Though Tony deserves hours of nightmares, he wakes from a dreamless oblivion to a knee in his back. He groans, but his heart swells as soon as he sees the still unconscious spiderling sprawled across his chest.

He recognizes the giggle of the munchkin peering over his shoulder and starts to piece together what is happening. "Youch, Little Miss." He extricates one hand and reaches back to ruffle Morgan's hair.

"You didn't invite me to the sleepover!" she pouts as her knee pokes him in the neck.

"It was unplanned. You can come to the next one."

"Pinkie promise?"

Extending her finger must throw her off balance. Tony watches, sleep-muddled and slow, as she tumbles over his shoulder and lands on her brother.

Peter's eyes flutter open and then fix on his sister, who offers a toothy, "Sorry," in a tone that suggests anything but contrition.

Pete blinks a few times, rubbing at his eyes with a fist. "Morgan." His gaze shifts to Tony and his whole face lights up with something like shock. Tony can only imagine the ridiculous thoughts going through his kid's painfully self-deprecating mind. "Mister Stark."

Tony makes a sound like a gameshow buzzer and tilts his head towards Morgan. "Wrong. Try again." They are so past that now, Tony just can't even. He feels something wet on his chest that is almost certainly his kid's drool. That bothers him far less than said kid calling him by his last name.

Peter's lips twist in a tentative smirk, and he rolls his eyes as he sits up, smoothly pulling his sister with him so she's leaning against his chest. "Tony," he says with exaggerated emphasis.

"Better."

"Happy Boxing Day, Petey!" Morgan has never liked being left out of a conversation, even when she could only wave her hands and babble. She recaptures her brother's attention by pressing a smacking kiss to his cheek.

Peter's face flames an adorable shade of crimson as he utters a soft, "oh." After a few seconds he seems to collect himself enough to notice the way she's begging for acknowledgement. "Happy Boxing Day, Mo."

Morgan preens at the nickname, pushing the hair away from her face with a grin. Tony thinks he can sit here watching his kids interact forever.

"What's your favorite thing to do on Boxing Day?" Morgan asks.

Tony flinches inside, because he can guess what Peter's least favorite thing about today will be—recounting six weeks of intense emotional trauma. But Peter looks unflapped when he shrugs and says, "I've never celebrated Boxing Day before."

"You don't do Boxing Day?"

Tony chuckles at his baby girl's ability to convey a scandal with only her tone. "Not everyone's father had a British butler, Little Miss."

Morgan tilts her head, her lips pursing. "But Petey's did."

Tony doesn't think most six-year-olds would be able to make that inference. She's brilliant, his starry-eyed wunderkind, and with his intellect and Pepper's good sense and overall competence, Tony knows she's going to be unstoppable. He can't wait to watch her give someone else the runaround.

He's also delighted how wholeheartedly she's accepted her brother. Peter is easy to love, but Morgan's been spoiled with her parents' nearly wholehearted attention for her entire life. Yet she'd given that up to drag his sorry ass into the city to pick up the brother she'd only met twice.

Morgan's jealousy would have been loud and difficult to navigate. He's so grateful that they've all been spared.

"That's right," Tony answers, flashing Peter a look that hopefully conveys that if Morgan says so, it must be true. "But Petey here didn't live with me when he was your age, remember? So today is our first Boxing Day together."

"Then we have to make it the BEST EVER!"

Tony is going to have to warn her to watch her volume around Peter's sensitive ears, but he lets it slide just this once. "Sounds like a good plan. What do you say, Petey?"

Peter doesn't protest the nickname. He just looks down at his sister and blushes. "I say Mo should tell me about her favorite Boxing Day traditions so I know what to look forward to."

"Boxing Day is THE BEST because Mommy and Daddy aren't allowed to work AT ALL. No phones, no holograms. No computer and no lab. We get to spend all day together. And we get to stay in our jammies until lunch!"

Tony had been the one to insist on the Boxing Day work ban, the very first year Morgan was born. He'll never tell his little girl the whole day is basically a middle finger to Howard Stark, though Pepper certainly guessed as much. Growing up, Christmas had been a series of stuffy formalities and staged photographs that would be used to promote the family values of a company that manufactured weapons of mass destruction and regularly required engineers to work at least sixty hours a week or risk being left behind. But for a few glorious years, between the ages of four and six, Tony had spent the day after Christmas with his beloved family butler and his wife, who always received the day off because they were needed the day before. They'd watch Christmas movies and cook together and laugh about the silliest things. For one day each year, Tony had felt worthy of someone's undivided attention.

Howard had put a stop to it after Tony told Maria that he wished Jarvis and Ana were his parents. If Tony couldn't be happy as a Stark, he couldn't be happy at all.

Tony doesn't ever want Morgan to understand any part of what he'd felt his whole childhood. He knows that he and Pepper are busy people. He's easily distracted by his projects in the lab, even now, and Pepper has so much on her plate running SI. They do their best, and sometimes they fail, and that's how parenthood is supposed to be, he thinks. But one day every year, he does his damnedest to give his kid his undivided attention, so she will always know that she's more important than any job, invention, or hero gig.

The look Peter is giving Morgan is so soft, so precious, that Tony might just go into a diabetic coma. It would be the perfect way to go out, if he hadn't decided that he needs to live to at least a hundred so he can maximize his time with his kiddos. "Wow, that does sound fun. Do I have to give up my phone too?"

"Yeah-huh!"

It strikes him then, watching Peter and Morgan wrapped up in each other, that this is the first morning both his kids woke up in the same place. He's been waiting for this since the day Morgan was born. But it had always been a hopeless dream, just another thing Tony Stark wanted but would never have, like a loving father or the ability not to fuck up his own life and waste all his potential. Yet now it's not just a dream, but a reality. His kids will always wake up together now, at least until Pete goes off to college.

The thought of that makes him sad already. Even though he knows Peter will take MIT by storm, and Tony will figure out how to act totally supportive and not like a third of his heart will be hundreds of miles away for months at a time. Because Peter deserves independence and the chance to blaze his own path into a magnificent life of his own. But his departure will feel like Morgan's first day of kindergarten, but worse. Each milestone like that means his kids leave part of their childhood behind that they can never get back. Tony sees the appeal of Peter Pan. There's a part of him that would be completely content to freeze both his kids at this very age forever.

But he knows that he wouldn't, even if he could. Because they both have so much more to learn, more to do. Their lives shouldn't be dictated by his selfish whims.

Pete deserves the whole damn world. Tony will make every minute of their time together the best it can possibly be. Then he will send Pete off to MIT with a smile, and wait until he's driving away to give into his grief.

A click shakes Tony from his melancholy musings. Pepper is standing in the doorway in her matching pajamas, snapping pictures on her Stark Phone. "There's the holiday cheer missing from our photos last week," she says once Tony looks up and catches her eye.

It was Peter they'd been missing. That had left them all so out of sorts that the photos had been truly dreadful, something that could show up on a "worst of" Buzzfeed list to give the internet a laugh.

"Can't have a Stark family photo without you, hon," he says. "Get in here and join us."

Pepper comes without argument and sits down next to Tony. He tugs her into his side, snaking his other arm around Peter's shoulder. "You're gonna have to take the photo, Pete. I'm betting you'll have the best chance of getting us all in the frame."

"Mommy and Daddy are terrible at selfies," Morgan says.

Tony reaches out to tickle his little traitor. "That's an unnecessary skill for an old man like me."

"It's really not that hard," Peter says as Pepper hands him her phone. He shifts Morgan slightly in his lap and then holds the phone out in front of them. "It's all about the angle. Now say, 'Team Spider-Man.'"

Morgan demands several different poses while Peter acts like a professional photographer, asking them to say increasingly outlandish phrases. Tony will cherish every image forever, but his favorite by far is the very last one. They'd all dissolved into laughter, thinking the photoshoot over, and Peter had captured one final shot of them looking at each other instead of the camera. Tony's heart swells when he sees it, too big for his chest. This is his family, for a few precious moments unburdened by tragedy, and Tony would relive his whole lifetime of pain just to hang on to that feeling.

"Excellent teamwork," Tony says. "Avengers level execution." The mention of his old team doesn't even hurt. Not with his family all pressed together, grinning at each other. It had been one hell of a mess, but the Avengers had come together in the end.

"I'm going to start on breakfast," Pepper says. Always efficient. Always a saint. "What do you like in your pancakes, Peter?"

Tony beats him to it, because he knows the answer. "Pete likes blueberries, like a normal person. Also Skittles, like an absolute monster." He tugs his kid a little tighter into his side and ruffles his already wild hair so he knows for sure that Tony's just teasing. "Good thing we don't have any of those."

Peter lays his head on Tony's shoulder, and Tony just melts. "Darn. Skittles pancakes are the best. Just cause you were in a bad mood the one time you tried them."

"We still have Halloween Skittles in the crying closet!" Morgan screeches, launching herself off the bed and across the room. She stumbles over an errant present from the crumbling mountain, catches herself, and declares, "You need to clean your room, mister."

"We're not calling it the crying closet," Tony argues, the vulnerability of all those awful hours locked away apparently not in private mourning his son swirling in his chest. But his heart's back where it belongs, beating outside his body, a third in the kid casually draped against him and another third in his more devious counterpart, casually calling out some of his lowest moments. He can live with anything today. "It's just Peter's closet now."

But when Morgan emerges shouting, "Found them," and waves a red bag in the air, Peter's face lights up like the acres of Christmas displays they'd driven through yesterday. Suddenly Tony doesn't give a damn who knows he's weak. He'd do anything in the world to keep that smile on his boy's face.


"Grindelwald did what now?"

An hour or two later, the pancakes churn uncomfortably in Tony's stomach, threatening to make a reappearance, even though he didn't touch the sugar-charged monstrosity that was the Parker Pancake Super Surprise. Peter had loved them, thanking Pepper profusely for the affront to culinary arts. And like the angel he is, he'd somehow managed to convince Morgan that blueberry pancakes were better, so she didn't demand more than a single bite of what would surely send her into a sugar rush that they'd all pay for. He'd also cleared his plate and asked for more, consuming almost as many pancakes as a normal teenage garbage disposal might, though nowhere near as many as he would have before this clusterfuck.

But once the dishes were cleared away and Morgan was sent off with a pout to entertain herself with her new art kit while the rest of them talked about "boring adult stuff," Peter finally began to explain what had happened to him over the past two months. Just a few minutes in, Tony feels as queasy as if his breakfast has been packed with chemical coated candy.

"He got mad that I messed up his spell, and told me it was my fault that villains were showing up from other universes."

"Hold the phone. How the fuck was that your fault? It was his spell! Which he never should have cast in the first place. Master of the Mystic Arts or whatever, and his solution to getting you into college was to mind-wipe the whole universe?"

"Technically that was my solution. I asked for his help."

It takes every painstakingly born paternal instinct not to ask why Pete hadn't come to Tony for help. He deserves to hear the answer. Because Tony was hiding away, aloof and barely reachable even though it was his psychotic former employee who'd targeted his kid and ruined his life because of his grudge against Tony. Because Tony was legally dead and couldn't make a simple phone call that would have made the admissions board take back every boneheaded decision or instantly lose millions of dollars of funding. But Tony can't ask, because Peter will misplace the blame in that question. Tony cannot let Peter wonder what would have happened if he had just asked Tony for help. He cannot give the kid another reason to blame himself for May's death.

Though God. If Peter had just called him.

"He could have said no! He could have had a counter solution! He could have just been fucking better at magic!"

"Well he wasn't," Peter says with a shrug, too casual, like he hasn't caught any of Tony's righteous indignation. "So all these bad guys came through."

Dumb shit piles up like some awful wreck on the highway, more and more vehicles caught up in the carnage. Tony cannot believe when May tells Peter he has to save a bunch of super-powered villains with vendettas against other versions of him instead of letting Strange handle it. Except that's clearly where his kid got his huge, stupid, self-sacrificial heart. God rest her soul, though it's too heavy a burden to lay on a teenager. (Though when Tony had fucked up, pressuring Peter to be better than him, that had been selfish rather than selfless, so who is he to lecture on parenting?)

The difference between them, really, is that May had died in Peter's arms, and Tony had been too stubborn to let go. Tony had been given a second chance he didn't deserve to make things right with his kid and expunge any misplaced guilt Pete had felt about how that final battle had gone down. Tony had nearly had a heart attack when Peter had said, I shoulda put the gauntlet on when I had it, Mister Stark. I'm strong. I coulda taken it. "Like hell," he'd growled. "I woulda grounded your radiation ravaged body for the rest of your life." Then he'd felt vomit swirl up the back of his throat, because despite Pete's bravado, that life might have been very short. Tony had never known such blinding, all-encompassing pain as when the power of the Infinity Stones tore through his body. He wouldn't wish that on Peter even if the kid could heal. Tony would sacrifice both arms to save him from that.

But May was gone, and no matter how many times Tony blamed a psychotic supervillain, he knew there was a part of Pete that would always blame himself.

Maybe Tony understood that so well because he knew that he was actually the one to blame.

For May. For Beck. For Thanos. For inspiring this kid to be a hero when the hero game broke everyone who played.

He couldn't name a single hero who wasn't fucked up or dead.

But Peter would be the best of them all someday. And Tony would get him all the help he needed so that he could be whole again.

"That's when Peter 2 and Peter 3 came through. Ned and MJ were looking for me, but they found them."

"Peter 2 and Peter 3?" Pepper asks.

"Pete's multiversal besties," Tony says, trying to bring some levity to a situation that doesn't warrant it. But Pete hadn't responded well to his anger. Sarcasm's all he's got left.

Pepper, bless her, has learned to roll with the punches that come with surrounding yourself with Tony Stark. "That must have been confusing."

Tony needs to hold onto the smile that steals across Peter's face, small, tentative, but genuine. "Kinda. They didn't look like me. Or sound like me. They were old. And one of them had webs that came out of him. But they were awesome. Even though they'd never fought in a team and thought the Avengers were a band. I hope they got home okay."

Tony cannot bring himself to say, "I'm sure they did," when he doesn't know. "How did they get home?"

Peter skips his near goblin-decapitating interlude. But it's that bastard's fault when the spell explodes, and Tony wishes he was dead for all he'd taken from Peter. First May. Then his faith in his own goodness. And finally, everyone else in his life.

"The sky was all crazy, and so many people from all these universes were gonna get sucked into ours, so I told Doctor Strange to make them forget me so reality didn't implode or whatever."

"He shouldn't have asked you to do that!" Tony hissed.

"He didn't ask. I told him to do it. It was the only way to save everyone. I had to."

"That responsibility should never have been on your shoulders!"

"You're right. I never should have asked Strange to interfere in my life. But I did. And I needed to fix the problems I caused."

"Uhn-uh. This is not on you. This was so above your pay grade, I can't even. Tomorrow I'm going to Bleeker Street and I am going to give that wizard a piece of my mind until he fixes this!"

Peter reaches out lightning fast and grabs Tony's arm hard enough to sting. "Don't!"

Tony's too shocked to hide his wince. Peter's face crumbles as soon as he notices. His grip loosens, but he doesn't let go. "Please, Tony. Please don't tell Mister Strange about me."

There's something about hearing his first name on Peter's lips that undoes him. Or maybe it's just the fear moistening those wide, expressive eyes he loves so much. "There's gotta be repercussions, Roo. I can't let him get away with doing this to you."

"What if he makes you forget again?"

The thought almost stops his broken heart. Peter tilts his head like he's listening, and Tony forces himself to breathe. "I won't let him do that," he growls.

"What if you can't stop him?" Peter whispers, so broken, so sad, that Tony pulls his kid into his chest, cradling the back of his head against his stuttering heart. "I don't want the universe to implode or anything. But if he says no one can remember me because of reality and stuff—I don't wanna—I can't—I can't lose you again."

"You won't lose me," Tony swears. "But your friends, kiddo. Everyone else."

"Have you now," Peter mumbles. "And Morgan. That's enough."

It's not. Not at all. Morgan is marvelous, and Tony will do anything for his son. But his son deserves to have more than two people in the world know how exceptional he is. More than two people to remember the bright-eyed optimist he used to be.

But Peter is shaking against him, his tense muscles and erratic breathing a sure sign that a panic attack is brewing. "I won't see the wizard," Tony promises, even though he hates the words. "Not tomorrow anyway. We'll shelve this for later."

"Maybe there's a way we can make people remember without involving Stephen."

Tony had forgotten Pepper was there. But his eyes find hers when she speaks, like always, her voice a soothing balm to the chaos swirling through his mind. "Go on."

"Well, you remembered without any magical intervention. So did Morgan. Or maybe she never forgot at all. If we can understand why—"

"Then we go at this like a sniper instead of throwing a flash bomb at it. You're a genius Pep. I could kiss you."

"Maybe not right now," Peter says. Tony's laughter hitches before he can stop it, so he drops the kiss to the top of Peter's head instead.

"Are you guys done being boring yet?" Little Miss stands in the doorway to the kitchen, one hand cocked on her hip and the other clutching a pile of papers.

"Sorry Maguna. Still trying to get your brother all sorted out."

"This is not the best Boxing Day ever." She stalks forward and waves one of her drawings. "This is what's supposed to be happening." Tony counts the four stick figures before he notices their distinguishing characteristics. They're all in a line, possibly playing some sort of game.

"This is what's actually happening." Morgan shifts like she's going to shove the second drawing into Tony's hands. But Tony's hands are filled with Peter. She pivots instead, thrusting the second paper at Pepper.

Once Tony catches a glimpse it breaks his heart. Three figures sit around a table while the fourth stands at the far edge of the paper, alone, an angry red frown on her face.

Peter sees it too, and wrenches himself out of Tony's arms. "I'm so sorry, Mo."

"None of that," Tony says, reaching for his self-sacrificial kid. But it's too late; he's already across the room. "Why don't we all just have a juice pop and calm down."

"I guess," Morgan says.

"Excellent. What flavor do you want?"

"Orange."

"Orange it is. Pete, do you want a juice pop?"

"I'm fine."

"Let me rephrase. What flavor juice pop do you want?"

Peter scrunches his nose and pouts, but he eventually concedes under Tony's stare. "Lime."

"Of course you'd say lime. What is it with spiderlings and their weird fixation with tropical fruits in places they don't belong?" Tony pulls the box of juice pops from the freezer, opening Morgan's and handing it to her before tossing Pete his. He takes a red one for himself and hands Pepper a purple. She's too quiet, as if thrown by Morgan's accusations and unsure how to handle them.

Tony's never known Pepper to be thrown by anything. God knows, in his wild years, how hard he'd tried.

"How can you talk when you're eating cherry? I thought Tony Stark would be more original."

"You caught me." He's glad Peter can tease him, even if he can't admit in Morgan's presence that he just eats whichever ones she likes least. He won't miss the lime ones, though. He wonders if the spider messed up Peter's taste buds, or if he was always weird.

"Come here, principessa." He sits down around the table and pats his lap. Tony's heart breaks every second Morgan contemplates, but finally she gives in and wanders over, raising her arms so he can lift her. She lays her ear against his heart, and it hurts in the very best and worst way. How had anything this perfect ever come from him?

"Are you done ignoring me now?"

Tony doesn't let himself glance towards Pete, but he knows his little girl's words will cut him like a knife. Knows because it feels like they're carving the heart from his chest.

He smooths his hand over her hair, gently combing through the slightly tangled strands. "We're sorry, Little Miss. Your brother was just telling us all the things that happened while he wasn't home."

"Why can't he tell me?"

"It's a sad story. You wouldn't like it."

"Do you like it?"

"I like the ending very much. The rest I'm not so keen on."

"Is Petey done telling it yet?"

"Not quite. But almost." Tony glances around the room, trying to get a read. He doesn't know how to interpret the look on Peter's face. Pepper didn't even open her juice pop. She's left it on the table to become a melted mess, even though Pepper hates melted messes.

But when he looks back at Morgan something in his brain itches. She's taking this better than she might have, all things considered. They're lucky she remembers that she's meant to have a brother Petey, because otherwise—

The pieces click.

"Morgan, honey, what's your brother's last name?"

She tilts her head back and scowls. "Don't tell me you forgot AGAIN!"

"I did not forget," he says, bopping her on the nose. "But we're trying to make Mommy remember. So help me out."

Morgan opens her mouth and then pauses, like DUM-E when he needs to recalibrate. Her face scrunches in adorable consternation, and then she barrels ahead. "Stark. Like me. Petey Stark."

"Petey Stark." Tony whistles, the words doing something funny to his insides, because she's so wrong yet so right. It doesn't make sense, how much he wants that. He's been running from his last name and everything it represents for so long, yet he wants to lay it on Peter's shoulders.

Her answer does explain her excellent memory. "One more question, Little Miss. Do you know anyone named Peter Parker?"

She pauses again, but this time she shakes her head. "Nope. His first name's almost like Petey's though."

"There we have it." Tony looks up to find Peter staring. "Can't forget something you never knew in the first place."

"That's—"

"Can we do something fun now?" Morgan asks.

But they're so close to a breakthrough Tony can feel it. Pep's been amazing about all this, but he needs her on the same page. She used to know how losing Peter broke him. How loving Peter taught Tony he could be a good father. He doesn't know how to fix this yet without going to the wizard, but if he can get Pep's memories back, the two of them can solve anything. "Twenty minutes. Then we'll take a break from all this boring stuff."

"Five," Morgan counters.

"Fifteen."

"Fifteen and I get another juice pop?" Morgan bats her eyes and juts out her lip, but there's something beneath all the theatrics that is one hundred percent Pepper.

"Extortion. You've already figured out extortion at such a young age. You wore me down. What flavor do you want?"

"Tony, I don't think that's a great idea," Pepper warns.

It isn't. Both the sugar high and the sugar crash are going to be unpleasant. But he can't deny her anything else when he's holding out on the attention she craves.

"Lime."

His heart swells, because she's never asked for lime before.

He hands Peter another lime popsicle too before sending Morgan off and asking FRI to set a timer. "Alright. We've got fifteen minutes. Let's figure this out."

"We should go out there now," Peter protests.

"I already gave her the bribe. Fifteen minutes. Go."

"Morgan didn't forget me because she didn't know my real name? How is that helpful?"

"But Tony knew, and he remembered," Pepper says. "We just have to figure out why."

"Maybe it was a nickname thing? Sometimes I'm not sure Tony knows my name either."

Tony throws his wooden stick at Peter. "Rude, Mister Parker. That wasn't it though." He sobers, thinking hard about that particular moment when all his memories flooded back. From the first video FRIDAY had shown him he'd felt things every time he looked at Peter, but he hadn't known them. He hadn't known anything besides what he was told, no matter how long he stared at the kid, for some reason itching to run his fingers through his curls or just hold on tight and not let go. His emotions and memories were completely disconnected until Peter had started rambling and apologizing about how he didn't want to go, and those awful words had built a bridge between the familiar terror of the kid slipping away and all the horrific details of that time that he had. A few moments of whiteout later, and he'd remembered everything.

"You said you were gonna leave, but that you didn't wanna go." Just repeating the words makes Tony nauseous, even now. "Sent me right back to Titan. Felt like my head was gonna explode along with my heart. Then all my memories were back, right where they were supposed to be."

"You remembered the emotion, and then the words," Pepper mutters under her breath, like she's talking to herself. But when she turns to Peter, both her gaze and words are clear. "You're Spider-Man, right?"

"Yeah," Peter squeaks.

"Spider-Man was there after Tony snapped."

"Yeah."

"There are gaps in my memory. I know Spider-Man was there on the battlefield. But when I try to focus on him—on you—everything gets choppy. I thought that was just the grief, but it's the spell. Maybe if I could remember the parts that are missing it would trigger everything else."

"Woah, woah, woah." Tony looks between his wife and his kid. Pep's radiating intensity, while Pete's radiating stress. "Maybe we find a memory that's less traumatic for all of us. We could tell you about why I'm no longer allowed to bake anything."

"It was Titan that made you remember," Pep says. "Maybe it needs to be traumatic."

"You don't have to do this for me," Peter whispers. "Mister Stark's back now, but I'm sure you don't want to think about when he wasn't—"

"We may not have to," Pep says, reaching out to grab Pete's hand. "But we want to."

Tony can't exactly argue with that. "That's that, kid. First rule of harmony in the Stark family. Listen to Pepper."

Peter gnaws at his lip, which is cracked and dry. His skin is too sallow, all his precious baby fat starved away. Tony just wants to hug him and never let go. "If you're really sure."

"I am. Tell me what happened. Be as specific as you can."

"I don't think Tony could hear me." Peter takes a deep, shuddering breath that already sounds like a sob. This is a bad idea but Tony can't think of a better one. Pepper's probably right. Nothing unleashed his memories except trauma.

"I told him we won, that he did it, but he just kinda stared at me and your hands were on my shoulders and you were pulling me away." Tony doesn't remember this, but he can't blame the spell. It was the radiation coursing through his body, shutting down his brain. And Tony should be fine with the retelling because clearly he's still alive. By the time he woke from his coma he was out of the woods. But hearing this is like feeling someone walking across his grave, the way he'd felt when Steve and Scott and Nat showed up at his door. He'd known there'd be a cost. And just like when Dumbledore had lifted a finger, Tony had known the cost would be him.

He doesn't want to feel that way again. Not with all his family finally together.

"Not in a mean way! You were so gentle, even though I was just some rando kid monopolizing your husband's last moments. You told me that he was so glad he got to see me again. That he wanted that more than anything and—"

"—his family wasn't complete while you were gone," Pep finishes.

They all freeze. Then Pep leans forward and pulls Peter into her arms. "Welcome home, sweetheart. Don't you worry about a thing. We'll take care of everything you need."

And as Peter melts into Pepper's embrace, clutching at her with a quiet sob, Tony melts too, overwhelmed by the truth that his family is finally complete.