a punching match with a bunch of super-heroes. What were you thinking?"

"See, this I know."

She held her hands up, heaving a calming breath. The anger smoothed out.

"But, it wasn't just that. It was, also, partly because I was kind of, maybe a little bit, sort of...jealous," she finally whispered.

A faint blush bloomed in prominent spots on each cheek. Just like it did with Peter, Tony noted fondly.

"You're jealous of me and Peter," he repeated, unable to hold back a laugh. His heart gave a painful twist and he choked back more laughter before it became too bitter. Giving her shoulder a reassuring squeeze. "May, you and Peter have something special. He loves you like crazy. You have nothing to be jealous about."

"But you share something with him that I'll never understand," she countered. An odd air of melancholy settled over her. "You saved his life."

"I only saved him after I dragged him into danger in the first place," Tony scuffed. Just yell at me, he thought. Please, just be mad at me.

Because, whatever this was, he was not equipped to handle it.

"I'm not talking about today." May abruptly shrank in on herself. She hugged herself, her voice quiet, eyes going distant. "Do you know what happened with my husband?"

Tony chewed at his lip, his stomach suddenly wringing itself into a tight knot.

"Yeah," he mumbled. "An article about it came up when I Googled Peter, after I found out he was Spider-Man. I know he was… it was a mugging gone wrong. I'm sorry, May. So sorry." He licked his lips. "But, I don't understand what this —"

"Peter was with him when it happened."

"Oh. Oh god." Tony rubbed a hand over his mouth.

"Yeah," May whispered. Her lips trembled. "I made sure the article didn't cover that. They were coming home; Ben took him out for some boy time. Peter was getting into trouble at school. His grades were slipping, he got into a few fights."

For a minute, Tony was shocked out of the raging storm of unease. A small, surprised smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. "Peter got into fights at school?"

"I know," she laughed, swiping at her tears. "We didn't understand how it could be happening, either. So Ben took him out for the night. He was, he always knew just how to talk to Peter, to get him to open up. They were coming back from...you know, I don't even remember where they went anymore. Isn't that funny?" May glanced over.

Acting on instinct, Tony reached for her hand. She clung hard.

"They were coming home, and..." She trailed off, covering her face. "It turns out, Peter was having trouble because the week before he went on a school trip. And he was bitten by the weirdest spider he'd ever seen."

Tony winced. He did the math, his stomach twisting as it all added up.

"After that night, Peter didn't speak for almost two months." She sucked in a shaky breath, eyes distant. "I could barely get him to eat, he had nightmares every night. At first, I thought it was survivor's guilt. I thought that he was confused and blaming himself. I tried to get him to talk to the counselors at school. Nothing helped. And, looking back on it now, knowing what was really happening—"

"Peter thought he should have been able to save him. Because of his powers," Tony filled in.

When you can do the things I can do, but you don't, and the bad things happen: they happen because of you. Tears clogged in his throat. Oh god, kid.

"He was fourteen; he didn't even understand what was happening to him. And he thought he should have been able fight off a man with a gun." She shook her head. " I tried to pull him back, to get him to talk to me. But I couldn't understand what was really going on. There was nothing I could do." She hissed a shaky breath through her teeth. "I thought I was going to lose him, too. He was slipping away, and there was nothing I could do to make it stop.

"And then one day, he started getting better. It was slow; he was still too quiet, too hesitant, but he started getting better. He started smiling again, laughing. Talking. And later that week, those first few videos of Spider-Man showed up on the internet."

May finally looked him back in the eye. "Being Spider-Man saved his life. And he's only Spider-Man because of you."

"Oh, come on."

"It's true."

"No, no it's not." Tony laughed, more than a little nervously, dragging a hand through his hair. "Spider-Man is all about Peter. It has nothing to do with me. Peter's a hero because, because...because he's Peter." A beautiful, pure gift to the world, who fought because he wanted to make the world safer.

"There's no one like him," May agreed. "But he needed an example when he stepped into the super-hero game. And he had Iron Man." She laughed, the last of the lingering melancholy slipping away. "Peter has been obsessed with Iron Man for years. He found every scrap of information on everything Iron Man had ever done from the moment of your first appearance. Impressive research skills for an eleven year-old. Every time something new came out, it was all we heard about for weeks. We got him posters, toys, those plastic Iron Man gauntlets and masks for every birthday and Christmas. He even made us go to that Expo."

She started rummaging through her purse, pulling out a small photo. Smiling down at it, May continued, "And for every Iron Man toy and poster, Peter had just as many of Tony Stark. You were more than the world's first superhero for him. You were the example of what one man could do as long as he was smart enough. The genius that a smart little boy could look up to."

"Yeah, only because he was too young to get what he was looking at. You know what I am, May." He tipped his head back. "I've just barely started pulling my life out of the gutter. Back then, I was still diving head first into my downward spiral. And if he knew the truth behind Iron Man… he'd see there isn't much to admire there, either."

"I don't think that's true."

"It is. I became Iron Man to save my own ass; and everything I've done since is just an attempt to try to fix and some of the shit I did to the world. And I can't make myself step away from it — when the woman I love needs me to, and all I really do is make things worse. All because I can't stay away from the high."

May paused, that odd look on her face again.

"I don't think that's true," she said again. "And, more importantly, that's not what Peter sees. He sees the kind of hero who would stand behind a little boy and let him think, for just a minute, that he was the one who defeated the monster."

She passed the photo over. A miniature Peter smiled out at him, bookended by his aunt and uncle as they stood at the entrance of the Stark Expo. from so long ago. Resting just halfway down his forehead was a child-size Iron Man mask.

May paused, waiting as Tony's brain short-circuited while he tried to make sense of what he was looking at. "'Nice job, kid'," she quoted.

The circuit finally connected, and his heart almost stopped. "Oh, Jesus Christ, that was Peter?!"

"Yeah, it was," she murmured, studying his face. Whatever she found there, it made her face light up. "Oh, don't worry, he was just fine. All he could talk about for weeks was how he helped Iron Man shoot the bad guy. It was the greatest day of his life.

"He loves you, you know."

The floor dropped out from under him, and for a moment Tony could only stare. May plowed on ahead, leaving him floundering.

"At first it was just distant hero-worship. Then you showed up in our apartment. You gave him that suit, invited him over to those study sessions at your compound. Helped him figure out who he is."

The universe continued to shift under him. Tears burned in his throat. "I, I...he's the greatest thing that I—" Tony sucked in a shaky breath, tracing a finger over Peter's smiling face. "I didn't know something so good could exist in this shitty, crazy world. He makes me want to think there's a chance for it. And, god, he makes me want to be the man he already thinks I am."

May was quiet while he pulled himself together. She patted his hand, pressing the photo to his chest.

"I think you should keep this. You should have a picture of him." She pressed a final, gentle kiss on his cheek. "Ever since I found him in his room, wearing that suit, I've been terrified that Peter was going to get himself hurt, being Spider-Man. And I was so helpless, because I can't make him stop, not when it's so crucial to who he is. But I feel better now, knowing you're looking out for him. I wanted you to know that.

"And I hope you can tell him, one day. How you feel. It doesn't have to be now, but it would be good for him to hear." She cupped his cheek, giving his face a pat. "Get some rest, Tony. You look like shit." Then she turned on her heels and marched down the hall.

Tony watched her go, dazed. Finally, he just snorted. May was an interesting puzzle of a woman, for sure.

Shaking his head, he looked back at the picture of Peter. He smiled and felt the world finally settle back in place. This was going in a frame on his desk, he decided. Right next to the picture he'd snapped of the two of them at Stark Industries, the day he'd given the kid that goofy internship plaque.