an: alright... so this chapter is long. Like, we went from Iron Man run-time to Infinity War run-time long. Read: so it took a long ass time to write. Also, I know I already added an extra chapter but, like, I like this story? So I might do one more like ++1, and it's gonna be so fluffy you might mistake it for cotton candy. Thoughts?
+1 / The End Game
For a moment, the world didn't obey the laws of time.
Everything happened in a blink-and-you'd-miss it instant, too fast for anyone to even react.
One second he was up and fighting.
And the next he was down.
The comms were silent for an agonizing second; then, everyone was reacting all at once.
"Stark?" Sam spoke first, desperately scanning his surroundings as the man dropped off his radar.
"No," screamed Banner, fully hulked out, tossing cars and pieces of buildings aside to get to the area where his friend had fallen.
"Tony, talk to us," came Steve's nervous response, trying to locate the red and gold armor amid the field of debris.
A broken, "Tones?" was all Rhodey could manage, terror gripping tightly at his voice.
"Come on, Stark," Clint pleaded.
"Dammit, Stark, for once in your life I'm begging you to just say something," Nat breathed, heart pounding as she continued to fend off whatever these things were that they were fighting.
They had just gotten everyone back, gloriously alive and whole. Five of the six infinity stones rested with the good guys. Fate was on their side.
Whatever God or being or thing controlled the universe clearly wanted them to win. They deserved the happy ending after the horrors of the past few months, deserved a good-triumphs-over-evil type of story.
The hero wasn't supposed to plummet, lifeless, into the concrete this time.
The comms buzzed, everyone talking over one another in a jumbled cacophony of cursing and shock and poorly masked panic.
Everyone except for the teenager from Queens. He was jarringly silent.
Peter had seen this happen before.
The first time, when he saw the plane that carried his parents drop out of the air on the evening news.
The second, when Ben's limp body crumpled to the ground.
The third and fourth and umpteenth times were in his nightmares, as the people he loved toppled down over and over and over again. There was nothing he could do except stand and scream—frozen and desperate and helpless—when they never got back up.
And now he watched as Tony Stark fell in a dead heap right out of the sky, giving a new, gut-wrenching connotation to the term fallen hero.
Peter was the one with eyes on Thanos first, at the top of what was left of the Stark Tower, nursing the remnants of his gauntlet. He'd had been substantially weakened by the loss of the infinity stones, but he still clung to one—the soul stone.
This was the end game.
The Avengers came to life in New York. They became a team inside Stark Tower. It was a fitting site for their finale.
Tony didn't see him until it was too late.
Before he could even tell Peter to stop, to wait for support, the kid was webbing himself up the side of the building.
Tony called for backup, powering his dying thrusters, pushing himself upward, his body rigid. He couldn't lose the kid. Not again.
When Tony finally had Peter in his sight, his face contorted.
He wasn't fighting.
His mask was off, leaving his brown eyes exposed to plead and bargain with the purple giant in an act that was so Peter that it made Tony's heart skip a beat.
He was doing the one thing Tony loved most about him: refusing to give up. Finding something worth salvaging in something everyone else had deemed beyond repair.
For a second, it almost worked.
"You can still walk out of this, we just need the stone," he begged, his bare face streaked with sweat and crusted blood.
Thanos was still for a second, surveying the chaos below. His plan had failed. The lost souls had all returned, and in trying to spare the world from destruction, he had desolated it.
"I-," he started, face twisted, his heavy sense of purpose pushing him to listen to the kid and just give in.
He almost looked sad when shook his head heavily and said, "I can't. I've lost too much to turn back now."
Thanos' fist was raised before Tony had time to think. His body screamed as every last bit of power was channeled into slamming into the gauntlet, the single stone gleaming from its knuckle, before it could crush Peter.
There was a flash of bright, blinding energy, and then darkness.
Peter was soaring down to the ground before he even registered the nauseating clank of metal on pavement. He heard the crunching of Tony's bones against his own armor. He felt the thumping of Tony's heartbeat rapidly decelerate into nothing more than a fleeting murmur.
Then Peter heard nothing at all, as the world was reduced to terrifying silence because he was only listening to Tony, and Tony wasn't making a sound.
No screaming. No gasping for life. Not even a breath.
"Mr. Stark, come on, get up. It's not over," he said, tugging uselessly on the man's arm.
Sickening déjà vu took hold of Peter, the events around him appearing motionless, like someone had pressed the pause button. He existed in limbo, his movements taking place between strides, between breaths, between punches.
"A war zone isn't exactly the place to get dramatic, Mr. Stark," he said, trying and failing to wake the man up.
"If you wanted me to carry you, you could've just asked, you know. I know you don't like to admit that I'm stronger than you—I mean I am stronger—but I wouldn't hold it against you," he was smiling—almost laughing—because the situation was a funny joke and not reality. It had to be.
"Hey, FRIDAY, Mr. Stark is being a little difficult, think you could help?"
The AI said nothing, but obligingly overrode the protocols on the suit and lifted the Iron Man mask.
Peter blinked, positive that the next time he opened his eyes there would be color in Tony's face. A line of blood dribbled from the corner of Tony's mouth, looking like crimson ink on a sheet of bleach-white paper.
He ran his hand across the gold-titanium suit, searching for a heartbeat under the metal. When he couldn't find one, he got closer, placing his ear over the soft, dying light of the arc reactor.
"FRIDAY," Peter choked, unable to finish his sentence, but the AI was smart—of course she was, she was a part of Tony—and opened up the rest of the suit without Peter even having to ask.
He noticed the sharp angles of Tony's ribs, pressing against his skin in an irregular alignment. His abdomen was covered in a watercolor pattern of angry red and dark purple as blood oozed into his stomach cavity.
He didn't have much time, he had to get Tony out of the city before more things came to attack or he bled out. He wasn't sure which would come first.
"It's not that bad, it's not that bad," he whispered to himself on repeat, desperately, not sure if he was trying to convince Tony or FRIDAY or himself.
Thanos broke his trance, finally descending on Peter with a look that was equal parts pity and regret as the kid sprawled over Tony defensively.
"He tried so hard to be invincible, but he was only a man. This is where being a hero ends, child," he said, motioning to the lifeless man on the ground, "you gave me an option to walk away, and in the name of balance, I'm going to give you the same."
Peter winced as the frenzied reactions of the other Avengers flooded the comms, Stark's silence and its dark implication freezing an iciness into their veins.
"Stark."
"No."
"Tony, talk to us."
"Tones."
"Come on, Stark."
"Dammit Stark, for once in your life I'm begging you to just say something."
The harshness of the battle came blaring back. Metal on metal, bricks on asphalt, the roar of weapons being fired at aliens that only seemed to multiply.
Amid punches and grunts, the superheroes pushed through to their fallen leader, their breaths collectively hitching when they saw Thanos looming over the kid. Behind him Stark laid, unmoving, on the ground.
"I'm not leaving him," Peter challenged, arms flared in front of Tony possessively.
"Child, this is the last chance I'm going to give you. Don't mistake foolishness for heroism."
"He was always the hero," Peter whispered, standing taller, "and I told you I'm not leaving."
"Your blind loyalty is endearing," Thanos said flatly, "but entirely ignorant. I have great respect for Tony Stark. His strength of will is fascinating, especially for a mortal. But your devotion to something so ephemeral, so insignificant in relation the complexity and vastness of the universe is nothing more than childish naïveté. No man is worth dying for."
The giant stepped closer, his steps rattling the ground, but Peter didn't falter.
"He didn't think so."
Thanos laughed, "and that is his weakness. He's dead because of it. Now child, tell me, do you think you were worth that?"
Peter's knees buckled under the weight of his statement. Tony was dead. Because of him, Tony was dead.
The rest of the team began pouring onto the scene, aliens lapping at their heels.
They divided themselves instinctively, most of them going to form a wall around Stark and the kid.
Despite their combined efforts, however, with everyone in one spot, the teeth-baring aliens were quickly surrounding them.
The Hulk slammed down on Thanos himself, taking him to ground before the green monster was rolled onto his back and sent skidding into a mess of cars and rubble. Thor moved to help him, swinging his axe at the purple giant, followed closely by Captain America.
"Kid, I need you in the air, it's too dangerous on the ground," Rogers said tightly, looking at Peter—still frozen next to Tony—like he might break at any second.
A furious passion dispersed throughout his entire body. He would not, physically could not, stand by as another parent died. Not again.
"All due respect, Captain, but I barely listen to him," he stressed, looking at the man lying helplessly on the ground, his eyes brimming with hot tears and an angry rage. "I can't let him die like this. I'm getting that stone."
Before Steve could protest, Peter Parker flung himself into the giant, making contact with his horrendous chin before hurling himself at him again.
"Your efforts are useless. The stone is bound to me by my sacrifice," Thanos bellowed, "a soul for a s-," his monologue was cut short by Thor's axe being lodged into his gut. The giant grunted, ripping the weapon out and letting the dead weight drop to the ground, shaking Peter off of him in the process.
A soul for a soul.
He had an idea.
Captain America watched, stunned, as Peter lifted the huge hunk of metal from the ground like it was a toy.
"The juvenile is wielding my axe," Thor stuttered, his cry causing a few of the other Avengers to turn their heads for a split second.
"You took something from me," Peter heaved, firing a web at a nearby building to gain momentum, swinging the blade above his head, "and now I'm taking something of yours."
There was a blur of red and blue and gold as Peter flew across the air, the axe cracking right into Thanos' knuckle, and then a blast of orange light lit up the sky.
The aliens dropped to the ground where they stood, and Thanos stumbled backwards before he too fell in a heap, the last of the power from the infinity stones finally stripped from him.
And Peter, Peter just looked so small. The burst had thrown him nearly twenty feet, and he was coiled into a ball on the ground, trembling.
Rhodes and Steve made it over to him first, Cap's heart dropping when he checked for breathing, as the kid could only inhale in short, shallow breaths, and they were becoming fewer and farther apart by the second.
Mantis stepped forward slowly to read his emotions, but jumped back suddenly as if she'd been burned, her face warped.
"He lives, but he is in agony. He feels immense loss," she said, taking a deep breath before gathering the courage to step toward the boy again, "he grieves... he grieves for his father."
And then a dozen superheroes watched, horrified, as the child turned to ash.
Peter woke up to a dim sunset and water pooling around his ankles. He remembered this place.
"Hey, kid," Tony whispered, appearing in front of him.
His eyes dilated, still red and swollen, and he blinked once. Then twice.
When Tony didn't disappear, he collapsed into him, sending both of them tumbling into the water.
There were no words, just wet tears and broken sobs as Tony wrapped his arms around Peter, holding him securely, like his arms were the only thing keeping Peter from floating away.
"I'm so proud of you, Pete," he pulled tighter, Peter's head burrowing into his chest, "and I don't have a lot of time, so I'm going to make this quick."
Peter's shallow breaths were hoarse, occasionally interrupted by his garbled blubbering.
"I didn't have much of a dad when I was growing up, and he didn't do the whole expressing affection thing. I never knew he even cared about me until he actually said it, post-mortem, in a video—after I was sufficiently old and emotionally debilitated. I don't want to make the same mistake with you."
"Even though I know I'm only about three percent responsible for how you turned out... Pete, I'm incredibly lucky for getting to be a part of your life, and I'm ridiculously, obnoxiously proud of the person you are. You are everything I ever wanted to be. Bless Rhodey's little heart, because he has to listen to me brag about you all the time."
"You're our future, kid. When I think of what's coming next... all I see is you. You're going to be at the forefront of a new era, ushering in the change that this world needs, and someday you're going to blow us all away."
Teardrops clung to the tips of Tony's eyelashes, soaking into Peter's hair as he rested his cheek on the top of the boy's head.
Peter was sniffling now, pulling back slightly and smearing the back of his hand as he tried, unsuccessfully, to wipe away the snot.
"B-but, you're going to be there too, r-right? I h-have you now and I-I-I c-can't let g-go," he wheezed, hiccups raking through his chest.
"I'm sorry," Tony whispered, and Peter searched his eyes, which were just as red and speckled with tears as his own.
He was hyperventilating now, his breaths coming out in raggedy staccato notes.
"No," he pleaded desperately.
"You can't stay here," Tony explained, but Peter couldn't accept that. He couldn't come this close and just leave Tony all over again. The anger and frustration and overwhelming unfairness squeezed at his chest and strangled at his throat.
"You shouldn't even be here. You shouldn't have... you should've just... why?" His words had the soundness of a toddler's, and were muddled even further by his unrestrained cries.
"Pete, you gave me something to fight for, to protect—someone to love—even after I thought I thought I'd lost everything. If I can know... if the way they remember me is by seeing you, then that's more than enough for me. My solace only comes from knowing that you'll be able to take over for me. You'll be a better hero than I ever could. I can't defend the people I love forever; I can't defend Earth forever, but you have the ability to make sure they outlive me after I'm gone. I have absolute faith in you."
Flecks of red spattered his vision and he didn't even realize it, but his hands were pounding against Tony's chest.
"Sh, Pete, it's okay, you're okay," Tony soothed, pulling Peter in again, wrapping his arms around him like a restraint until the boy stopped fighting and went slack in his arms.
"I don't want to go, don't make me go, I c-can't lose my d-dad again, Mr. Stark, I can't."
Both of them were shaking, their hearts throbbing in a miserable harmony.
Peter was seeing the bright orange light again.
"Tony," he cried desperately.
"I love you, kid," was his response.
And then he let go.
Peter appeared, quivering, next to Starks' motionless body.
"How-," Nat asked, but Quill was talking over her.
"Guys... did we just win?"
The team snapped over to him, where Thanos' body had been, but all that was left was a puff of dust.
"I'm giving up on trying to understand how these stupid stones work," Clint muttered.
Peter wasn't listening to anyone, though, because the familiar rhythm of a heartbeat was pulsating under his fingertips.
Tony's eyes opened slowly, adjusting to the light. When he could finally see, about fifteen costumed adults were staring down at him.
Everyone reacted all at once, reaching for the pair, a million questions on their tongues.
"Oh, good God, take me back. It was so much quieter there," Tony groaned, still laying in the bed of metal that was his suit.
"You sacrificed yourself. That's why I could separate him from the stone," Peter mumbled.
"Actually, that makes quite a lot of sense...," Strange began.
"Hey, doc? I know you have a degree in, like, witchcraft and voodoo and shit, but the rest of us barely graduated high school so can we stop pretending that any of this actually makes sense? Stark made a boom, then the little punk kid made a boom, and now the big purple guy is gone."
Strange frowned as if to argue with Wilson, then decided against it.
Besides, the only people anyone was paying attention to were Tony and the sniveling kid draped across his chest like a parasite.
"Hey, pal, you know that I literally just saw you, right? It was this kinda this whole big thing, we had a nice chat-," Tony tried to smirk, but Peter just cinched tighter around him.
And despite Tony's best efforts to appear steady and composed in front of his team, no one missed the wet sheen pooling at his lower lashline.
"Okay, Pete, since you seem keen on staying glued to me, how about you at least help your old man up," Tony grunted, trying to reach for Peter's hand.
"Tony, that might not be the best idea," about three people argued all at once.
In seconds, Strange was on the ground, lightly nudging Peter aside as he felt the man for broken bones and lifting his shirt to survey for internal injuries.
"Easy, wizard, there are kids around," Tony provoked, though it came out breathy and laced with pain.
He waited for the doctor's sharp retort, for someone to laugh, but it didn't come. The only thing that met him was a sweeping darkness.
When the light finally came back it was bright and white.
Across the room a makeshift couch—just some chairs pushed together—held a snoring Peter, sandwiched between his aunt and Tony's fiancé.
His head was leaned against May's shoulder, one of his arms propped under his forehead while the other arm was stretched toward the woman on the other side of him, a hand closed tightly around hers.
Tony shifted in his bed, the movement causing the stiff sheets to rustle against his body, and Peter's head shot up frantically.
"Calm down, crazy-eyes, it's just me."
"Sorry," he said a little too loudly, quickly realizing that two of the room's co-inhabitants were still very much asleep. He lifted himself gently before hurriedly crossing the room.
"My, uh, senses have been a little touchy lately. Anxiety, I think." The kid was squirming, fidgeting against his wrinkled clothes and pulling at the greasy, tangled mop of hair on top of his head.
"Pete, are you okay?"
"I'm fine, I'm fine, I was just—worried, you know? Because you died, and then you were alive again and then we thought you died again but you were just really injured and then you almost died in surgery and then... oh my god, what am I doing, are you okay?"
He grimaced, "Pete, breathe. Yes, I'm fairly certain I'm going to live, unfortunately."
Peter nodded, but his hands were rubbing up and down the sides of his pant legs fretfully.
"Hey," he said softly, sliding his body over a few inches before pointedly looking at the vacancy he'd created, "sit."
The boy obeyed, but sat as close to the edge as possible, fiddling nervously with his hands in his lap. He was turned away from Tony, obscuring his face from the man's view.
"Pete, look at me. Please."
It took a second, but eventually he scooted a bit closer and rotated his body, and Tony realized why he'd been hiding.
Peter forced a smile, wiping his eyes with his fingertips.
"I'm right here, kid. I'm not going anywhere," he reassured, patting the kid's leg lightly.
Peter bit his lip and inhaled sadly. "You can't promise that."
Tony hated that the kid was right, that as much as he wanted to, he couldn't promise him anything. He'd cheated death so many times already that each new dangerous encounter had to be at least ten times more likely to claim his life than the last.
"I don't want to lose you," the boy whispered, swallowing thickly.
Tony lifted himself up, straining against the wires connected to his chest and arms, to gently rest a hand on Peter's shoulder.
"It's unfair, really. I was kind of banking on my speech in the soul world to be my last hurrah. You were supposed to hear that in some kind of kickass inner, montage-y soliloquy right at the make-or-break moment. I've had it in my back pocket for months now, because I'm nothing if not prepared."
When Peter said nothing, Tony leaned his head back against the wall of pillows and sighed.
"Look, what I'm trying to say is that I'm off-script now. And... you're right, I can't promise you that I'm going to be around forever."
At this, Peter's sniffles became more rapid, convulsing through his chest, and Tony had to look away.
"But I can promise that I meant what I said earlier. I'm proud of you. You mean so much to me," he said, looking anywhere but the kid's bloodshot eyes, "and from now on I'm going to start saying those things more often, because maybe this whole... situation... is someone's twisted way of telling me that I need to embrace this role, with you, and not try to push it away. But, God, Pete, the idea of—of being that person for you—it terrifies me."
"I'm sorry," Peter whispered, but Tony shook his head vigorously.
"Kid, stop that. You've got nothing to be sorry for," he said, patting the unoccupied piece of bed closer to his side.
Peter stared at Tony before gently sliding into the space that he'd left for him, feeling the wall of pillows against his back and letting it ground him.
When he finally calmed down some, he started talking again. "No, I mean... you know, what I said earlier," the cadence of his voice quickly increased again, rushing the words together, "I didn't... I mean I did but you don't—it doesn't have to mean, I'm just, uh," at this point he was spitting out near-incoherent syllables, and Tony stopped him with a hand over his mouth.
"Pete, breathe."
The kid closed his eyes and took a breath in, feeling it all the way in his diaphragm before releasing it.
"I know you know that I kind of called you dad."
Tony raised his eyebrow at him. "Perhaps."
"Does that freak you out? Because in my defense I thought you were dying and I was scared and, and I just needed to tell you in case... you know. But I can take it back, if it's going to make this weird."
Tony's hands habitually massaged his temples, nursing the headache that resulted from Peter's practice of shoving twelve different thoughts into one barely intelligible aggregate.
"First—maybe we need to get you in to see someone about this anxiety thing. Which is completely fine, and normal, but it's killing me to see you like this." His hand left his head to rest soothingly on Peter's arm.
"Second—yes it freaks me out, but it's not because I don't want this. I just—linear algebra and thermodynamics and particle physics... all of those are easier to wrap my brain around than this whole 'dad' thing."
Peter managed a weak laugh, because he didn't believe him for a second.
He sat on Tony's bed, ingrained into the man's side, where Tony's arm had moved from just resting on Peter's to enveloping his shoulders, and Peter didn't fight his embrace.
"I know you'll never admit it... but I think it kinda comes naturally to you."
Tony snorted. "Yea, well, that's just years of practice in looking cool under pressure." Except he looked anything but cool in that room, lips pressed tightly together in an attempt to pull himself together. Being open and vulnerable—with anyone—was never his talent, and he missed his sunglasses.
Thankfully, his face was safely obscured from Peter's view and he hid the way his fingers trembled by messing with Peter's curls.
"If it makes you feel better, I don't have to call you dad. It feels weird anyway. The whole 'mom' and 'dad' thing was a concept that I never really got to use and it's just... kind of foreign, I guess." He glanced across the room at his aunt, still asleep on her portion of the chair.
Tony followed his gaze.
"She's been there for as long as I can remember and I've never called her 'mom'. It feels like forcing something we've never needed. She knows who she is, to me," he said, casting an affectionate look at the woman, her face hidden under frizzy, three-day-old curls, "...and I just hope that you know what you mean to me, too."
Peter felt the way Tony's heart pumped a little faster in his chest, how he was breathing purposefully slow.
Tony raised his hand to his mouth, biting the edge of his thumbnail, his index finger moving against his cheek. "You know, I had this dream—right before this whole shit storm started—where I had a kid. It was so vivid that I had to tell Pep about it because... I was so sure that it was real. And then I was on that donut ship headed straight into the star-studded abyss and all I could think about was how twisted it was that, after being haunted by the idea for years, I was finally ready to be a dad—and I was going to be robbed of the chance. I've never been that scared to die before."
His hand dropped from his mouth to his lap as he bit his tongue and looked to the ceiling, inhaling steadily. He laughed drily, "When I held my baby, I could see its little face, looking at me with all the trust in the world—like I could do no wrong. I've never felt that overwhelming sense of responsibility before, and I didn't think I'd ever feel it again. And then your rebellious, teenaged ass disobeyed my orders and collapsed in my arms and your stupid little lamb face stared up at me and that beautiful and horrible feeling came flooding back. When you were gone, I felt that. I'll always remember the feeling. That was real."
"Maybe I'll have a baby or two someday, and you'll be right there, stealing its little heart and helping Pepper keep me sane. Or maybe that's not in the cards for an old guy like me. Whatever happens, though, I've made my peace. At the end of the day I already have this horribly danger-prone handful of a kid that follows me around unconditionally, reminds me of a tinier, better version of myself, and is single-handedly my greatest source of pride and gray hair. It doesn't matter what you call me, you've always been my kid."
They let the quiet fill the room for a few seconds, listening to gentle rhythm of snores from across the room.
Peter's small voice was the first to break the silence. "Do I really remind you of you?"
"All the time."
"I feel so fulfilled right now," he said lightly, and Tony could just picture the stupid grin that must've been eating his face. But he was grateful, because he knew Peter was taking the emotional weight off the situation—telling Tony he had heard him while distracting him from the exposed vulnerability he had just displayed.
"Let's not get ahead of ourselves; some people would say that's not a good thing."
Peter rolled his eyes. "Yea, well, I think it's the greatest thing anyone's ever said to me."
"You don't have to be a kiss ass now just because I almost died," Tony said, but the twinkle of a smile lit his eyes.
"Mhm," was Peter's answer, a yawn slipping past his lips.
"Alright, kiddo, no more talking. Time to get some sleep."
"Ha, m'not leavin'," he tried to say assertively, but another exhausted yawn took over.
Tony rolled his eyes. "Yea, I'm aware. I know you better than that," he said, pulling the crumpled sheet and thick, surplus blanket over Peter's legs, "that's why I didn't tell you leave, I told you to sleep."
He tried to protest, but he was more exhausted than he let on because within minutes the heaviness of his head was nested into Tony's chest, lulled to sleep and comforted by the steady measure of his heartbeat.
When May woke up, bleary-eyed and dazed, to the scene in front of her, she quickly shook the woman next to her.
Peter was drooling into Tony's chest, shrouded by the man's arms, while Tony's cheek rested lazily on the top of Peter's head.
They snored in perfect time with the each other, as May and Pepper shared a chuckle and a knowing glance.
Like father, like son.