Author's Note
I hope you all like this chapter! I'm not too sure how i feel about it yet, so I'd love to hear from you guys!
Also, please note that Tony's thoughts in this are him channeling angst and guilt, and are not reflective of my thoughts on the whole Steve and Tony debacle. I love them both.
Some days are bad because Tony gets too sentimental. He'd perfected the façade of "I'm Iron Man and I'm Tough and Manly and Stoic and Charming" over time, but the people who knew him best knew that it was a front.
They knew that Tony Stark attached significance and sentiment to every memory in his life, as if they were lines of code in his programming, with every small moment playing a huge part in who he was.
He wakes up on "Bad Day #2" at 11 am, with a splitting headache, realizing after precisely 23 seconds that this was the aftermath of a particularly heavy night of drowning his sorrows in scotch.
His hangover suddenly makes sense when he finally turns to his phone and reads the date through squinted eyes.
Fuck.
He couldn't deal with this today.
The irony that the hangover was a reminder of the drinking that he did to forget doesn't escape Tony, and he pulls his pillow over his face and lets out a low groan.
It's way past noon by the time Tony is actually up and functioning, maneuvering himself surprisingly well for someone who was convinced his brain was going to explode if it throbbed any harder.
His first order of business is getting rid of the empty bottles lying around the couch because the smell of alcohol is making his stomach slosh back into his throat and he can't quite deal with the sting of nausea coupled with the sharp pain behind his eyes.
He completes this task impossibly slowly and has to run to the bathroom to throw up twice in the process, but he's already feeling more put together when the evidence of his crash is removed from his immediate sight.
He contemplates making some toast and reaches for the bread before the entire world seems to tilt on its side, and he opts for sitting down for a while.
His phone rings suddenly, and he's so glad it's on silent because just its vibration against the surface of the countertop creates a sound that makes his brain feel like someone is crushing rocks inside his skull, and he can't imagine what the effect of a full volume ring would have been.
He rushes to answer, paying no attention to the caller ID but focused mainly on getting that sound to stop before it morphed into hands that gouged out his eyeballs.
"Please whisper," he mutters softly into the phone, foregoing all the usual greetings.
"I was going to ask about how you're holding up, but I already have my answer," he hears Rhodes sigh into the phone, and the disappointment etching his voice is almost as grating as the vibration was.
"Can you please wait until I can open my eyes in normal daylight before giving me shit today?"
"… I didn't call to give you shit. I was just concerned. Did you drink any water?" Rhodes asks, and Tony realizes just how dry and sticky his mouth feels.
Rhodey's voice has always managed to ground him, and he gets up and drinks 4 glasses of water, suddenly hit with intense thirst.
"Shit."
"Ha, yeah I'm sure." Rhodes chuckles, before walking Tony through eating a small breakfast of toast and a banana, and taking some Extra-Strength Advil for the headache.
He stays on the phone with Rhodes all through "breakfast", but they don't talk. Just having the company helps.
Tony's forehead is pressed against the cool granite of the island, and his phone is on speakerphone, hearing the clicking of keys on Rhodes' keyboards as he types an email to Secretary Ross, telling him to "go fuck yourself" in as polite and politically-correct language as possible.
The hangover distracts him from thinking about anything else, such as the actual reason behind the drinking.
An hour later, Tony still hasn't let Rhodes hang up, but he's feeling infinitely better.
Keeping Rhodes on the phone replaces his hangover as the distraction, and he's glad that his focus on keeping his toast down is trumping his focus on the significance of the day.
"Peter called me this morning to ask if you would be up for a field trip, and I didn't know what to say." Rhodes' voice breaks through the silence softly.
"Where to?"
"Call the kid, Tony. Go hang out with him. Don't touch any more alcohol today." Rhodes says, hanging up immediately after. Tony knows he's not annoyed, he just has to dole out tough love before Iron Man decides to actually do something.
Sighing, Tony pulls his phone close again, and dials Peter's number.
"Mr. Stark? Is everything okay?" Worry laces Peter's voice.
Tony involuntarily smiles.
"Hey, kid. I'm fine. I just heard you'd rather hang out with Rhodes than me, and now I'm trying to figure out how to tell you that I need the suit back" he teased, relishing in the hitch in breathing he hears on the other end before Peter chokes out a frantic,
"No, no, no, no Mr. Stark! That's not what happ-"
"Relax, Underoos. I know. What did you have in mind?" Tony chuckles, and his sentence is punctuated with a grumble from his stomach, indicative of his appetite gradually returning, and the realization that his headache is almost completely gone.
This kid really does work wonders, he laughs to himself.
"Oh, we can do whatever you want to do, Mr. Stark. If you want some time to think about it, you can call me ba-" Peter starts, expecting to hear either an "I'll think about it" or an "I've got to work in the lab today, sorry kid".
"The Smithsonian." Tony blurts out, surprising himself with how sure he was that that was how he wanted to spend the day, and then adds, "If that's okay with you," voice leaning towards slight hesitation towards the end.
"The Smithsonian? In Washington D.C.?"
"…Do you know any other Smithsonian?"
"You know we're not in D.C., right?" Peter asks, and the concern is back, as if he's genuinely worried that his mentor and idol has completely lost his mind over the past few weeks.
"I have a plane, you have summer holidays. Let's do it." He says, and for a minute he's worried Peter is going to blow him off for Star Wars Lego fun with Ned or something, and he's not too sure if he can handle that rejection and loneliness as of today.
The beat before Peter responds is long enough for a montage of Peter ditching him forever and him crying over an ancient phone by himself to fill his mind, and he's pulled from that dangerous spiral as he hears Peter let out an exhilarated huff of laughter on the other end.
Just imagining that makes him smile too, grin growing even broader when he hears Peter say,
"That sounds awesome. Can't wait to see you, Mr. Stark."
His phone rings again 30 seconds after Peter hangs up, Peter's name flashing on the screen again.
"Mr. Stark, its 4 pm."
"…Is it your bedtime?"
"What? No! I'm not a kid, Mr. Star-who even sleeps at 4-I'm almost six-", he cuts off when he hears Tony start laughing.
"Did they teach you a class on how to be super annoying at MIT, too?" Peter huffs, much to Tony's amusement.
"It's 4:05 now, so what's your point?"
"Right. The Smithsonian closes at 5:30."
"So?"
"… So it's going to be closed by the time we fly to D.C."
"Well, I guess it's a good thing that Iron Man gets nighttime museum privileges, huh?" Tony quips and finds himself filled with a ridiculous amount of fondness when he hears Peter's shy "Oh. Right." before hanging up.
They board Tony's personal plane, and Peter's silent for the first half-hour, too overwhelmed with the fact that he's flying in Tony Stark's private jet to bounce about.
So enthralled, in fact, that he doesn't notice how significantly tense Tony is, or if he does, Peter brushes it off as a fear of flying or heights. Tony, however, is busy bracing himself for the questions Peter will bombard him with, asking why they were coming to the Smithsonian, asking questions about Captain America, about Bucky, about Howard Stark, about everything.
When it's 5 minutes to landing, Peter finally turns to Tony and Tony thinks this is the moment he's been dreading since he hung up the phone at 4.05 pm.
"So, what ar-"
"It's complicated," Tony exclaims, without even hearing the question, and he registers from Peter's utterly confused expression that that wasn't remotely the answer to his question.
"Sorry, what was your question?" Tony says, sounding too exhausted from having spent the entire past hour with his stomach in a tight, uncomfortable clench.
"I was just going to ask what the exhibits at the Smithsonian were." He says softly, suddenly worried that the exhaustion in Tony's voice was somehow his fault, and he's glad Tony knows him well enough to know that he needs some reassurance before his overactive imagination kicks in, and leans into the feeling of Tony reaching over and ruffling his hair.
Tony points out the window as the large buildings of D.C. come into view, and smugly tells Peter that he'll just have to wait and see, excitement lighting up both of their eyes.
After-hours at the Smithsonian leaves the exhibits and galleries void of people, but not of life. There's so much for Peter to see, and Tony notes the absence of the usual self-consciousness that follows him around- the result of years of bullying and sticking out like a sore thumb.
They find that conversation flows naturally between them, Peter doing most of the talking and Tony hanging on to his every word, not wanting even the smallest of memories or moments to slip away.
Peter hadn't been around much for the past few weeks, with the end of the academic year commemorated with a final set of exams, and Tony had missed the kid's nonstop chatter about everything and anything under the Sun.
They traveled from exhibit to exhibit, mocking funny looking paintings, and paying respect to other aspects of world history and culture, and Tony's so caught up in giggling quietly over a phallic symbol that he almost forgets why he even wanted to come to the Smithsonian in the first place.
Almost.
He's busy looking at Peter with an intensely endearing smile thinking to himself that this was a good life, just him and his kid against the world, when he realizes the next exhibit is the one.
"CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE LIVING LEGEND & SYMBOL OF COURAGE" he reads, and he can tell that Peter is excited beyond belief.
Sure, the kid knew they'd fought. He'd been in the middle of it. But, hero worship is hero worship, and Peter hadn't registered any animosity or emotions besides how cool it was that "freaking Captain America dropped a truck on me, that was so insane".
In anyone else, it might have annoyed Tony that their loyalty seemed shifty, but with Peter, it's different. Tony's glad that he has someone with him who won't let him blast the exhibit to pieces, but won't spend too much time harping about the "magical muscly goodness" of Captain America. It was a good balance.
He stops before the sign, and Peter senses his hesitation, and reluctantly asks him if he wants to skip this, but Tony's going to be strong about this, and he allows Peter to take his hand and pull him into another star-spangled mess.
Tony is extremely proud to say that his heart only clenched up once- at seeing the video of Steve and Bucky laughing together, and only felt like crying once- upon seeing the Captain America shield- because all he can remember is how the edge felt when it was slammed into his chest. He's a lot more put together than he thought he would be.
Until they reach Peggy's interview projection. And Tony's broken before he can even see it coming.
He slumps into the seats provided, and as soon as Peggy's voice runs over his skin, he can feel his heart accelerate and the tears spring to his eyes almost immediately, burying his face in his hands.
And suddenly, Peter is there. He takes a seat next to Tony, and taps Tony's neck until he looks up.
"Hey there," Peter whispers, incredibly soft, and suddenly Tony feels like the child in the room.
"Hey there." Tony parrots back, a small but sad smile tugging at his lips.
"Is everything okay?"
There's no judgement or tone of caution. There isn't even a hint of wariness. It's just an earnest question, and Tony is so surprised at how this kid somehow always seems to know what to say.
He's overcome with a rush of warmth as he thinks about Peter- the boy who thinks he's not much when he's really everything Tony has at this point, the boy that makes Tony Stark feel like he's worth something- and he decides to let Peter in.
"Today makes one year," he says, and he knows that there's no way Peter can make out anything of the situation from the sentence, but Peter remains silent, waiting for Tony to continue.
"Peggy Carter died one year ago, today. She was an amazing woman, who accomplished amazing things, especially for the crappy, misogynistic times that she had to operate in.
"But I think her greatest accomplishment was Steve Rogers, which I know sounds like a really sexist thing to say, but I don't mean it like that."
Tony starts, and he doesn't know where his sentences are leading, but now that he's started talking, he can't really stop.
He can't bring himself to talk more about Steve yet, so he's just rattling off a list of Peggy's war achievements, a list he's heard too many times from both his father and his Steve.
"She's the whole reason the super-soldier programme even started… She helped my da-dad clear his name when people thought he was a traitor… She basically founded S.H.I.E.L.D, you know... She fell in love with Captai-Ste-"
"Were you and Peggy close?" Peter asks, a hint of a laugh in his tone, and Tony thinks to himself that his kid is actually a sly little shit who knows too much.
"No, I've never even met her," he admits and sighs, slumping further into his seat, and he swears he can see a small smile on Peter's face from the corner of his eye.
"He lost her twice, Peter. Can you imagine that? Twice. As if once isn't damage enough.
"He lost her twice. I knew how much he meant to her, and when he lost her, I-I," he takes a staggering breath, knowing that when the words left his mouth, he wouldn't be able to take them back, wouldn't be able to alter any judgement that would cloud Peter's eyes when he heard.
He feels Peter put his hand on his shoulder, and pushes on.
"I wasn't there for him," he finally spills, expecting to feel the warm hand lift off his shoulder, and see Peter turn his back on him the way Steve turned his back on Tony, one hand around Bucky's waist, the other stabbing Tony in the back.
Despite that image, it's not Steve he's mad at today. It's himself. His thoughts are disconnected and he's feeling a little disoriented, but he feels better the more he talks.
"What kind of person leaves his best friend to grieve over the loss of one of the most important people in his life all by himself, because they don't agree about a document?
"A document, Peter. A bunch of pages with a bunch of words, and I decided that Steve could just handle this colossal loss on his own? Fuck.
"Maybe I am my father. That seems like something he might have done- prioritize some kind of petty shit over someone's emotional wellbeing.
He finally feels it, the rush of cold air as Peter lifts his hand off of Tony's shoulder, and Tony thinks that this is it. He clamps his hands together again, rests his elbows on his knees, and puts his head back down. He can't watch this one walk away too.
But Peter's tapping his neck again, and Tony lifts his head, slower this time. He's aware that his eyes must be glistening and his knuckles are white from clasping his hands together too tight, but he's too tired to be embarrassed or put on a mask and doesn't even resist when Peter pries his hands apart and takes one in his.
Tony stares hard at their hands connected together, a little confused because he was convinced that he was a terrible person who didn't deserve this.
"What are you doing?" He finally asks, because he's not too sure what this particular move is.
Peter stares straight ahead at the projection that's playing its 3rd loop.
"I'm holding your hand."
"You're not going to leave?"
"And go where? You're my ride home." Peter jokes, but he hopes Tony's understood the underlying message of "Mr. Stark, you're so dumb. I could never leave you."
Tony looks at their clasped hands again and pushes on. Clearly, talking this out isn't going to cost him another person, so he might as well get it all out there.
"Maybe things would be different if I had gone to the funeral, you know? If I had gone and given Steve a hug and told him that even if it felt like he had lost everyone that loved him, he'd always have me, and I'd always love him.
"I should have told him that no matter what happened with the Accords, I'd never stop loving him. That he was more important than anything else. That I was there.
"I should have been there. I shouldn't have combined business and pleasure. We ar-were family. Families fight, but they're unconditional, and my love for him should have extended beyond that."
He feels hot tears travel down his cheeks, and Peter squeezes his hand.
Sighing, Tony wipes his face with his free hand and looks at Peter.
"I just hope he's doing alright, today. I don't know how much help Bucky and Sam will be, and I hope he knows that I hope he's alright. And that he's still family. Even after everything. You know?"
"Yeah, Mr. Stark, I know," Peter says, sounding just as sad as Tony feels.
"But," Peter continues, and Tony knows that this is the optimism that he needs to hear to bounce back from the day.
"But?"
"It's not too late. You could always call him, check up on him. Tell him that you love him. And that he's still your family. And all the other stuff.
"I know that when Uncle Ben died, I wished that my last words to him hadn't been me refusing to go get milk, or shouting at him.
"I just wish I could get 5 more minutes with Ben, just to give him a hug and say thank you for taking care of me for all those years even though he never had to, so that we'd have a better final conversation.
"Or, actually, I wish I hadn't let him go get the milk.
"Or that I had actually remembered the milk," Peter sighs, and Tony worries they're both going to start crying in this dumb Captain America exhibit. But Peter takes a shaky breath, and continues,
"But, I don't have those chances anymore. We're superheroes but the laws of mortality, albeit stretched a little, still apply. And maybe I won't ever get over that nag of guilt, even though it's so much better now, but you have a chance to say something, and maybe you should do it before it's too late."
"But that's just what I think, I don't know," Peter adds hurriedly, and Tony lets out a low chuckle as he recognizes the safe play to absolve himself of any blame if Tony does take his advice.
Tony thinks about this, and they sit in silence, just holding hands and hearing Peggy Carter's voice hitch when she talks about Steve Rogers about 6 times before Tony's internal monologue comes to a halt, and he realizes the main resonating thought is "But I'm not ready" even though it's surrounded by "Ugh, I miss him"s and "I just want to make sure he's alright"s.
He's worried he's going to disappoint Peter when he tells him this, but one look at Peter and he knows that he'll understand.
"I miss him. But I'm not ready for him to know that just yet. Is that okay?" he asks, and it's Peter's turn to laugh.
"Of course that's okay, Mr. Stark. I just want you to be happy," he smiles.
"Besides, what if I ask him if he's okay, and he's doing really well? What if being apart isn't killing him as much as it's killing me?" Tony asks, surprising himself with how easily that concern vocalized itself.
Peter nods knowingly and puts his head on Tony's shoulder.
"We both know that's not true, Mr. Stark. He could never be happy without you, I've seen you guys together. I'm sure he's wallowing in depression, growing himself a sadness beard and ripping all the Captain America out of Steve Rogers because that's what caused you pain," he semi-jokes, and Tony pulls the kid into his side and laughs.
"Is it bad that that visual actually makes me feel better?" They giggle together before pulling apart. Peter stands and offers his hand to Tony to pull him up, and Tony is hit with the poetic significance of how much easier it is to pick yourself up when you accept some help.
They're just about to leave the room when Tony turns back and pulls an incredibly small bouquet-bouquet is actually a highly generous term- of a few flowers from inside his jacket pocket and kneels down to sets them in front of the poster of Peggy Carter.
"I'm going to try and take care of him, Peggy. I promise. I just need a little more time," he whispers so quietly that Peter almost doesn't catch it, but he does. So he goes and pulls Tony up again, but instead of walking away, crashes into his chest and gives him a tight hug.
Tony's so taken by surprise, he lets out an oof, before stumbling backward and steadying himself.
"Hello again," he says, grinning, but he pulls Peter even closer and drops a kiss to his hair, screaming a silent thank you to the universe for bringing this kid swinging and stumbling into his path.
They stay at a hotel for the night, there are two beds, but a sleepy Peter is a clingy Peter, and he insists on curling into Tony's side while they watch reruns of The Office on TV. Tony idly wonders when he became so comfortable with Peter's entire body basically latched onto his side, but thinks that maybe it comes along with this natural paternal protective instinct that kicks in when he sees Peter's broad grin.
Peter is almost asleep, and the gentle carding of Tony's fingers through his hair transports him back to when he was a small six-year-old sleeping on his father's lap. He's fading in and out of consciousness, but he remembers he has to ask Tony a very important question.
"Hey, Mr. Stark?" he asks, the words impossibly soft, and Tony wouldn't have even known the kid was talking if he hadn't felt his lips move against his chest.
"Yeah?"
"Do you like my outfit?"
Tony smiles, eyes still fixed on the screen, crediting this dialogue to sleepy babbling, but Peter tugs on his shirt until he looks down and Peter repeats the question.
And Tony finally notices Peter's pajamas.
Iron Man pants and a shirt with Captain America's shield on it.
Tony lets out an almost inaudible laugh, and he's not too sure what to make of this situation.
"Um, yeah the pants are great."
"Noooo," Peter whines, "the whole outfit is great. See how well they match."
Tony has to mute the TV to hear Peter now, because the kid is 95% asleep already.
"You and Captain America match really well, Mr. Stark. You guys are just in the laundry right now. But you're going to be an outfit again. Super comfy." Peter whispers, clearly losing track of what he's saying at that point.
"And then we can all be a family together."
Tony's face falls suddenly, not sure if he'd heard Peter correctly. But he looks down at Peter, curled up into his side, and thinks about how the only thing to make the scene more perfect is if Steve were on the kid's other side, one hand holding Tony's and the other playing with Peter's hair.
"That sounds like a great idea, kid."
Another Author's Note
ALSO, I know I mention the Accords a lot and not the Bucky situation but that's because at the time when Peggy died, the Accords were their fight because the Bucky stuff hadn't happened yet.
But I know that the Accords aren't their biggest deal. They're just more relevant to the time period his turmoil is set in.
