Tony's chapter has arrived! While this one is short, the other ones will be longer and might just feature everyone's favourite Crime Fighting Spider :D
Hope you enjoy! Leave your likes and comments (if you have any) down below. They are much appreciated!
Author's Note: I just realized that the chapter uploaded without any of the italics I included *face-palm* Sorry if that caused any confusion. I have now gone through and added them all back in, so everything should be in order now!
The roar of the battle was deafening to Tony, ironically made even worse by the hum of his advanced sound filters that were working harder than normal to sort all the external noise.
It had only been a few short moments since Dr. Strange had opened up all the portals, bringing their fallen friends back into the fight against Thanos, yet it was nothing short of chaotic. Flying through the battlefield, he had to duck and weave around the many smaller battles happening between the Avengers and Thanos' army. Everywhere he turned someone was going face to face with the many aliens swarming the battlefield, as the ground was littered with Thanos' troops. Tony figured their only purpose was simply to take down as many people as they could before being blown to hell themselves.
The other and more prominent pain in his ass came in the form of the aliens wreaking havoc from above. Chitauri speeders and Necrocrafts were swooping and spiralling in unpredictable patterns to target the airborne Avengers as well as those on the ground. However, that wasn't even the biggest problem, both literally and figuratively. The sky was also littered with dozens of Chitauri Leviathans, the huge whale-like creatures from New York, which were covered in thick armour that was nearly impossible to penetrate. Tony especially hated them because of their tendency to touch down and destroy everything in their path using a simple flick of their tail. With these ridiculously powerful entities tearing through the battlefield along with the rest of Thanos's horde, it all made for a fight of disastrous proportions.
I cannot wait until this is over. I've had enough space for a lifetime thank you very much.
Swerving suddenly, Friday's impeccable timing pulled Tony from the path of an airborne alien body, saving him from the collision. Squinting down at where the offending beast had come from, he saw a fight going on between Bucky, Sam and two dozen ground Chitauri. Watching them fight, he saw Sam circling above, trying to hit as many as he could from his vantage point in the sky, while Bucky was using a large chunk of concrete to his advantage, backing himself up to it to cover his six while he fired his Paratrooper at the impeding swarm below. Together they were doing a good job at fending off the attack. Whenever one would get too close to Bucky, Sam would swoop down and stab it through with his newly fashioned wings, courtesy of T'Challa. The new and improved wings were much stronger than before and a lot lighter which allowed Sam to easily maneuver himself and slice through the alien's flesh like it was nothing. Tony would know, given that he scoured all the sketches and suit designs after Wakanda gave him access to their technology database about twenty-eight hours ago to do preliminary research for the Starklet; old policies surrounding secrecy tend to die fast when the fate of the universe is on the line.
Not worried about them getting overwhelmed, Tony merely shook his head in mock annoyance and continued to fly over the battlefield, scanning to see if anyone else needed help. If there was anything he could do for his fellow Avengers, anything at all that could turn the tide of their fight, he would do it.
Filtering through the hundreds of bodies fighting below he managed to spot Bruce, who stuck out above the rest, tackling a smaller group of enemies off to the side. Wanting to check in on him after all that had happened with the snap, Tony changed course and headed to where he was fighting.
"Hey, Bruce, buddy, how're we doing?" he asked as he landed next to his newly giant friend, intent on lending him a hand.
He watched as Bruce ripped the head off the alien nearest to him and threw it and the severed body to the ground. Moving quickly for his size, he swept his left arm out to the side and clothes-lined two aliens approaching his flank, causing them to crumple to the ground, while simultaneously nailing a single alien on his right with his bad fist. Bruce cringed as burnt flesh made contact with the hard skin of the alien, Tony's own arm aching in sympathy just watching it happen.
"Hey Tony, not bad," he grimaced, clutching his hurt arm in his good one. "I'll be a hell of a lot better once we beat Thanos though."
Tony did a quick calculation with the help of Friday and sent off the exact amount of grenades he needed to kill the stragglers of the small hoard, watching all the aliens explode before replying. "Yeah you and me both pal. You good from here?"
He wanted to make sure that Bruce would be okay before he took off to help the others. It was impossible to imagine the pain he was dealing with right now. Only twenty short minutes ago he had snapped everyone back and his right arm was basically fried to the point of being useless, the skin now a deep black that extended all the way up to his neck instead of its usual healthy green.
"Yeah I'm good, no need to worry about me."
Despite the certainty in his words, Tony still couldn't help but worry for him. Yes, Bruce could likely hold his own and he was smart enough to know when he needed help, but the guy had just used six infinity stones and survived. Being too careful wasn't possible.
"Right. Take it easy out here Bruce, I want you to come out the other side of this thing," he said tensely, hoping that the half-Hulk knew how much he meant it, and with that final statement he blasted off into the battle once more.
There was so much going on on the ground that it was hard to process everything, even with Friday as backup. The aliens were attacking from every direction; everywhere he turned they seemed to be popping out at him. The aliens, which he deemed "alien space dogs" for lack of a better term, would flank you from the ground along with the normal ground Chitauri, while the speedsters would swoop in from above, making it so he had to be on constant high alert of an attack; and of course there was Thanos and his main army. Tony had almost forgotten about the annoying worshippers of Thanos, or his "Children" as he called them, which was a gross misuse of the term. The already defeated freaks were back thanks to time travel shenanigans and they were more than ready to wreak havoc on anything and everything. Squidward was part of this crew in the distance, raising debris off the ground in a vortex before sending it plummeting to the ground, causing more things to break loose and go flying through the air.
The chaos was playing up the lagging of his sensors and giving Tony a hard time, the stutter in their operations not helping him choose where he was needed next. The decision was ultimately made for him though when he spied a huge horde of the alien dog creatures running along the perimeter of the battle, looking for some unlucky individual to inconvenience. Figuring he should get to them before they got to anyone else, he circled around and made his way over to the group where he began blasting each alien in turn, dark blood and parts of aliens flying everywhere, including all over himself. Though with each alien he obliterated it became even harder to see his next target, he didn't let that stop him. Using Friday, he was easily able to figure out where each alien was going to strike next, like he had done when he went toe to toe with Cap, allowing him to be one step ahead. Using this to his advantage, he destroyed the swarm pretty quickly and was just about to blast the last one when he was blindsided from behind and slammed into a huge piece of concrete.
Recovering from the blow quickly, he turned to face the attacker while simultaneously aiming his double fist cannons at whatever new threat had approached. He was taken by surprise when he was met with the largest Child of Thanos, the one that had fought alongside Squidward five years ago, looming over him with the same murderous intent in its eyes. It moved to pound Tony once again and he started charging his blasters in response, but stopped when it suddenly froze in its tracks and went flying backwards, as if something had picked it up and flung it. There on the ground, it was instantly crushed by one of Scott's ginormous feet as he passed by.
Wondering what could have caused it to go flying, Tony looked up and froze. In the distance was the silhouette of someone he never thought he would see again. The same someone who had rescued him from that hideous creature the first time. His heart thudding in his chest, Tony watched as the figure quickly made its way to where he was still lying on the ground, helmet retracting as they approached, revealing a face he had believed he'd lost forever.
Kid?
The kid who had vanished in his arms five long years ago, the one Tony had lost, was finally back and in front of him once again. The same light brown hair pushed back from his forehead, the same wide brown eyes, and the same youthful smile which stretched a mile wide.
Peter.
Tony quickly retracted his own helmet to get a better look at him as the kid rushed to his side, extending a hand to help him up.
"Hey, woah. Holy cow!" Peter exclaimed as he pulled Tony to his feet.
"You will not believe what's going on! Do you remember when we were in space? And I got all dusty?"
Tony just stared in awe. He had missed Peter so much, and now he was here in front of him again, rambling like always, as if nothing had ever happened. It was something Tony never thought he'd get to listen to again. The kid's tendency to go on and on when he was excited or nervous about something, while sometimes annoying in the past, had never sounded better. It meant the kid was back, meant he was alive, and that was a reality Tony never thought would be possible.
"-And I must have passed out cause I woke up and you were gone. But Doctor Strange was there, right? And he was all like 'It's been five years. Come on, they need us.' And then he started doing the yellow sparkly thing that he does all the time…"
Tony slowly started moving towards him. The kid had been gone for five years and Tony could hardly comprehend what he was saying. His mind was just filled with the same message over and over. He's back. He's alive.
He didn't even know he mumbled the reply, "He did? Oh no" as he was way more focused on bringing him in for a bone-crushing hug. This hug was confirmation that what was happening in front of him was real and he wasn't going to pass through Peter like he'd experienced in so many dreams during the long five years without him.
Tony sighed in content as he instead made solid contact with the kid. The last time Peter had been in his arms, Tony had had to witness him slowly turn to dust while he had tried so hard to hold on to him, to keep him from disappearing. He feared that he'd never be able to hold Peter like this again and being able to do it now was giving him strength that he didn't know he needed. He felt like he had everything he needed to face Thanos now.
"What are you doing?" Peter asked, arms awkwardly hovering over Tony as if he was just as unsure whether or not this was really happening.
Tony had been all too ready to brush off their first hug as a simple gesture to open the car door for the kid, and their second if you would call it that was a desperate attempt to hold onto one another, but this one had none of the previous ambiguity. As Tony's grip tightened, Peter seemed to understand and wrapped his arms around Tony's back, his weight and warmth seeping in despite the armour separating them.
"Oh, this is nice," he heard Peter murmur, his arms becoming more certain in their grip around the older man.
In a surge of relief that flooded Tony's senses he almost planted a fatherly kiss on the kid's forehead like he had with Morgan so many times before, and even ventured the thought of reaching up to tousle his hair, but changed his mind before he did so and morphed the actions into a pat on the back. He didn't think that this was the right time to do it; he had just gotten Peter back, and he didn't know if it was too forward. While it had been five long years for Tony, Peter had appeared to pop back to that dreadful moment five years ago as if no time had passed at all. To him nothing had changed. He decided to instead just keep hugging him like he was afraid he would disappear at any moment. He probably would have stayed there forever too, the noises of battle being drowned out by the fact that Peter had shown up in his life again, but the moment was cut short due to a sudden yell nearby.
"Are you two finished? Giant alien battle happening here!"
Tony's eyes shot open. It was Clint. Refusing to let go of Peter just yet, Tony simply pivoted his head to face him.
"Hey, John Wick, we have no idea how this battle is going to go, so just give me one moment of peace with my kid here, okay?" He was aware that Clint had a point, but nothing seemed to matter except Peter now.
He felt Peter tense in his arms at the sentiment, only to relax further into his embrace. Resting his temple against Peter's once more, Tony smiled softly. This was his kid. It was a concept he had come to grips with four years ago, referring to him that way over and over in his mind, but saying it out loud made him even more certain that it was true. Before then, Tony had always wondered what was so special to him about the kid. What all those unnamed feelings of pride and worry that flickered in his chest whenever he was around meant.
He never fully understood it until Morgan was born, the vivid details flooding back to him. Tony remembers kneeling beside Pepper's hospital bed and having her wriggling body placed in his arms for the first time, watching as her small, silken fingers wrapped around his large calloused ones. The physical sensation was one that was delicately foreign, but the emotions that shocked through his system were ones that he had felt before. Ones that had been with him as he lectured about a ferry being split in half and when he'd used his arm as a sword, knighting a new Avenger. Ones which had accompanied that mop of light brown hair and a youthful smile.
Peter…
The tears that Tony had been holding back the whole time Pepper was in labour finally spilled over at the realization. Tony leaned down to sprinkle kisses all over Morgan's tiny face, babbling loudly in between kisses.
"Hello little Miss- I love you so much and I'm- never letting anything- bad ever happen to you."
After the flurry of kisses had subsided, Tony dipped his face down impossibly lower to whisper so that only Morgan could hear, his tears dripping on her forehead,
"I wish you could've met him."
He also wished he would have figured it out sooner, not wasted so much time fumbling for the right label. He now knew in his heart that Peter was his son, blood relation be damned. May had dibs, he would never argue with that, but Tony had become his dad the moment he set foot in the Parker apartment. If only I had figured it out in time, I could've told him before everything, before Thanos.
But that didn't matter anymore. His kid was here, in his arms once more.
"Yeah, yeah," came the annoyed reply, but Tony saw the soft smile that crept onto Clint's face.
As a newly minted father of two (three if you count that Harley kid- nope, Tony was not ready for that kind of responsibility yet) he could understand that look as one of paternal understanding. Being a parent, the feeling of just wanting to get back to his kids and wife must be on the forefront of Clint's mind as well. Clint had also had to deal with the manner in which they were taken so abruptly from him five years before, just as Peter had been taken from Tony. If anything it was worse for him because he hadn't even been involved in the fight with Thanos the first time, being on house arrest after the events of the Sokovia Accords, so he had to have had no idea what was going on. Tony had heard the stories of how his loss had sent Clint on a path that he regretted deeply. Having to face the fact that he would never see his family again took him on a self destructive mission where he didn't care about his outcome because he didn't have anything else to lose. Something, Tony realized, that could have easily happened to himself if he didn't have Pepper and subsequently, Morgan, to keep him grounded. He could practically see these emotions flooding Clint's mind as he watched Tony reunite with his own kid.
He added another entry to the list of reasons why they had to win: so Clint could be reunited with his family too.
However, realizing that it was about time they rejoined the battle, Tony pried himself off of Peter and placed his hands on the kid's shoulders to regard him at an arm's length. There had to be some quick ground rules set in place before anything else happened, so it was time to put the sappiness aside and get serious. If only until this was all over.
"Listen kid," he regarded him closely, "you stick close to me and don't leave my sight, got it? No striking off on your own this time, no being the hero."
"But, Mr. Stark," Peter began, "I can handle-"
"Uh uh. There's no buts about it, Peter," he interjected, pushing the last word hardest.
The kid's eyes widened, clearly taken aback at Tony using his real name, not even the shortened and already intimate 'Pete'. Tony wouldn't normally use it, he knew it was a bit of a big step, but he needed to make sure the kid would listen. Levelling his eyes with Peter's, Tony spoke.
"There's no arguing here. Stick close to me and that's final."
It was simple, a very textbook dad response, but he said it with all the conviction he could put into each syllable. This was not something to be negotiated, no matter how much the kid thought he could make a good counter argument. If he could keep Peter by his side, the easier it would be to make sure he was not out looking for trouble or trouble was looking for him. It was a minefield out there, and there was no way that he was losing Peter after he just got him back. Even if he had to use a leash on him like a misbehaving toddler, he was going to keep Peter safe.
Somehow the kid still wanted to argue, pulling himself up tall and opening his mouth, but with one last look from Tony he shrunk from the challenge, nodding his head and regenerating his helmet. Doing the same, they both sprung back into the fight against Thanos and his army. Tony's heart hurt from being so tough on him, but after blaming himself for five years for the kid disappearing he wasn't about to take anymore chances. Peter's survival was number one on his list, above Bruce and even above Clint. His kid would make it out of this battle alive.
Whatever it takes.