Friends, let me just say that this is one of my favorite chapters I've written. I love May, and I love Tony, and this is everything I wanted to see between them. So I hope it pleases you, too. The song for this chapter is a lovely one – "Let It Be Me" by Ray LaMontagne.
Plus Pepper being a super badass and Bruce being himself.
However, this is your warning that there will be no chapter next Monday. It's a holiday and I am fully intending to take the day entirely to myself. So I will catch you again in two weeks.
In the meantime, enjoy!
Chapter 5: Find Your Place
On Tuesday, May called Peter after dinner at the Leeds' to make sure he was okay. Ned had asked him to spend the night again — they enjoyed their late night shenanigans in the middle of the week with a glee she associated with high schoolers playing hooky. She was so glad Peter had found such a stalwart, caring best friend. And Ned's parents were lovely people May knew cared about Peter as well. Most people who knew him did.
It hadn't been a problem before. She hoped to god that it wasn't a problem now.
At nine exactly, May tapped on the door for the apartment that was Tony Carbonell's on the first floor. He opened it at once looking just about as nervous as she felt.
That didn't help, actually.
"Come on in," Tony said. "Can I get you anything to drink?"
"Water," May answered, stepping into the space. The apartment was smaller than the one she shared with Peter, and sort of impersonal — there wasn't a lot of art or knickknacks to be seen, and it was clean the way Peter's room was clean when he'd shoved everything under his bed and into his closet in a rush. May was certain if she opened the door to the bedroom she'd see the mess Tony was trying to hide.
The physical one, anyway.
He bustled in his own tiny kitchen, filling a glass with water from the fridge and, in a flourish that looked like it belonged behind a bar and not on a cheap kitchen counter, added a lemon wedge to it.
"Should we...sit?" he asked her.
"Sure." May took the opportunity he offered and settled in the armchair, leaving him the couch. It felt cold to separate herself, but she needed that. She needed to hold him at least at arm's length until she'd said what she had come to say.
Tony handed her the glass of water and perched on the couch, and if he noticed how she held herself apart, he didn't even raise an eyebrow. In fact, he just sat.
That surprised her. May expected him to ask questions, to want to know why she had demanded his time. She expected him to be defensive, or maybe angry. Something.
She sipped at her water, her tongue dry.
But Tony held still, waiting.
He's giving me space to talk, she realized, the way he gives Peter space when he's babbling.
And that spurred her to speak, setting the glass on the table before her.
"I don't know anything about you." It came out angry, and scared, and May couldn't have held back if she tried. "You spend three days a week with Peter and I don't know anything about you. You buy him presents and you take him places and I don't know what to do."
Tony swallowed, but remained quiet.
May's feelings fell into the silence.
"You could be anybody. You could be a drug dealer, a pedophile, a human trafficker. You could be a murderer or a rapist. And my twelve-year-old looks at you like you hung the stars just for him, and I'm supposed to trust you and I can't!"
She heaved in a breath.
"You're hiding something. Ben believed in gut feelings and I believe in mine. You're not what you pretend to be, and it scares me to death. Because if I tell Peter not to see you or to stay away, he won't. And he's on his own too much for me to protect him. And I can't...I can't…"
Tears fell and she hated them.
"I can't let you hurt him. I can't let anyone hurt him. He's all I have left."
May wiped at her cheeks.
"You...you have to tell me the truth, Tony. No matter what it is. I can't deal with not knowing. No matter how bad it is. Even if it means I have to take Peter away from here. You have to tell me."
She laughed, brokenly, and it startled them both.
"The most pathetic part of all is I don't have anybody else to talk to about this. I don't have anyone I can ask to tell me what to do about you. It was just Ben and me, and now it's just me. So I'm here, begging a man who could be an abuser or a criminal to be honest with me about his intentions towards Peter, because I can't go to anyone else for advice."
She couldn't look at him. She squeezed her fingers together and hid behind the curtain of her hair.
"Tony, please. Please. No matter what it is." She was repeating herself and she couldn't care. The tears were hot and her heart was pounding. "Tell me who you are. Tell me what you want from Peter."
She fought back a sob.
"Tell me you're not going to hurt him."
She shut her eyes, trying to get her breathing to slow and her heart to stop sounding in her ears. She never heard him move off the couch.
Then there was a gentle touch on her hands in her lap.
May opened her eyes to find him crouching before her. When she didn't pull away, he clasped both her hands in his, and his eyes were liquid with emotion.
"May Parker, I give you my word on everything I've ever loved. I never, never want to hurt Peter."
"How can I trust you?" she said, her voice thick with tears. "How can I put my heart into your hands? Because Peter...he's my heart, Tony. He's my heart."
"I know." His voice was low. "But what you're asking...you deserve to know. But...knowing...that might hurt Peter."
"I wish I could tell you I don't care who you are or what you've done, but I do," she said. "I have to. For his sake. To keep him safe."
"I know. I understand." He sniffed the way he did when he was uncomfortable. "If I had a kid and was leaving him with a total stranger, I'd have background-checked them until I knew what their third cousin twice removed ate for breakfast in 1995."
May wanted to laugh, and couldn't.
"May...I didn't want you to know. I don't want Peter to know. I just want to be…" He shrugged and it looked like it hurt. "Not me. Not...what I am when I'm not here."
"Tony…"
"May, if I tell you this, it...it changes everything."
Fear seized her heart. "Does it?"
"Yeah."
"Am I...am I going to have to take Peter away?"
"God I hope not." He gave a shuddering breath. "But...he might hate me. You...you might hate me. And either way...how can I…?"
"Tony." May looked into his eyes and held them. "I'm asking you to trust me. I know...it's a lot. And it isn't even fair. You don't know me, either. But...I promise you. Whatever your big secret is, if you mean it that you won't hurt Peter, I'll...I'll try to deal with it. I won't...I won't throw you out of his life unless I have to."
Tony looked like she had asked him to rip out his heart.
"You can't...hell." He ducked his head. "You'll understand. When you know." Abruptly, he stood up. "It's...easier just to show you."
He pulled out his phone and typed a few words. He tried to smile at May, and she had seen more joy in patients having surgery. Then he moved to the big, heavy chest that also served as a coffee table. Tony pulled out a drawer inside which she could only see a bit from where she sat — it seemed to be lit from within.
And then a dozen glowing metal things flew out of the drawer and gathered around him.
May stared, wide eyed, as the Iron Man armor took form around him.
He held still, wrapped in the gold and red, the eyes glowing the same white-blue as the triangle on his chest. All but the boots — she noticed those didn't emerge, so his jeans and loafers stuck out from the bottom. May wondered if she might be hallucinating for a moment, but the tears that were sticky on her cheeks and the hysterical bubble of sobbing that wanted to break from her chest grounded her. And she could never have imagined Iron Man with ripped jeans and scuffed shoes that looked proportionally far too small in the context of the rest.
"Oh my god," she whispered.
The helmet snapped up as she had seen a hundred times on TV, and once or twice in person at the Stark Expo. And suddenly the shaggy dark hair, the eyes, they fit in his face differently. The shape of the beard was hidden in the jawline of the suit, and she knew she was looking at Tony Stark and no one else.
"It's...kind of a long story," he said, and May thought maybe his voice would have been shaking if he weren't literally protecting himself with his armor. "Stuff happened and I challenged a terrorist to a spitting match and he lost, but the news already decided I was down for the count and I kind of ran with it. Went on sabbatical. Took a vacation from being...this. Me."
"You…"
"I didn't...May, god, if I had known what would happen...Ben…" He trailed off and May could see that he was fighting tears of his own while hers flowed. "The one time being Tony Stark could have made a difference and I decide to throw in the towel. And now you...you and Peter…"
"Is it guilt?" she asked. "You're being nice to Peter because you feel bad?"
"No? Maybe?" And he looked as uncertain as she was. "I don't think it would be different if Ben hadn't died because of me. I think I'd still want to do science with Peter and help him carry groceries and teach him to build a computer. But...even I don't know. I'm not exactly great at the whole introspection thing."
May realized all at once that Tony Carbonell — Tony Stark — had absolutely no idea what he was doing. More than she ever was when Mary and Richard died and she and Ben became parents overnight, Tony was lost, utterly clueless. Not just about kids or having one in one's life, but about how to feel about it.
Tony Stark had always seemed so full of himself, so confident, so untouchable by mere mortals.
How much of that was as much of a suit of armor as the gold one that shot missiles?
"Take off the suit," she said. By instinct, she grabbed her glass off the table in case it was sent flying, taking a long gulp of water while she was at it.
Tony blinked, but complied. She didn't even know how he told it to detach from himself and return to its little cubby under his coffee table trunk. In moments, he stood there, and she could never see Mario "Tony" Carbonell, the friendly maintenance man, now that she knew to see the richest man in the world, a hero, a playboy, standing in front of her with an untamed beard and a shirt with a tear along one seam.
"That's my secret," he said, his voice soft and so, so sad. "I'm not a pedophile and I, well, I do have a criminal record, but it's not...I'm not whatever you were afraid I was. I'm so much worse."
She must have blinked at him, because he looked away.
"I'm the man who got your husband and Peter's uncle killed."
She wanted to hate him. She wanted to tell him that he was right, that he did get Ben killed, that he was the reason Peter cried when she wasn't looking sometimes, the reason she cried herself to sleep still. She wanted to punch him, slap him, scream at him. She wanted him to hurt as she hurt, as Peter hurt.
Tony recoiled as if she had said any of it aloud. "I'll...you don't have to leave. I can. I'll be out tomorrow. Packing...will take a little longer. I've got a few big things nearby. But...you don't have to...you can tell Peter that it turns out I was scum after all and he's better off without me."
And that? That enraged her.
May slammed her glass back down on the table, and she didn't care that it sloshed.
"Is that what you do, Tony Stark?" She threw his name at him like an attack. "When you make a mistake, do you just run? Maybe throw your money at problems so they don't follow you? Because Peter believes that Iron Man is the bravest person on Earth and I don't think you want to let him be wrong about that. The Iron Man Peter believes in wouldn't just disappear on him like that."
"May…"
"You didn't kill Ben," she said, and it was true. It was, and she wouldn't let herself fall into the easy trap of believing anything else. "Chance did, and an icy road, and a driver going too fast. For all we know, if not then, it could have happened the next day when he was walking home from work. You didn't...it's not on you, Tony."
"It's always on me, May. That's...that's what being Tony Stark is about."
"Then…" And she suddenly understood maybe why being Tony Carbonell had made him happy in a way being a multi-billionaire hadn't. She rubbed at her face and the remaining tears. "Then change it. You already started. You stopped making weapons. You saved the world. You saved Peter."
"The Expo. He told me." He swallowed. "Thinking about him there like that…"
"Don't." She shook her head. "Hasn't anybody ever told you that you can't live your life based on the bad things that might happen, or might have happened? Then your whole life becomes about avoiding fear instead of embracing what's right in front of you."
"What, are you a therapist now?" he joked, and something in May felt a spark of relief that he could still joke even when his heart was very obviously breaking.
"No, but Ben was a wise man."
And Tony flinched again. "May…"
"No, stop. I'm not going to let you say it again. I don't want you to believe it any more. Ben wouldn't want you to, I don't want you to, and sure as helI Peter doesn't believe it." At his surprise, she shook her head. "Haven't you ever asked him? If it's Iron Man's fault that Ben died? Even if Iron Man was still alive somewhere? Because I have. And he always says no. And if Peter doesn't blame you, then don't you dare blame yourself."
He clearly didn't know what to do with that. But she did.
"Well, you were right about one thing. This does change things. First of all, I don't feel bad about using your phone plan." She swallowed her own emotions and tried to smile. "I appreciate that you haven't been throwing your wealth at Peter too much. I thought you might have more money than it seemed, but not to that extent. Keep doing that. It's good for Peter to learn that problems can be solved in ways that take work and creativity, not cash."
Tony actually rocked on his feet. "Keep...you're not…?"
"I'm not taking Peter from you, Tony."
The man's knees went out from under him, though he clearly tried to make it look like an intentional slide onto the couch.
"Yeah, maybe lead with that next time," he said weakly.
"You really care about Peter."
He nodded. "I don't even know how this happened. But yeah. I have, like, no experience with kids, and kind of no experience with real people. The people in Tony Stark's life aren't...well. They're different."
"I bet. Welcome to the wonderful world of mentorship. Or maybe the gray area between being a mentor and being a parental figure." She eyed him and saw him both panic and feel way too many things about that. Good, at least she wasn't the only one dealing with this.
"I'm...not really cut out…"
"Not up to you," May said. "Kids are like dragons in that one set of fantasy novels Peter reads. They don't see worthy or unworthy. They choose you because you belong to them."
He rubbed his face with both hands. "Oh god."
"I'm not going to tell him who you really are," she continued. "If you want to tell him, it's your choice. If you don't, that's also your choice. But, I guarantee you, Peter will find out one day. He's smarter than both of us, probably, and he watches everything. It will go easier on you both if you tell him before he figures it out."
"I…"
"Worry about it later." She leaned forward and grabbed his hand. "There's two things I want you to remember here, so if you can stand to hang with me just a little longer, then I'll get out of your hair and we can each go freak out in peace by ourselves. Okay?"
He chuckled. "May Parker, if I wasn't deeply in love with another woman, I might declare undying affection for you right now."
"Well, obviously." She tossed her hair. "Flattery later. Focus, Tony."
"Yes, ma'am."
And something in Tony's acquiescence reminded her of Peter, or Ned. Of a kid acknowledging an adult's rules and decisions. May was way too young to be Tony Stark's mom, but if what he needed was a mom to help him along, well, at least she had practice.
"First. I appreciate the risk you're taking telling me this. I promise you that your secret is safe with me. I'm not going to use it against you. I'm not going to take Peter away, no matter what you think you did to deserve it. I want you to understand that Peter cares about you, and so do I. Families get forged all sorts of ways, and apparently ours comes via a twelve-year-old chemistry prodigy. So, from now on, if you need someone to talk to, or someone to trust, you can call me. I'm not...god, I'm not a superhero. I couldn't run a corporation if my life depended on it. But I'm here. Okay?"
"Okay?" He clearly didn't know what else he was supposed to say, and, honestly, neither did she.
"Second. Knowing you're Iron Man explains, well, a lot. But it also means…" She broke off, suddenly uncomfortable.
"May, whatever it is, I owe you that much. Don't hold back now — you've been doing so well."
She laughed.
"We are a pair. I hope your Miss Potts is better at all this," she gestured randomly, "than we are."
"Pepper is infinitely better at everything that doesn't involve engineering than me," Tony said with reverence.
"Okay." She took a deep breath. "Peter is all I have," and the tears were back and her throat closed. "And I just...Tony Stark, I'm asking you. With all your...everything. Keep him safe. Don't...don't let him know, because if he had a constant suit of armor watching his every move or something, he wouldn't like it. But…please..."
"May." Tony leaned forward and offered her his hand.
She gripped it in a hold that shook. "You saved the world. Promise me you'll protect Peter if he ever needs it."
Tony's eyes were lit with fire, not bright, but dark and true and profound. "I promise. If anything happened, if he needed me to, I would burn my company, my legacy, everything to the ground. I will keep Peter safe with my life."
"Don't." She snapped the word before she meant to. "Don't die for him, Tony. Ben already did. Peter doesn't need someone else he loves to take a bullet for him. He needs someone else he loves to live for him. Do whatever you have to, but live for him."
Tony shut his eyes, then opened them. She watched the resolution settle over him.
"You have my word."
-==OOO==-
Of course, because Tony's life was never easy, the next morning he had a brunch scheduled with Pepper and Bruce. Because the thing to do after a difficult, emotional conversation was to go have another one, apparently.
Tony got Happy to pick him up at a random location; he didn't want to become known as the weird, hairy cryptid man who kept walking in the tower's front door. Happy caught him up on some of the office gossip as usual, none of which Tony had ever listened to, also as usual. But there was something familiar and yet unsettling sitting in the back while Happy drove. As if a part of him had never left, and yet another part of him no longer fit.
"You okay, boss?" Happy asked as they pulled into the garage. "You haven't mocked me once yet."
"Did you not hear me when I asked you where you got that tie?" Tony shot back without missing a beat. "I know, I know, you bought it somewhere. I didn't know you could upcycle baseball socks into neckwear."
Happy actually gave a tiny smirk. "You're fine."
"Damn right I am." Tony pushed his sunglasses on and exited the car, striding for the penthouse elevator. "Later, chuckles!"
"Welcome back, sir," JARVIS greeted him when the elevator closed. "Miss Potts and Doctor Banner are already in the sitting room, and brunch has just been delivered."
"Thanks, J. How we doing on the render for the stealth suit?"
"My calculations are not promising. While the Mark 45 is significantly less likely to be detected by normal or unusual means than the current Mark 44, its structural integrity is well below margins for safety. One good hit and the armor would shatter."
"Yeah, that's not gonna work." He sighed. "Well, maybe I'll take a look after brunch."
"Very good, sir."
The elevator finally opened at the penthouse and Tony strode out. "Honey! I'm home!"
"And only fifteen minutes late," Pepper said with a wry smile. "That's an improvement."
"Hey Bruce," he called.
"Hi, Tony." Bruce waved back, already grabbing a plate and helping himself to the fare laid out on the serving table at the end of the room. "How's Queens treating you?"
"Can't complain." He joined him and picked up a plate of his own. "Starting to get why all the greats did some of their best work in isolation. No annoying phone calls, nobody barging in at all hours…"
"Nobody to realize you haven't eaten or slept in days," Pepper put in.
He smiled at her usual grumpiness. "J's got me on a tight leash, Pep. Right, JARVIS?"
"Indeed. You need not be concerned, Miss Potts," JARVIS said. "Sir is resting surprisingly well and has missed fewer meals since the beginning of July than in all the time I have known him."
"Oh, really?" She raised an eyebrow. "What brought that on?"
Suddenly Tony didn't altogether like this line of questioning. "You know. Settling in. Finding a new normal. All that jazz."
"So it doesn't have anything to do with the kid Rhodey mentioned?"
"Kid?" Bruce asked.
"Ugh. If I wanted everybody to know about it, I would have sent a memo." Tony carried his plate to the couch and perched on it. "So, are we just gonna shoot the breeze here, or is this a working brunch? Bruce, I thought you had an update."
"I do, in fact," Bruce said, taking the chair opposite the couch. Pepper brought her own plate over and joined Tony on the couch.
"Well, let's hear it." Tony threw two mini quiches in his mouth at once.
"Okay, so, as you know, removing Extremis from Pepper's body entirely isn't feasible. You can't just roll back changes in a person's DNA like you do a computer code without serious and deadly complications. So we started looking for ways to mitigate the impact, provide better control."
"And it's worked," Pepper put in. "I was able to go back to work at the end of April without incident. Whereas when we started, I was burning through about half of what I touched."
Tony finished his quiches and gave a big shrug. "So? That's all old news. I came for new news."
"The daily injections aren't an ideal solution," Bruce said, serenely ignoring Tony's impatience. "The drug itself we came up with is unstable and has to be manufactured only a few hours before usage, and that makes it impossible to build up a good stockpile."
"And as much as I've appreciated the break," Pepper said, "eventually I do have to be able to travel again. I've postponed the Hong Kong trip three times, but I can't do it for much longer. And the merger in Berlin is coming up, too."
"Exactly." Bruce popped a few grapes in his mouth. "So, there's kind of good news and some bad news."
Tony glanced at Pepper and put a hand on her knee.
"Give me the bad news first," Pepper said, setting her plate aside.
Bruce nodded, taking a breath. "I can't replicate the success of your current daily injection in something you could take with you. It just falls apart."
Pepper went very still. "But there's still good news?"
"Kind of good news," Bruce said. "We've got something else we can try. It travels well and remains stable for up to four weeks safely. But it won't be as complete. There will be more potential for bleed-through."
"So...Pepper could still go all fire-veins on the new thing?" Tony asked.
Pepper scowled at him, but there was relief in her eyes.
"Not as bad as the Extremis was initially, but...yeah, there would be a margin in there." Bruce sighed. "Believe me, we've looked at every possibility. Right now, the choices are Pepper doesn't venture away from the tower for more than about thirty hours at a time, she takes me or one of my team with her everywhere she goes, or we try this option and hope for the best."
"Not liking that 'hope for the best' thing, Bruce," Tony said.
"I know. And I get it." He looked at Pepper. "I've got...my own stuff. You know that. And it takes...it takes practice to keep it under control. If it helps, I think you could do the same thing."
"You think I could learn to control Extremis, suppress it myself?" she asked.
"Why not? Killian did." Bruce looked at his hands. "I won't lie. It's hard. It means being self aware all the time, knowing your limits and respecting them, and living with the fact that one slip-up could get someone hurt. But," and there was an edge of a smile in his eyes, "I mean, you did save Tony's life with those powers. I did, too. There's some good in being able to do what no one else can."
"Yeah, or she could blow up someday!" Tony shoved his own plate aside. "Jesus, Bruce, you didn't see those guys. Yeah, they had it on lock until they didn't. And then…" He almost said something graphic but realized Pepper would not appreciate it and ended instead with, "it wasn't pretty."
"To be fair, I don't think she'd get to the point of thermal instability on the secondary compound," Bruce said, unbothered by Tony's outburst as always. "Her body can withstand enormous changes in temperature, heat that would melt the iron right out of your suit with a touch. Exploding takes a level of overload that we've got mostly handled."
"But it could still happen," Tony said.
"I won't tell you it's impossible, Tony." Bruce met his eyes. "It's biology. Extremis has proven to modify itself to better sync with its host. Every sample we take from Pepper is a little different than what is living inside her. And it is living."
"So it could evolve."
He nodded. "It could." He looked at Pepper. "You've been quiet."
"It's a lot to consider," she said, her eyes landing first on Bruce, then Tony. "I thought...well. I knew it was going to be impossible to undo it entirely, but I thought we might be able to force it to become dormant somehow."
"I think," Bruce said gently, "even if it vanished from every test I could run, the next time your adrenaline spiked and your life was in danger, it would return. Extremis is your Hulk, Pepper. It's already protected you and fought for you. It probably always will."
"Well, I guess that means I won't need so many bodyguards when I go out anymore," she said. And Tony could see her trying to smile, and what surprised him wasn't that she succeeded — Pepper always succeeded at whatever she tried — but how much genuine feeling was behind it.
"Pep…"
"I think we should begin testing the secondary compound," she said, straightening her shoulders and lifting her chin. "I can delay traveling for another month. Will that be enough time for me to get a handle on it, do you think?"
"That really depends on you," Bruce said. "But I'd bet on it."
"Okay. Then tomorrow we'll switch to it and see how I do. I can work remotely for a few days while I'm adjusting if needed. And if I stay here, JARVIS can help monitor my vitals to let us know if I'm getting too close to a flare."
Tony admired the hell out of her courage and her grace, but he still wasn't sure she was okay so he put an arm around her. "This doesn't mean it's a dead end, you know. They'll keep working on it. Advances in medicine come all the time. We might still find something."
Pepper leaned her head against his temple and he felt some tension run out of her frame. But her words surprised him.
"Even so, I think it's time for me to work with what I have instead of trying to hold on waiting for a miracle that might never come. I need to move on with my life. And I can't do that like this."
But Bruce was smiling. "Let's start tomorrow after your last meeting. I want to let the current shot wear off completely, and I'd like to monitor you for the first few hours if you don't mind."
"I can be here, too," Tony offered.
"Thank you," Pepper said, "but if you need to stay in Queens, I'll be all right. You don't need to sit with me like a nurse. You're awful at it."
Tony scoffed. "I am not."
"You are." Pepper pulled away so she could give him a look. "The one time I had the flu, you locked yourself in the lab any time I was awake so you wouldn't have to deal with me and you had JARVIS send me soup with Dum-E. And he spilled half of it on the way up."
Tony had no defense, so he didn't bother to mount one. "Past events aside, if you need me, I'm here. Okay?"
The brittle look came back into her eyes for the first time since he'd come up today, a look she'd worn most of the times they'd seen one another since Killian. Tony's self-exile to Queens hadn't just been to enjoy life without being Iron Man; Pepper had needed space, too, and lots of it, and without him in it. She'd been kidnapped, tortured, and very nearly killed.
Would have been killed if not for Extremis, in fact.
It was a lot for anybody, and adding that on top of the general pressures of Pepper's life as CEO of Stark Industries, she had needed a lot of help that Tony just couldn't provide. He loved her deeply, but he was the wrong person to support her and he knew it. Pepper had a whole group of personal therapists, psychologists, and coaches, and they had rallied around her.
"It isn't that I don't love you or trust you," she'd said early on, "but I don't love or trust me right now. I can't find myself and get steady on my feet when you're holding me up. I need to get my autonomy back."
And Tony couldn't deny it. He didn't entirely understand it — he coped better with company than alone, after all — but he could absolutely respect her wishes and give her as much time and space as she wanted. It was only after the first solution to Extremis started working and she could go days at a time without a flare that she even started wanting to see him again. By now they were up to a couple of visits a week, but Tony knew she was still healing, and come hell or high water, Pepper would bull through it on her own terms.
He loved the crap out of her for that, too.
"I'm good," she said, and Tony understood that she didn't mean she didn't miss him, but that she was doing better because of taking the break from him, and she wasn't going to give it up. And because she saw him understand it, always able to read Tony better than he read himself, she turned the corner of her mouth up in a smile and added, "And you've got a kid now."
"Oh my god." He gave her a shove with his shoulder and unwound his arm. "Here I am trying to be the supportive boyfriend and you go and bring that up. Wanton cruelty everywhere."
"You have to admit," Bruce said, "it's not exactly something anybody saw coming."
"How many people did Rhodey tell, anyway?" Tony wanted to know. "Did he put it on the SI internal website? Take out a page in the newspaper? Hack Google? What?"
"Just us," Pepper said, "and Steve Rogers. And Happy."
"Oh, great." Tony got up to make himself a mimosa. "So that means SHIELD knows and all of SI security and whatever little old ladies Rogers talks to on his weekends."
"Well, if you had told us about him, Rhodey wouldn't have to," Pepper said.
"Yeah. I'm sort of curious about it, too," Bruce said.
Tony found he really just didn't want to talk about Peter Parker. Not because he wasn't proud to talk about the kid and his smarts and his sense of humor and his compassion, but because he just didn't want to share even that much with anyone yet. At heart, Tony Stark was and always had been a selfish person when it came to what he truly cared about, and he wanted to keep this one close for now.
But they obviously wouldn't let him alone, either, without any information.
"Hey, JARVIS? Bring up a highlights reel of Peter so they can get a sense for him." Mimosa in hand, he returned to the couch.
"Right away, sir." The television immediately switched on to show footage from Tony's workshop in Queens.
JARVIS chose well, showing only a few things and all of them centered on Peter, not on Tony. Peter working under the fume hood and chattering about the experiment. Peter talking excitedly about going to Ned's house. Peter versus that stupid clock radio. Peter very carefully learning to solder.
But then JARVIS went and played a little too fast and loose with Tony's request and showed the hug after Tony gave him the workbench on Saturday.
"I can still sell your brain to the NFL and make you run football stats for the rest of your life," Tony grumbled.
"Oh, Tony." Pepper's eyes were huge and bright. "I'm starting to see why he's so special to you."
"Kid is smart," Bruce said, wiping at his glasses. "He's how old? Early high school?"
"Turned twelve on Saturday," Tony said.
"Geez. Give him a couple of years and he's going to blow us all out of the water, isn't he?"
Tony grinned. "That's kind of the plan."
"He doesn't know who you are?" Pepper asked. "Not even a hint?"
"No, but his aunt does. As far as Peter is concerned, I'm just the cool maintenance guy who lives in the building." And he hoped to keep it that way for a long time yet to come.
"You'd think he'd be over the moon to find out, though," Bruce said. "I mean, half of what he carries around is Iron Man themed."
Tony really didn't want to get into why Iron Man was the kid's hero and also the reason he only had one living guardian, so he just cleared his throat.
"Anyway. Bruce, if you have any good ideas of projects for him, let me know. He's more interested in chemistry than biology, but I want to make sure he gets a good foundation on the biochem side, and it's kind of your specialty. Besides turning green and grouchy."
Bruce rolled his eyes. "I'll see what I can come up with. But I want to see him in action on whatever I send you."
"Fine, whatever."
"Oh, speaking of Captain Rogers," Pepper said.
"Were we?" Tony asked, but he was fine with the topic change and knew that's why she'd done it. "What's our old spangled grandpa up to now?"
"Well, he's been running around on a bunch of missions for SHIELD, apparently," Bruce said. "He comes by between calls to visit. Keeps asking about you."
"I told him that you're fine but you're laying low," Pepper said, "but I think he might end up wanting to visit."
"No. Absolutely not. I don't want that guy anywhere near Queens."
"Well, he's still living out of DC, so…" Bruce shrugged.
"Tony, why not? I thought you two got along?"
"Yeah, sure. Man's got a solid grasp of tactics and can eat as much shawarma as Thor, but I'm not sure that makes us besties." Tony shook his head. "Look, if he wants to chat, have him make an appointment. But he's not coming to Queens."
"Director Fury's been asking, too," Bruce said. "And Clint and Natasha. They all want to know when you're going to come back."
"Back where?" Tony asked, even though he knew what he meant. "I haven't really gone anywhere. It's not like I'm in Antarctica."
"To be fair, it was sort of a dramatic exit from public view," Pepper said. "And I understand it. Maybe better than anyone. This life isn't easy, but at least I chose to walk into it. And I wasn't Iron Man."
"There, see?" Tony pointed at her. "Pepper says it's fine."
"It is fine," Bruce said, "but people are still going to wonder. You can't blame them for that. Especially because Fury's been talking about having the whole team go out again. Take out some threats. Nothing big, just to get in practice in case...well, you know."
"Iron Man is out of the game for as long as I say he is," Tony said with some heat. "Fury can tapdance on the big screen in Times Square if he wants. I'm not coming back unless I decide I want to."
"Unless?"
The surprise in Pepper's voice made him turn. "What?"
"You said 'unless I decide,' not 'until I decide.' Does that mean you might not come back ever?"
He owed her the truth, so he gave it. "I don't know."
Tony was sure Pepper would get upset, maybe even emotional, at the idea of him never returning to life as Tony Stark, but, actually, she nodded her head and her smile had approval in it.
"I think," she said, meeting his eyes, "too many people made you into who they wanted you to be for too long. If you have the chance to find yourself, you should take it. No matter what anyone says."
"Spoken like a graduate of therapy," Tony teased her, but his returning smile was genuine. "Thanks, Pep."
"I don't...I don't understand it the same way," Bruce said, shrugging, "but I already ran out on SHIELD and everybody after the Hulk thing. And it...there are days I still want to get on a plane and go back to some small village where no one can find me and just be me again."
"You can," Tony offered. "I've got the plane. Say the word and you're on your way to the most remote place I can't find on a map."
"Thanks." He shook his head. "I thought at first that I needed the space because I wasn't safe. That I needed to control the violence by staying away. Also, I didn't want Ross to find me. But, being here, I know now that the violence doesn't get controlled by me being alone. It's controlled because I control it."
Bruce realized they were both staring at him. He coughed. "Anyway. It was good for me, and it's apparently good for you. And it's definitely good for that kid. So don't worry about Fury or Rogers. We'll handle it."
"Thanks, Bruce."
Somewhere inside, Tony knew he couldn't live a double-life forever. Someday, Iron Man would have to stand up and fight again. There was an army in space, after all, pointed at the Earth, and who knew how many battles to be had with plain old awful people doing terrible things to one another. Like any sabbatical, it would have to end so he could return to the world he left behind.
But Tony was in no hurry. He was actively resisting it, in fact.
For as long as he could live as Mario Carbonell, mentor to Peter, friend of May, fix-it wonder of Queens, he would hold onto it with all his strength. Because Tony Carbonell was becoming a better person than Tony Stark had ever been. For Tony Stark to find a path he could live with, he would need the lessons Tony Carbonell was learning.
And as much as he didn't want to think about it, let alone admit it, deep inside, Tony knew he wasn't leaving Queens entirely. And he definitely wasn't leaving it unless he could hang onto the most precious thing there.
Even if Peter didn't deserve the life Tony Stark had lived, Tony was selfish enough to try to bring him along anyway.
But later. Much, much later.
Or maybe never.
-==OOO==-
That Thursday when Peter walked into the workshop, he noticed that Mister Carbonell looked a little more frazzled than usual.
"Glad you're here, kid," he said. "I could really use a new project."
"A new project?" Peter repeated.
"Yep." Mister Carbonell ran his hands through his usually-wild hair. "Look, it's been a long week, like the longest and I am absolutely done. I am done having conversations and I am done being...well." He paused. "I need to do something pointless and fun."
"Oh." Peter could understand that feeling. When he got that way, Legos tended to be involved. "Okay. How can I help?"
"Just give me something to do. Something good. Like...what's the most outrageous thing you could ever want to build?"
Peter blinked. Considered.
"A robot? Maybe with voice command functions for a couple of different tasks?"
Mister Carbonell's face went bright and his smile huge.
"Yes. Let's do it!"
"It'll take months, though, right? If not longer?" Peter wanted to know.
"Who cares?" Mister Carbonell threw his hands into the air and started grabbing for parts. "Sooner we get started, the sooner we'll have something awesome." He scooped up a screwdriver and pointed to the stool beside his own. "Grab a seat, kid. This is going to be a learning experience."