Written for a fic exchange! For Grace_d.

"Kid, I'm buying back the Tower."

Tony hadn't meant to say it. Well, actually he did, but he hadn't meant to say it now, when he was standing awkwardly in the doorway, on the way to see Morgan, dressed in sweats damp from his work-out.

Peter's hand stopped. He took a few seconds to look over his work, and evidently decided to call it quits for the day. He closed his biochemistry textbook and whirled around in his chair. He didn't say anything—just looked at his mentor with a slight tilt of his head.

The corner of Tony's lips tugged up a little at the gesture, but the perpetual furrow between his brows only seemed to deepen. The small almost-smile lasted for no longer than a second.

Peter waited, idly tapping his pen on his desk.

They both knew to give each other time.

It's been a month since the kid had gotten his memories back. In a way, Tony was grateful; grateful that the kid hadn't shunned him or shied away from his attempts to help, grateful their movie night hadn't been a desperate one-off for two desperate people clawing at closure. The kid had attended the therapy sessions dutifully, and was gradually getting better, according to daily reports Tony received from the team of child psychologists he'd hired. He'd always read those as soon as possible, as if seeing the words on his holoscreen—'improving', 'making progress', 'we're hopeful'—could hammer them into reality.

Because sometimes he got the feeling that Peter was… faking it. The kid was brilliant, after all—every bit as brilliant as Tony had been at that age, judging from how fast he was blazing through the years' worth of missed schoolwork. He probably had the symptoms of PTSD memorized within the first hour of being told to start therapy, and it wasn't exactly difficult, for someone with an IQ of at least 150, to deceive a few psychologists—especially when they had no clearance on more sensitive information regarding the Blip and the Reversal.

God, Tony still hated that name. Both of those names. It wasn't a blip, like some ridiculous blemish one made on some report or document, like pressing the pen too long or crinkling the paper the wrong way—the kind that made you go 'Oops' and nothing more. He felt mocked by the very name: your pain, your suffering, they were trivial. After all, it was just a blip. And then there was the Reversal. For fuck's sake. He hadn't been reversed, for one, and his kid most definitely had not been 'reversed'. Reversal my ass.

Still, Peter hadn't experienced a normal Blip, nor a normal Reversal, it seemed, and wasn't doing much to talk about them either. And, infuriatingly, Tony got it. He knew exactly what it felt like, to want to shut things out, often against your will—it had taken him years before he let the shrinks probe into his messed up mind, no matter how many times he logically told himself that the psychologists were only there to help. He'd been an abysmal patient. It had taken so much work, and so long, before he started sharing more about New York, about Ultron, about… stuff.

And Peter has only had a month. Give him time, Tony would find himself thinking, but still he couldn't help but… worry.

Tony looked at the boy, really studied him. Unkempt dark brown hair, a face that too often faked a smile nowadays, and shoulders that were too young to be so rigid. This was his kid, his kid. And despite Tony's recent habit of sneaking into the boy's room late at night, to talk or just hug him or watch a movie, he could sense his kid drifting away.

The only time when the boy seemed to be truly present was during playtime with Morgan. The teen absolutely adored the baby—a sentiment that seemed to be mutual—and Pepper often joked that their daughter's first words would be 'Peter' before long. Tony always made a show of being indignant, because he knew that amused Pepper, but he secretly couldn't care less. He was just glad to see the edge melt away from his kid's gaunt shoulders, if only for half an hour, as he tickled the baby, or talked gibberish to her, or played peek-a-boo.

Plus, was it really so bad for a child's first words… to be her big brother's name?

Tony's breath hitched before he caught himself. Throughout his trance, Peter had stayed quiet, still playing with his pen, and Tony realized the boy had been waiting this whole time for him to elaborate. It took some moments before he regained his train of thought, and then his jaw clenched in that Stark fashion of facing a confession one wasn't quite ready to make.

Tony cleared his throat. He should just come out and say it. Whether or not the kid took him up on that offer… well. That wasn't his decision to make.

"So, anyway… school's starting, as you know, and you'll be moving back to the City."

Peter nodded, patient though puzzled.

And silent. It was the worst part about the memories coming back; how silent his kid became.

Tony gulped and braved on.

"Yeah. Uh, I was wondering if… you and May would like to move in to the Tower… with us?"

Peter blinked. He evidently hadn't been expecting that. He didn't answer immediately, but about three seconds later—probably some of the longest three seconds in Tony's life—he lowered his gaze to the ground.

"I don't know," he said, his voice small. "If May—"

"Of course," Tony cut in, perhaps too abruptly. It took him all his self control to not let his disappointment seep through the cracks of his veneer of calm. "Yeah," he breathed out. "Your old home, your things, your memories with your uncle. Best if you discuss with her first."

Peter looked like he wanted to say something else. He looked like he was hesitating. Or maybe Tony wanted him to look like he was hesitating. In the end, though, the boy simply nodded.

Tony couldn't help himself.

"You'll visit, though?" he blurted.

He didn't have to elaborate. This time, when Peter nodded—and Tony's heart surged as he noticed—it was without hesitation. The gesture was still small and quiet and terse, like the kid's gestures too often are, these days, but it was… happy, or so Tony thought. Or so he hoped.

"I'd like that," Peter said, softly. "I'll visit everyday."

"Yes," Tony said, looking out the window to hold back the pressure behind his eyes. The summer sky was spectacularly blue. "Yes, I'd like that, too."

ooo

Two days before Peter and May were due to move back, the kid actually came to Tony with a proposal, though admittedly not one he initially understood.

"Mr. Stark... Can we go get ice cream?"

"I don't do dairy," Tony said, bouncing Mo on his lap. The baby was gurgling, and burping from time to time, though her chubby hands kept trying to reach for the boy. "FRIDAY makes sure the fridge is well-stocked, though; you can—"

"No," Peter said. It was a trick of his, how he could go from innocent and carefree to completely somber, like the flip of a switch. "I mean not at the Compound. Somewhere else. At a Ben and Jerry's shop, maybe."

"Ben & Jerry's, huh," Tony smirked. "You know, they—"

"Named a flavor after you," Peter nodded, and for a moment the world was brightened by his grin.

That was how he wanted his kid. Smiling.

The grin faded away as fast as snowflakes touching water.

"Okay," Tony breathed out, forcing himself not to wince. "So, an ice cream extravaganza." Mo squirmed and let out a discontent whine, and Tony absently gave the baby a little rub. "Gotcha. I can have an industrial freezer's worth of all their flavors delivered here within four hours."

"Nono, no," Peter cut in quickly. Absently he touched his fingers to the baby's; she grabbed on with a delighted squeal. "Just… an ice cream trip. No extravaganzas, Mr. Stark. Please."

Tony frowned. "I don't get it. What's so different about ordering the ice cream and eating it here? Why does it have to be… at an actual ice cream shop?"

"It's different," Peter replied, offering no further explanation. Instead he said, "It's okay if you don't want to, Mr. Stark."

Tony hated when he did that: so matter-of-fact, like nobody would actually want to, like he didn't expect the answer to be yes. It was different than the bashful bouts of self-doubt the kid used to display, back when he first came back from Germany and was growing into the suit—this was deeper and uglier, like resigning himself to rejection before an attempt was even made.

"I want to," he declared (perhaps too quickly but who cares?). He shook his head and tried again. "I mean, yes. Sure. Let's go, this afternoon. We'll take Mo."

Peter blinked. "Is she ready for ice cream? She's, like, six months old."

"Ten months." Tony said firmly. "Practically one!" He squinted at Peter. "She's ready."

Peter squinted right back. "Are you sure? Shouldn't we ask Mrs—"

"Don't tell Pepper."

Peter laughed, which caused Morgan to giggle.

Tony decided he would try to make them laugh at least once every day, for the rest of his life.

ooo

They made their move around three in the afternoon, taking advantage of a conference on Pepper's part and May being too occupied in the kitchen. Normally Tony would insist for their chef to take care of it—as much for hospitality's sake as for protecting everyone's palate (how Peter survived for so long with her feeding him, Tony will never know)—but the ice cream trip notwithstanding, he could tell she needed the space, the distraction, so he'd left her to it. In any event, it worked to their advantage as they executed their plan, which was actually deceptively difficult—grab Morgan, get Morgan ready, grab Morgan's stuff, make sure Morgan doesn't make a fuss, bribe FRIDAY to not give them away, make sure Morgan doesn't make a fuss, dodge anyone who might be there, and make sure Morgan doesn't make a fuss. Despite being armed with three pacifiers (one in use, two others for rotation), a full bag of spare diapers ('We can't take the half-used bag Mr. Stark, what if we run out?'), and the spirit of adventure (any sneaking around behind Pepper's back constituted an adventure in Tony's book), by the time they managed to finally make it to the main garage, sleuthing through the immaculate lawn like two burglars and a half—and rather incompetent ones at that—half an hour had passed.

"I hope you realize who all of this is for," Tony huffed, "Mr. Let's-go-to-a-real-Ben-and-Jerry's." He hefted their arsenal of baby items for emphasis. "We could be having ice cream, right now!"

"You were the one who insisted on taking her," Peter deadpanned. "I didn't want to."

Despite the scorn he tried to instill in his voice, the boy's face practically beamed when the pair of tiny hands grabbed at his nose. He blew a bit of air onto the delicate fingers, which elicited a peal of giggles.

Tony grinned. Ostensibly, the kid was on baby-carrying duty because he was the one with super-strength and should do his part to take some weight off a poor old man's back, but Tony hadn't missed the way his eyes lit up when he played with Morgan, the gentle smile on an already gentle face. In another universe, they might've been siblings.

Then again, in another universe, a sixteen-year-old boy wouldn't have felt himself being torn apart, molecule by molecule, only to be brought back again… and remember it.

Tony shook his head. That's over, he thought to himself. Peter's fine. We're fine.

He jogged out onto tarmac.

"Come on, kid," he called back. "We're trying to keep a schedule here! Getting there sometime before sundown would be nice."

Peter made a face and shifted Mo in his arms. The afternoon sun made the two of them squint, and color bounced off their hair and cheeks, vibrant and effervescent like one of those over-saturated photographs you knew were too good to be true, and for a moment Tony could pretend that his kid was whole again.

ooo

"I thought we're trying to keep a schedule."

"We would be on schedule if you had stopped objecting to my every decision earlier," said Tony.

"That's cause no one takes a Rolls-Royce for a twenty-minute ice cream trip." said Peter.

"Bah!" said Morgan, then drummed her chubby hands on the kid's chest.

Tony huffed, indignant. "That was only one suggestion. You also shut down the Ferrari, the Porsche, the Saleen, and five of the Audis."

Peter looked like he would have thrown up his hands if he weren't holding Morgan. "Well people usually don't take sports cars! Or shiny golden ones! Or shiny green ones! Or just, you know, shiny ones!"

"Nonsense," Tony said. "And here I was thinking I might even let you drive."

A look of pain crossed on the teenager's face. "I don't care," he said, obviously lying through his teeth. "I don't want to be responsible for something worth, like, half of Midtown."

"First, the fact you automatically assumed you were going to crash shows that I made the right call; second, it's not worth half of Midtown. More like a quarter."

Peter rolled his eyes, and Tony laughed.

"Next time, kid."

In the end they took Pepper's dark blue Audi, which was the least conspicuous cars available (complete with the all-important baby seat), and after shutting down another offer to drive from the kid and several concerned questions from FRIDAY, they were off the Compound grounds.

The drive to Albany was a bit over an hour, and by the time they got close, Morgan had long since crashed. Peter was staring out of the window, having grown quieter as the journey went on. He had a hand snaked to the baby seat, where Morgan had grabbed onto two of his fingers like a comfort object. The pacifier bobbed in her mouth as she slept.

It was the first time in a long while that Tony had been 'outside'—outside outside, not in his suit or some drone, among actual people. The fact didn't really sink in until the beautifully nondescript forests of Upstate New York begin to give way to white-or-faded-blue country houses and open fields, then small touristy New-England-esque villages, then finally the rectangular concrete and steel shapes of Albany, poking through the tops of trees.

He couldn't remember the last time he'd been outside. That time at Central Park, jogging with Pep? That had been years ago. The occasion just never seemed to called for it: obviously not during the Blip, and certainly not after the Reversal. Anything he needed doing, he hadn't needed to tend to in person. Sometimes he looked back at the man he had been, a decade ago—the playboy decked in golden armor, suave and thriving on media attention—and found himself staring at a complete stranger.

Not that he was complaining. He quite enjoyed his seclusion—or being an antisocial misanthrope, as Rhodey put it—and as he aged, he was content with a smaller and smaller group of close friends and family. He'd once admitted, to his therapist, that there were only five people he loved in the world.

To this day, he maintained that verdict—Pepper, Peter, Morgan, Rhodey, and Happy.

Five.

Five people to keep safe; five people to guard; five people to worry incessantly over.

Five people… like five gaping holes in the impregnable citadel of his heart, five chinks in his immaculate armor.

Five ways he could shatter, if any of them once again turned to dust.

Tony caught himself, and tore his mind away from the ashen planet, two hundred galaxies away. It took him a minute to unclench his muscles, and another for his breathing to return to normal.

Yeah, he thought. Five is enough. Five is plenty.

ooo

Peter seemed to have gone back to being himself by the time they pulled up to the small storefront.

"Wow, I haven't been here in forever," he announced. "What are you gonna get Mo, Mr. Stark?"

"Dunno, probably something vanilla."

"Yeah, vanilla is good. Get her milk too. I like milk."

Being summer, the store wasn't empty when they entered, though not bustling, thankfully. A girl, no older than Peter looking like she was about to drop on the spot out of boredom, greeted them at the counter: "Welcome to Ben & Jerry's we hope you're having a Ben & Jerry day may I recommend our best-selling sundaes and smoothies our scoops are also on sale four scoops for twelve what can I get you today?"

Tony blinked. "Uhh—"

Peter was, naturally, completely unfazed. He took a cursory glance at the panoply of flavors before he began to rattle off. "Can I have two scoops each of Stark Raving Hazelnuts, Thor's Thundering Toffee, Rocky Rhodes, Hunk-A-Hulk-A Burning Fudge, Strangely Strawberry, Black-coffee Widow, Black Chocolate Panther, and all the rest of the Avengers flavors, plus two scoops of vanilla, milk, and caramel please."

The girl stared at them. Morgan—now in Tony's arms—squealed when she touched the icy glass.

"Jesus, kid."

"I can finish it." Peter turned back to the girl. "Would you like me to repeat it?"

"Ugh, okay. Two of every Avengers flavor," Tony cut in. "Plus milk and vanilla and—"

"Caramel."

"Caramel. And all cups please, we don't want a mess with the cones."

The girl blinked again. Three seconds passed before she finally whipped out her calculator. "Uh, that'll be eighty-four. Also, are you—"

"No," Tony said, fishing out his credit card. "I'm not Tony Stark. Often mistaken as him, I assure you."

Peter sniggered. "Your name is on there," he reminded Tony, his hand already over the counter with a hundred-dollar bill.

Tony gaped. "Wha— Now hold on a second here, I—"

"Let me pay," the kid said.

"No, that's ridiculous. You dragged me all the way out here, you don't get to decide who—"

"Let me pay," the kid said. There was something in his eyes that poked at Tony's heart. "Please."

Tony hesitated before he backed down. He took a swiveling glance around the tiny establishment; watched as Peter pocketed the change with a smile, watched as he led them over to a small table, watched as he sat down. Morgan cooed as she explored the texture of the wooden table. Tony waited.

It was only after their ice cream came that Peter seemed to snap out of it. The kid studied the array of cups intently for a moment, before picking the one that was white with light brown stripes.

"Caramel," he said, and dug his spoon into the ball. He picked it up, a large dollop of ice cream on top, and shoved the spoon in his mouth. He closed his eyes.

Morgan was squirming impatiently in Tony's arms, reaching for the colorful assortment before her, but he ignored her for the moment. Peter opened his eyes and, when he grinned, Tony felt the dizzying wave of relief.

"Let's test which one Mo likes best!" Peter suggested. Tony only nodded. He was just glad to have his kid back.

ooo

Being a super-powered teenaged boy, Peter ended up finishing most of the ice cream, professing his love for each and every one of the flavors ('except Black-coffee Widow—sorry, I don't have anything against her, it's just too bitter—please don't let her know!'). They had great fun over getting Morgan to decide on her own preference, and things got more than a bit competitive when she showed a preference for Wallcrawler Walnut over Stark Raving Hazelnuts, which spiraled into a debate over whether the flavors were any different anyway, and whether they contained real nuts. Then they talked about the manufacturing process, whether or not babies could have them ('a bit late to be looking that up, don't you think Mr. Stark?'), and whether SHIELD received any trademarking fee for them using the Avengers' names ('because I sure as hell didn't', Tony huffed).

It happened after Peter finished his twentieth-or-so scoop.

"I remember Ben giving me ice cream," the kid said without preamble. His voice was quiet, and he was staring at the empty cup in front of him. "I guess I must have been five, and my parents had just, you know. I didn't know what was going on. I thought they didn't want me."

Tony went very still.

"Apparently I cried a lot. I don't remember all the crying—May told me I was crying so much I couldn't speak for three days. I kept asking to go home, and they kept saying I had to wait. My mom—well, I don't remember, but apparently she promised to take me out for something yummy, so I had it in my mind that when I finally got something yummy, they'd come back. So then one day Ben asked me what I thought was yummy."

Tony inhaled, shaky. "And you said ice cream."

Peter nodded.

"So he took me for ice cream. I wasn't particularly close with him back then, but I was properly bribed." He chuckled. "Ben said I was a sneaky little tyke."

"I second that," Tony said, and Peter snorted.

"Shut up, Mr. Stark. Anyway, for a whole week Ben took me to this Ben & Jerry's—because it had his name in it, see—down the street after work. May was working two jobs back then so she never had the time. He was really great, told me all sorts of stories about when he grew up with my dad, even if I don't remember most of them now, and it sort of became our thing to have ice cream together and just, talk about stuff."

Tony felt his throat closing in. He didn't want to hear any more of this story, when he knew how it'd end. He wanted to yell at the kid—you should've told me, you should've told me—because how the hell was he supposed to know when he had been roped in out of the blue? How the hell was he supposed to follow up on this? How the hell was he supposed to ever live up to what Peter had been searching for, all this time?

He stayed silent—even Morgan stayed silent, sucking on her thumb and watching Peter with her big eyes—and the boy continued, after drawing a trembling breath.

"And then came my sixth birthday. I guess I'd convinced myself that, if my parents weren't coming by my birthday, they were really never going to come back, because they would never miss it. I felt horrible because Ben and May, they'd prepared for so long to give me this great birthday party, and I knew how they were already behind on rent but they still got me a whole fancy ice cream cake and ribbons and everything, but I just couldn't—I couldn't be happy. I thought I'd never be happy again, that maybe being happy meant I didn't care about my parents anymore."

The boy coughed. He grabbed a paper towel from the table and blew into it. Tony wanted to reach forward and hold his hand, or maybe move to his side of the table and hug him, but just when he started, Peter laughed.

"God, I'm sorry," he muttered. "This was supposed to be fun, and now I'm—"

"No," Tony snapped. "Don't you dare apologize."

That brought a wan smile. "Yeah. Sorry. I mean… yeah. I guess I should go on. Anyway, after the party, Ben took me aside and kinda just, put the rest of the ice cream cake I didn't finish in front of me. Then he pulled up a chair and ate it with me. I don't remember much, just that I cried a lot that day. But I do remember what he told me."

Peter took a deep breath.

"He told me that, whenever I was feeling bad, I could do one little thing that made me happy, with someone that I cared about by my side—and the happiness would get magnified tenfold, hundredfold, until it overpowered whatever it was that was making me feel sad. And my little thing could be ice cream. Ben & Jerry's, because…"

"Because it's got his name in it," Tony whispered.

The kid snuck a shy glance across the table and nodded, and Tony had half a mind to buy up Ben & Jerry's right then.

"Yeah. And he promised me that, you know, whenever I needed someone to eat ice cream with, he would be there. Because he loved ice cream too." He paused, fiddled with his plastic spoon. "I-uh… I know he's not here anymore. So during, uh, the first few months… I would eat ice cream by myself."

Peter smiled. He smiled softly, fondly, but Tony wondered how many streaks of tears he hid under that expression, how many acres of sand he'd learned to pour over those long-dried river beds; how many gallons of grief had coursed through that small, thin frame, how many times he'd been cracked or broken by loss upon loss upon loss that just kept piling and piling until one day he'd learnt to bury them gently and smile?

And Tony knew. He knew, he knew, he knew.

Because he was the same.

He reached across the table and grasped Peter's hand in his. The boy gave a start, but then grasped back. Tony closed and opened his eyes.

"Why did you stop?" he asked. "Eating ice cream, that is. I've never, I mean, on the Baby Monitor and your reports to Happy, I've never—"

"Because you took me to Germany."

Tony's breath hitched.

"Because for once in my life, for once after Ben, I was a part of something," Peter continued. "For once I didn't need ice cream to chase after happiness anymore, because happiness was right there, in the suit. Happiness was when you told me I did a good job. Happiness was when I'd stopped Mr. Toomes, and saved people from getting hurt. I didn't need to go to Ben & Jerry's anymore to know that Ben was with me, because he was there, in the suit. Until I wasn't."

Tony was almost afraid to ask, but when the silence dragged on, he steeled himself.

"What do you mean?"

"I couldn't—can't—get into the suit anymore, Mr. Stark. It reminds me too much of—yeah. Of how I didn't do a good enough job, of how I almost had the gauntlet off, of how I could've saved those people if I wasn't—" he gasped. "Sorry."

"Is this why you wanted to… to get ice cream?"

Slowly Peter nodded. "I haven't had ice cream like this, with someone else, since he died. Not even with May. I guess that was kind of like our special thing. I mean I have, with Ned, but it was different… it wasn't like I was trying to push away the sadness when I was with Ned, you know? I used to think I would never get ice cream with someone again, because at first I thought I didn't need anyone else, and then I thought I had the suit. But then, I—you—you brought me back, Mr. Stark, and you fought Thanos, and you were the one who saw me—" he gulped. "So I thought, maybe, you know, it'd be nice if you could eat ice cream with me."

Morgan burped then. Tony patted her back, his mind a jumble.

"I'm not Ben," he finally croaked out.

Peter shook his head. "No," he agreed. "But you're you. And that's just as good." Then he grinned—wide and open and bashful. "I think... we're both kind of broken, Mr. Stark. But we're here, and people bothered to name ice cream after us, and... I dunno, I guess eating it with you made me able to taste things again. And I thought it might also… it might also help you."

The kid looked away, abruptly shy. "Did it… did it help? A little bit?"

Tony scooped up what remained of his cup of Black Chocolate Panther, and let the rich melted ball coat his tongue.

After New York he'd been paranoid. After Thanos he'd been broken. Even now, even after the Reversal, he sometimes woke up in cold sweat, grasping at Pepper lest she dusted away.

Perhaps this was just what he needed. Perhaps it was just his kid, a Sunday afternoon, and a dollop of ice cream.

"Yes," he said. "Yes it did."