Chapter Text
Part 3
Tony dragged Pepper over with him to Peter’s birthday party. It wasn’t really a party. He didn’t invite any friends ‘cause he didn’t even go to school after having to go to the hospital too many times a year, meaning he didn’t have friends to invite.
But there were Sophie and Will there, along with the other kids in the group home. That was seemingly good enough for Peter, who looked a lot better ever since he got released from the hospital. His skin was full of color and his eyes full of light. He was still too skinny, but at least Sophie and Will informed Tony that he was willing to eat a little more now, which was an improvement.
“I can’t believe you’re making me do this,” muttered Pepper from her seat on the sofa, her hands tapping on the paper-wrap of the gift she got Peter. “This is definitely not in my job description.”
Snorting, Tony watched the kids that ate from the birthday cake, Peter getting an extra large piece and helping the toddler who was making a mess with the chocolate cake.
“No, it’s more of a… friends-family type of thing,” he told her, “not job related. I wouldn’t want to make you do anything against your will. You could have said no.”
“I did say no, Tony.”
“When? I didn’t hear you.”
“When you were choosing not to listen to what I had to say,” snapped Pepper.
Tony glanced at the gift she brought. “Still got the kid a gift,” he pointed out.
He waved at Peter when the boy, mouth filled to the brim with chocolate cake, smiled and waved at him happily from his place. His heart melted at the sight and his hand shot up to his arc reactor. No, it wasn’t melting… it was more like… pressing. Squeezing. Slightly itching.
“What’d you get him?” he said, turning to face Pepper again. “It’s not a competition or anything, but I would like to know for certain that my gift is better.”
The woman rolled her eyes. “You’ll have to wait, Tony. I know it’s hard for you to comprehend, but you’ll just have to hold on with the others until Peter opens his presents,” she said, slight mirth in her voice, and then walked toward the gathering around the cake to chat with Sophie and take a small piece for herself.
Tony watched her and then turned his attention toward the little boy that ran toward him, a giant grin on his face and a piece of cake in his hand.
“Hey, Dad! I got you some because they were going to eat it all and I know you didn’t get any cake,” he said and handed Tony the cake.
The man stared down at the chocolate dripping from the cake and his lips quirked up.
“Rosa tried to eat my part because she claimed hers was too small, but I only gave her half of it because I didn’t want not to get anything. But then Mikey said it was going to infect her and she dropped it on the floor. I think Will is upset about it.” He sat down next to Tony and his eyes trained on Pepper talking to Sophie. “Why did Pepper come?”
Scrunching up his nose, Tony glanced at his kid. “Why not?”
“’Cause she doesn’t like me.”
With a frown, Tony’s eyes turned back to Pepper. “Why would she not like you? Why would you think that? She even got you a present.”
“She did?” Peter perked up. “But she’s always so quiet around me. And she walks away quickly after I enter a room. I really, really think she doesn’t like me.”
“It’s complicated.”
Peter looked at him curiously. “Normal complicated, or your kind of complicated?” he said. Tony lifted an eyebrow at the words and turned to face the smiling boy. Peter shrugged. “Your life is weirder than most. Just saying.” Then he took a bite from Tony’s cake. “Are you gonna eat that?”
With a snort, Tony handed the cake over to Peter. “Here, you finish this. I’m gonna be right back.” And he got up from the couch and made his way to the small bathroom down the hallway.
He closed the door behind him and stared at his reflection in the mirror before his hand tentatively lifted the edge of his shirt, pulling it up until his chest was exposed. In the center was the arc reactor, glowing as usual, but around it were strange patterns on Tony’s skin, slightly elevated from the skin, if only a little. He gulped and pulled the reactor out of his chest.
With a thudding heart, Tony took out its palladium core and stared at the rusty object. That wasn’t good. He’s already replaced two of them just that week. So far it didn’t do anything other than run out, but now… well, the crisscross on his chest wasn’t a pretty sight, to put it mildly. Nevertheless, Tony didn’t really have anything to do about it, especially not when he was at his son’s birthday party. He could deal with this later.
So, heart hammering in his chest, Tony walked back to the living room after splashing some water at his face to keep himself from panicking. He found Peter surrounded by all of his presents, his hands working quickly to unwrap Pepper’s present first. Tony leaned against the doorframe and glanced at Pepper, finding her looking at Peter with a genuine smile, her hands holding each other tightly in her lap, like she was worried he might not like the gift.
She needn’t have worried, of course. Once the present was revealed, Peter squealed and quickly put it over his head and hand—apparently, Pepper got the kid an Iron Man mask and a gauntlet to match. Tony smirked at the kid’s excitement. He looked so happy, his little body jumping up to hug Pepper and thank her profoundly for the amazing gift.
The woman hesitated a little before hugging him right back, her eyes falling on Tony. She didn’t hide her smile from him, though, and just wished Peter a happy birthday.
After that, Peter didn’t pull down the mask for the rest of the gift-opening. He did let go of the gauntlet for now, seeing as he couldn’t hold the presents properly with the glove on, but no matter what, he wasn’t willing to let go of the mask. He had it on as he opened Elize’s gift and Matteo’s gift and Sophie and Will’s gift…
And then he turned to look at Tony with his wide eyes shining through the slits of the mask. He held up a little envelope that Tony had brought the kid for his birthday, and Tony couldn’t see the kid’s face with the mask on, but he could imagine his confusion at the strange gift.
“Wait, open that one first,” said Tony, pointing toward a different wrapped gift that he also got the kid.
Peter didn’t need to be told twice. He went for it immediately and tore the wrapping-paper easily, pulling out his gift with a gasp.
“Chemistry Lab?” he read the words on the box and his eyes took in the image of tubes and liquids on the box before he turned his masked face back up to Tony. “You got me a chemistry kit? That’s so cool!” he called happily.
He went to open it right then and there, but Will cleared his throat pointedly and Peter moaned before agreeing to put the kit away with the other open gifts, complaining about wanting to play with it now.
“What’s this, then?” said Peter, waving the envelope in the air, his head tilted to the side.
“Why don’t you open it and find out, kiddo?”
Shrugging, Peter tore the envelope open and then pulled out the tickets inside. He stared at them and then up at Tony. When he looked back down he actually took off his new mask, his eyes running over everything written down quickly, an amazed expression on his face.
“What is it, Pete?” said Will.
The boy looked back up at Tony, and then he bounded over to Will and Sophie showing them the tickets. They gaped.
“Is this real?” said Peter, voice trembling a little as he looked up at Tony, evidently beyond incredulous.
Pepper, in her seat, smiled at Tony. She knew what was in the envelope. She helped with it, after all. She also wasn’t sure whether the kid would love it, but it looked like he was definitely speechless. Or at least dumbfounded.
Tony sniffed. “We’re renewing the Stark Expo this year,” he explained.
Matteo’s jaw dropped; Eliza mostly looked confused. The other kids just looked between Peter and Tony like they had no idea what was happening.
“It’s in New York so we weren’t sure you could come, but we talked to your doctor”—he nodded in Pepper’s direction—“and he said it should be fine,” he said and Peter’s grin widened even more. Tony was relieved. The kid liked the gift, then. “So I got you these. Both flights to New York and back, and tickets to get into the Expo. You can all go, of course, but if you don’t want to—”
Tony’s breath got knocked out of him when Peter slammed right into him, hugging him tightly with his little hands, the envelope still clutched tightly between his fingers. “Thanks, Dad,” whispered the kid.
“Yeah, okay. Happy birthday, kid.”
So… apparently, Tony was dying.
Yeah, that was a thing that was happening. The palladium core was killing him, intoxicating his blood rather quickly. He tried everything. He thought about every element, every combination, every known object in the universe that could save him.
Anything.
There was nothing, though. Jarvis and he always came to the same conclusion—Tony was dying and it would either be from the palladium or from the shards in his chest. Either way, he was a dead man walking.
And of course, since Tony Stark was nothing if not a complete moron when it came to important things and the people he cared about, he didn’t tell anyone about it apart from Jarvis. The AI was the only one who knew about the way Tony’s own invention was killing him, and he was the only one still working hard to solve the riddle that was Tony’s deadly predicament. So the symptoms appeared and Tony did nothing about it except for trying to act like everything was normal.
He pretended he didn’t have this complex doodle on his chest that expanded from one day to the next, taking more and more space on the man’s skin. He pretended his eyes weren’t burning, and that he wasn’t suffering from migraines that prevented him from thinking clearly—which was probably the main reason as to why he wasn’t talking to anyone about it, really.
He ignored the confusion that sometimes took hold of him, or the taste of metal in his mouth. He ignored the dizziness and the ache in his muscles and nerves. He ignored his spiraling depression and the difficulty he had when he simply tried to breathe. He couldn’t sleep, either, and he knew his internal organs were definitely suffering as well…
But he pushed through it to try and act like everything was all right. That wasn’t to say he wasn’t planning on what would happen in the future, after he was gone.
He made another suit. A silver one, not painted. He was the only one who knew that Rhodey would be its wearer. Not even Rhodey knew about it. He decided to make Pepper the CEO of Stark Industries. It wasn’t like she didn’t deserve it; she was basically running the company already, so it was just a matter of formality, making it official.
But then again, there was the problem of the kid.
Peter could get everything from Tony—it didn’t really matter—because now they were both dying, and Tony wanted to tell the kid, but the last time Tony nearly died, Peter looked and sounded so heartbroken about his dad dying before him that Tony couldn’t bring himself to tell him. He just made sure that enough of his money would go over to Peter’s treatment; made sure he could last for as long as possible, because his kid deserved that much from him, at least.
There was this brief moment after Tony announced the beginning of the Expo, when he went through a hall and people swarmed him, asking for photos and autographs from him. He barely looked at them, just weaving between them with Happy urging him to keep on moving ahead, and with Tony taking in the pretty ladies.
He noticed a few kids standing next to the familiar Sophie, and grinned a little wider, his smile turning a slightly more genuine. He noticed one of the older girls from the group home—Courtney, was it? She was around sixteen if he wasn’t mistaken, but according to Peter she was mostly out with her friends—standing with a small poster of Iron Man in her hand. Next to her stood little Rosa—the nine-year-old—also holding up a poster for Tony to sign.
Tony scribbled down his signature quickly for the two girls and then smirked at the little kid standing next to them. He was wearing a white shirt with the Expo’s logo printed on it under an open dark coat, a dark pair of pants and old sneakers. The dead giveaway, though, was the Iron Man mask he was wearing. Brown eyes shining through the slits of the mask.
“Hi!” he called cheerfully.
With a genuine smile, Tony patted the boy’s helmet. He chuckled gleefully.
“Hey there, buddy,” said Tony, trying not to show just how much the kid meant to him, just in case someone would take a picture of this and post it online.
He waved goodbye to the rest of the kids that were next to the three of them, Sophie and Will watching over them all. They waved right back at Tony, and then the man was whisked away by Happy, who didn’t even seem to recognize Peter with his mask on. Oh, well, at least Tony was good enough at recognizing his own kid at this point that he could tell it was him.
After that, Tony had to get to Washington D.C for the Congressional hearing about Iron Man. Honestly, it was the stupidest thing he had to do and he was going to waste his precious, limited time on this earth sitting in a courtroom, listening to Senator Stern droning on and on about how dangerous Iron Man was and how the suit was a weapon, when Tony very much didn’t see it that way. Not in the least.
The suit was his property, and it was for defense. It was to protect people—it wasn’t a weapon in his eyes. And they were all delusional if they thought Tony would actually let them get their slimy little hands on his suit—whether he was dying or not.
Hammer joining the celebration was just the stupidest thing Tony has ever witnessed, honestly. He couldn’t help but feel like he might drown in this sea of ridiculousness that was swarming everyone else. If they brought Hammer over to try and convince everyone that the suit was a weapon, they were genuinely all morons. Idiots. And Tony proved it by showing Hammer’s failed attempts at creating his own Iron Man armor.
And then trying to make Rhodey testify against him? That was a low blow that even Rhodey tried to evade by making a point of telling everyone that he didn’t think Iron Man was a danger to the people. At least Tony could count on his best friend, eh?
All in all, the hearing didn’t go too badly by Tony’s standards. He knew that Pepper left in the middle of it, probably sick of hearing Tony’s antics and jokes in the middle of something that was (allegedly) very serious.
So yes, this explained her sour mood the next days. Also, the fact that he donated the art collection that definitely belonged to him but was apparently also hers (in some weird… emotional way?) to the…
“Boy Scouts of America,” Tony told her.
Pepper glared at him as he threw a hologram away. “…Boy Scouts of America?”
She sounded offended.
Tony glanced at her for a moment and then turned back to his holograms. “Yes. It is a worthwhile organization. I didn’t physically check the crates but, basically, yes. And it’s not our collection, it’s my collection. No offence,” he said.
They kept on walking between the holograms.
“No, you know what? I think I’m actually entitled to say our collection, considering the time that I put in, over ten years, curating that,” she said sternly.
Then they moved on to different subjects, apparently. Tony was half listening to Pepper as she talked to him about important things, half thinking about what to do, what to do, what to do when his head was already pretty clouded by the palladium poisoning.
“I need you to wear a surgical mask until you’re feeling better. Is that okay?” said Tony to Pepper when she kept on talking, clearly suffering from a cold; even if a small, weak one.
It was definitely better than what Tony had, that was for sure, but another symptom of the poisoning was that Tony’s immune system was failing and he really didn’t want to spend the rest of his life with a stuffed nose.
“That’s rude,” commented Pepper, clearly taking offence.
They moved past the holograms and Tony kept on walking forward, Pepper following close behind. He glanced back at her every once in a while.
“There’s nothing more important to me than the Expo,” he told her. And despite it sounding a little like a joke, Tony was serious. Because even if he was slowly dying in a horrible way, the Expo provided Peter with a trip to New York where he could enjoy everything that was related to science and that was probably more amazing than anything he could do back in his room. “It’s my primary point of concern. I don’t know why you’re—”
“The Expo is your ego gone crazy,” said Pepper.
And, well, she wasn’t wrong there, per-se. True, Tony was trying to change… but now it seemed kind of hopeless and useless anyway. Why work on himself when he wasn’t going to get to live in this world for much longer, right? So yes, he always had a problem with his ego bursting. Now he just… fell right back into his comfort zone. The Expo helped with that.
They started bickering as Tony picked up an Iron Man art piece and replaced it with something Pepper must have chosen at some point. She tried to make him concentrate on Stark Industries related stuff. He couldn’t care less. It all just didn’t matter to him anymore. He even told her as much to her face, commenting about how boring it was.
And then he hopped off the counter he was on to stand face to face with Pepper. “You do it.”
“I do what?”
“Excellent idea. I just figured this out,” Tony kept on going. “You run the company. Pepper, I need you to run the company.”
It was a lie, of course. This whole thing was planned. Maybe not all of it—he hasn’t really come up with the fine details—but this was always the plan. Hand the company over to Pepper. She would run it, and Tony would be done with it. He would still be a part of the company, just not everything would be on him. It’ll be easier when he’ll… when he’ll… yeah.
She nodded, clearly not understanding. “Yeah, I’m trying to run the company—”
“Well, stop trying to do it and do it.”
“—you will not give me the information—”
“—I’m not asking you to try—”
“—In order to—”
“—I’m asking you to physically do it. I need you to do it.”
“I am trying to do it—”
Tony cut her off. “Pepper, you’re not listening to me!”
“No, you are not listening to me.”
“I’m trying to make you CEO!” he raised his voice and she finally fell quite; eyes wide as she stared at him, clearly shocked by this declaration. “Why won’t you let me?”
She blinked and asked him if he’s been drinking. He leaned back a little, still looking at her. He wanted to be offended, but Pepper knew him—most of his stupid decisions were made after he had way too much to drink. It was a legitimate suspicion to have, even if this specific decision wasn’t particularly stupid.
“Uh, chlorophyll,” he said. Then he put his hands on her arms and looked into her eyes. “I hereby irrevocably appoint you chairman and CEO of Stark Industries effective immediately. Yeah, done deal. Okay?”
He turned away from her and walked toward Dum-E that brought him a plate with a bottle of champagne and two glasses.
“I’ve actually given this a fair amount of thought, believe it or not. Doing a bit of headhunting, so to speak, trying to figure out who a worthy successor would be. And then I realized it’s you. It’s always been you.”
He started pouring the champagne and Pepper sat down, staring at him in shock, speechless. At least he got to see her this caught off guard before he died, right? Small victories.
“I thought there’d be a legal issue, but actually I’m capable of appointing my successor. My successor being you.” He handed her one of the glasses and she broke into a stunned smile, her hand hovering over the glass. “Congratulations,” said Tony. “Take it, just take it,” he added when she didn’t take the glass.
She finally did, and he sat down next to her.
Pepper stared at him. “I don’t know what to think,” she muttered, voice no longer accusing or harsh, but actually gentle and slightly trembling.
“Don’t think, drink. There you go,” he said and Pepper chuckled as they both clanked their glasses together before drinking. Pepper looked absolutely joyful at the new development, which was a relief, but all Tony could feel was the dizziness. And now he was drinking, as if that was going to help him somehow.
He wished Peter were there, but the kid was still in New York. Peter couldn’t visit him or hang out with him at the group home. Malibu and New York were too far away from each other. Sure, he could use the Iron Man suit, but that was definitely not something he was going to do. The kid was having fun at the Expo and Tony was going to let him.
Somehow, things turned from bad to worse in a matter of days. Suddenly Tony wasn’t only dying—he also had a new assistant named Natalie Rushman, a strained relationship with just about everyone he knew.
Oh, and there was this Ivan Vanko guy, who managed to build an arc reactor on his own and just came to Monaco to taunt Tony with it after Tony had told the world that nobody would be able to develop this technology in the next fifteen to twenty years except for him so they had nothing to worry about.
Let’s not forget about him, yeah?
He scheduled to meet the guy in prison, where he was being held after Tony apprehended him, just barely managing to not get himself killed. There was a voice in his head telling him to be wary of the guy. He didn’t know Ivan. He didn’t know exactly what he wanted from Tony and why he really went to all this effort.
Was it to just make Tony look like a fool? Because that has been established long ago. Tony Stark was an idiot when it really came down to it. Sure, he had the sharpest mind in the world, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t stupid about a lot of things. He was probably the most emotionally constipated person on planet earth.
Sitting in the car parked near the prison, Tony stared at the steering wheel. He could have had Happy accompany him, drive him, take him here. But he didn’t want him to be here, because something felt off and Tony was already drowning in his own mistakes to have someone else close by when it all blew up in his face. He needed to do this alone.
And sure, maybe this decision was made by a mind that couldn’t think clearly and that melted more and more with each passing day, but Tony still acted according to his own damaged decisions. So he left Happy with Pepper and Rushman, and drove over to the prison on his own.
His cellphone rang and Tony glanced down at it. He left it on the shotgun seat, not expecting anyone to actually call him. Did something happen to Pepper? Was Happy okay? His heart slowed down a little when he saw Sophie’s ID staring back at him. Letting one hand slip off the wheel, Tony picked up the device and accepted the call, putting it against his ear.
“Tony Stark speaking.”
“Dad?”
Tony’s eyes closed at the young voice on the other end of the line and he couldn’t help but imagine those charged whips being hurled at him again; buzzing with so much electricity, it would have cut him to pieces on the spot. He was going to die. He nearly died. And it scared him—more than it should have, considering he was already on the highway to hell. Maybe heaven, though Tony was fairly sure that wasn’t in the cards for him.
If such things even existed, which Tony doubted, too.
Taking in a deep breath, Tony tried to keep his voice as light as possible. “Hey, kid. Did you steal Sophie’s phone? Where are you? Did something happen?”
“I saw the news,” said Peter, voice small. Tony winced but the kid couldn’t see it. “I know this man attacked you. I know you nearly died.” He took in a shuddering breath and when he spoke up next, his voice was shaky and broken. “I know you still are dying,” he stated.
“What?”
Peter sniffed. “Palladium poisoning? I know about it, you know. I’m smart,” he said, the words clearly strained.
Tony’s hand balled into a fist and he thought about how hard he’s been trying to keep this a secret from everyone. He didn’t want anyone to know about this. He should have known his kid would figure it out on his own. Tony has seen the kid’s records. He knew that despite not going to school, the kid read on his own and explored everything he could get his hands on. He was smart, just like Tony.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
The accusation rattled Tony and he could almost imagine Peter sitting in this small room, all alone because he didn’t want anyone else to overhear the conversation, hunched down over himself as he tried to understand why his dad was keeping something like this from him; why his dad wasn’t with him, telling him the truth to his face instead of allowing him to piece it all together on his own.
There was another sniffle from Peter, and Tony knew he had to pull himself together—as much as he could with his brain collapsing in on itself. “I didn’t tell anyone, kid,” he said.
“Why?”
“It’s complicated,” he said. “Tony Stark complicated,” he added.
The boy huffed out a short laugh at that before he whimpered. Tony grimaced, his eyes flitting over to the gray prison next to him. He didn’t have long before he had to get in there in order to talk to Ivan.
“Kid, I need to go talk to that man who attacked me now. I need to know what he wanted, okay? I’ll talk to you later.”
He could hear the way Peter exhaled deeply. “Ivan Vanko, right? I read about him. You should, too. It’s interesting. Don’t meet him before that,” said Peter.
Right, he should do that. He should have thought of it himself, but apparently he wasn’t in the proper mindscape at the moment to come up with actual useful ideas. At least he had Peter to help him with that.
“Right, thanks, kid.” He hesitated. “How are you feeling? Enjoying the Expo? Are you feeling sick at all?”
“I’m fine. I saw some really cool things, though, and there’s this boy that came here with his parents. He’s my age, Dad, and we stopped next to the same invention, so we started talking and he’s really nice. His parents gave Sophie their number so we could keep in touch. It was awesome.”
Tony smiled. “That’s great, bud. Try and have some more fun, okay? I’ll call you later.”
“Okay,” said Peter. “Good luck.”
Hanging up, Tony lowered the phone and then stared at the steering wheel again. “Thanks, Peter.” He whispered to the empty car and then he quickly typed on his phone to get as much information as possible about Ivan Vanko. Apparently, there were some pretty important things about the guy, indeed. Or rather, about his father, mostly. Vanko’s father and Tony’s father.
Tony opened the car’s door, ready to face the man. He had to remember to thank Peter again later.
His mind was reeling. He felt like he was running out of time. First Peter told him that he knew about the palladium and then Ivan Vanko? Yes, Tony was completely right—he didn’t want anyone with him when he got back in the car to get to the airport. He just tried to make everything stop spinning; make everything calm down.
He barely even told a thing to Pepper once he boarded the plane. Instead, Tony locked himself in the kitchen of the plane, working hard to cook for possibly the first time in his life, because it managed to take his mind off everything, if only a little.
When he presented Pepper with the end result he didn’t really expect her to eat it—he would be the first to admit that it looked more like he took a fish and hammered it down for hours instead of actually cooking it. It looked awful. But that wasn’t the point.
The point was that he wanted to get away. He knew he didn’t have much longer. He knew that soon he wouldn’t be able to hide the symptoms from Pepper and Rhodey and Happy. He knew that it wasn’t going to last for much longer. The façade was going to crack and break; they would all know, but it would be too late. It already was too late.
Which was why he wanted to go off to Venice. It didn’t really matter where they would go—he just wanted his numbered days to be with someone he cared about, in a place that wasn’t in the center of everything he was a part of.
He wanted to celebrate his last birthday party with the people who really mattered rather than a bunch of strangers Tony couldn’t care less about. He wanted Pepper to be there, and Rhodey, if possible… and Peter. God, he wanted Peter to be there, because if Peter wasn’t there, then what was even the point?
But Pepper shot him down immediately. She couldn’t leave, and as much as he tried to make her see that she could since she was now the CEO and therefore capable of doing whatever she wanted, he knew she was right.
He just appointed her the CEO of the company. People were upset about it since they thought she slept her way into the position. They thought she didn’t need to be the CEO. They thought it wasn’t right. Which… they were very much wrong about. Pepper was the perfect person to run the company, but he couldn’t make them all see her the way he did because it took him years to get to know her this well.
He didn’t have years.
So he let her be and instead focused on trying to find as much information as possible about Vanko. He couldn’t stop thinking about it. As he watched Jarvis dig as much as possible about the man in his workshop, trying to find some new piece of evidence, Tony thought back about Peter.
Because if this man could go after Tony because Tony’s dad deported his dad, then maybe he was willing to go after Peter, too. Maybe he was going to go after the kid even after Tony was dead, just to take revenge?
And then Rhodey got there and started rambling about the army knocking down on Tony’s door and taking away his suits and Tony just couldn’t… he couldn’t think. He was barely even able to concentrate on what Jarvis had to say. And apparently something showed on his face when Rhodey looked at him, because his friend looked concerned. Tony tried to still avoid this discussion. He was going to go upstairs and deal with whatever it was Rhodey was talking about.
But then he stumbled and Rhodey helped him stand up and, well, he couldn’t hide it anymore. So he made Rhodey take him toward his desk and the palladium cores. When Tony pulled out his arc reactor to replace the cores, Rhodey stared at the smoke coming out of it. “Is that supposed to be smoking?” he said.
“If you must know, it’s neutron damage,” he explained, voice quieter than usual, his bravado gone. He couldn’t stand, much less put on a full-on act together for the sake of his friend. He handed Rhodey the arc reactor and his friend took it hesitantly. “It’s from the reactor wall.”
Rhodey pulled out the core and stared at its rusty and rotten form. Tony suppressed a cringe.
“You had this in your body?” said Rhodey, looking put out.
But instead of answering, Tony found himself speechless. He remembered Peter asking him if he told anyone, but how could he tell? How could he let someone who clearly cared about Tony know that he was about to die? So he just turned around, his back to Rhodey, and listened as the man replaced the cores in the reactor.
“And how about the high-tech crossword puzzle on your neck?” pressed Rhodey.
On his neck? Has it really gone this far? Tony had to keep it hidden. Maybe with makeup. Maybe he could cover it up.
“Road rash,” lied Tony, looking back at Rhodey. He could tell his friend didn’t believe him, but he wasn’t about to tell anyone. He wasn’t about to tell Rhodey, because he couldn’t. He just couldn’t do it.
“Thank you,” he told Rhodey and took the arc reactor back before attaching it to his chest again. He grabbed a bottle and started drinking from it after glancing back at Rhodey, who was just standing there, staring at him. “What are you looking at?”
“I’m looking at you. You wanna do this whole lone gunslinger act and it’s unnecessary. You don’t have to do this alone.”
“You know, I wish I could believe that. I really do,” replied Tony, closing the bottle again.
His eyes fell on the suit he had for Rhodey. He couldn’t just give it to him, he knew that. He couldn’t, because Rhodey would get even more suspicious if he did. He had to make Rhodey take it from him on his own. And that would only happen if Tony really went off the rails, right? Only if he lost it completely, that even his best friend would give up on him.
But for that he needed Rhodey to trust him one last time. So that when the time came, it would be evident he actually couldn’t trust Tony. Especially not with something as important as an Iron Man suit.
“But you’ve gotta trust me. Contrary to popular belief, I know exactly what I’m doing.”
At least, he hoped so.
Tony ate a donut.
Yup. He was eating a donut inside a giant donut above the donut shop in his Iron Man suit, feeling both upset and proud of himself for managing to get Rhodey to take the suit. A part of him wanted to pat himself on the back for that accomplishment. Another part wanted to break down and burn already, because he really, truly, didn’t have his best friend anymore.
He could only imagine what the reaction of the army had been; what compliments Rhodey was getting; what his friend was feeling after the fallout they had the previous night. Were they still friends? Probably not. Not that it mattered, since Tony wasn’t going to live long enough for it to mean anything.
He kept on getting calls from Sophie. Or perhaps it was Peter. Tony couldn’t tell. He only knew that he couldn’t answer those. It was early in the morning and he knew the news probably already showed pictures—if not videos—of the catastrophic birthday Tony had celebrated.
He was sure the kid knew that his father just went off the rails. And that was probably why the kid was calling him repeatedly. But Tony couldn’t answer because what could he possibly tell Peter? Sorry that he was a mess? Come visit next week at the funeral?
The only thing that comforted Tony about the whole situation was that he knew Peter had somewhere to go. Tony was so glad the kid didn’t live with him, because if he did, it would have ended up with the kid having to go someplace else soon since Tony wouldn’t be there anymore.
As it was, Peter still lived with Sophie and Will in the group home, so that was one positive out of the entire situation—Tony didn’t need to worry about the kid not having a place to stay.
Didn’t mean it stopped hurting, the thought of the kid having absolutely no living relatives. He hoped Pepper and Rhodey would be there for Peter once Tony died. He wanted to believe his friends would be there for his kid because he was important to Tony, but he wasn’t sure they would.
Rhodey was too upset, and Pepper was probably also mad at Tony for his antics at the party. Plus, you know, she never really liked the boy enough to spend a lot of time with him. Whenever the kid came over, she did her best to avoid him. Not because she didn’t like kids, but because she thought having Peter there was a bad idea.
“Sir!” Tony looked down at the loud voice and had to pull his sunglasses down his nose to see the man better; to make sure he was seeing right. Because the last person he expected to see during his breakdown was Nick Fury. “I’m gonna have to ask you to exit the donut!”
Tony looked up at the sky. “You’ve gotta be kidding me,” he mumbled.
He declined another call from Peter and then relented, deciding he had nothing better to do than to chat with the eye-patched pirate. He got down and entered the diner after Fury. They both ordered coffee. People stared at Tony with wide eyes, their mouths falling open at the sight of him still in his suit, before Fury sent them all glares that made them mind their own business.
“I told you I don’t wanna join your super-secret boy band,” Tony told Fury once they were sitting at a table next to a window.
His headache was worse than ever. Other than the symptoms of his poisoning, Tony also had a terrible case of hangover from all of the alcohol he must have consumed the night before. So he kept his sunglasses on even inside, and leaned his head on his hand.
Fury looked a lot more alerted than Tony, voice stronger than Tony’s. Frankly, the man’s energy this early in the morning was outrageous. It was offending to see someone so ready to start the day at this hour.
“No, no, no. See, I remember, you do everything yourself,” said Fury, probably mocking Tony. “How’s that working out for you?” added Fury, taking a sip from his takeaway cup.
Well, if he had to know—Pepper was running his company, stressed out about everything way beyond what she’d signed up for; Rhodey and Tony had a fight—an actual fight—that blew up half of Tony’s house and made Rhodey leave with one of his suits (as planned, mind you); Rushman and Happy were both safe, but didn’t even try to get in contact with Tony, probably believing he was a lost cause.
And, of course, Peter—his little boy that wasn’t even older than ten—was calling him over and over again from his guardian’s phone, and despite dying himself, he was clearly more stressed out about Tony dying before him. It felt like some kind of freaky competition of who would kick the bucket first.
Tony brought his own cup up to his lips but didn’t actually drink anything. “It’s—it’s—it’s… I’m sorry. I don’t wanna get off on the wrong foot. Do I look at the patch or the eye?” he said, evading the question. “Honestly, I’m a bit hungover. I’m not sure if you’re real or if I’m having—”
“I am very real. I’m the realest person you’re ever gonna meet,” said Fury, looking him in the eye and leaning in to get closer to Tony. When the billionaire tried to look around to find a staff member, he froze a little when Fury’s finger touched the exposed skin reaction from the palladium poisoning on his neck. “That’s not looking so good,” the man commented.
“I’ve been worse,” mumbled Tony.
And then a woman approached, wearing a leather suit that threw Tony off for a moment before he looked at her over his glasses. She seemed relaxed, her hair rolling down her shoulders.
“Huh,” he frowned. “You’re… fired.”
He took off his glasses when Natalie Rushman sat down next to Nick Fury, commenting about how he couldn’t fire her.
“Tony,” introduced Fury, “I want you to meet Agent Romanoff.”
And okay, if that was the case then Fury and his people have been keeping tabs on Tony. Which wasn’t good. It wasn’t good at all. He tried to think about whether or not Peter’s been mentioned around Rushman—no, wait. Romanoff—but he couldn’t remember.
Apparently, they attached Romanoff to him when Tony’s illness came to their attention. But Peter’s been at the Expo this entire time, and Tony was pretty sure he hasn’t mentioned his kid to the woman—spy, whatever.
“You’ve been very busy,” noted Fury. “You made your girl your CEO, you’re giving away all your stuff. You let your friend fly away with your suit. Now, if I didn’t know better—”
“You don’t know better. I didn’t give it to him—he took it.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. He took it? You’re Iron Man and he just took it? The little brother walked in there, kicked your ass and took your suit?” He turned to Romanoff with wide eyes—well, eye—faking surprise and shock. “Is that possible?”
Agent Liar kept a straight face. “Well, according to Mr. Stark’s database security guidelines,” she said, “there are redundancies to prevent unauthorized usage.”
Tony felt attacked. She checked his security? Okay, that wasn’t going to happen again. He wasn’t about to let everyone get access to the things that belonged to him. Nope. Not that it really mattered, but he didn’t like it one bit.
But, of course, Rhodey had the authorization to take the suit. Tony made sure of that. He added Rhodey to the list of people who could wear the suits. Which included Happy, Pepper and, sadly, Peter. Just in case. He was fairly certain the boy wouldn’t be able to use the suit since he was too young and small, but the suit was still going to be able to function with him inside it in case of an emergency.
Seeing as they were ready for this conversation, apparently, Tony looked from Romanoff to Fury and then down at the table. “What do you want from me?” he said, the snark gone now that he felt nothing but defeated.
Fury and Romanoff both looked down when Tony’s phone rang again. He stared at the Sophie’s name and then declined the call again. Romanoff tilted her head, and Fury squinted his eye a little.
Well, that was one thing Tony wasn’t going to explain to them. He really hoped that agent had no idea about Peter because he didn’t trust Fury with the kid. He didn’t trust anyone with the kid’s safety except for Pepper, Rhodey and Happy. That was it. Those people sitting in front of him, knowing too many things about Tony that he didn’t provide them with? He didn’t trust them one bit.
Romanoff got up and walked away without saying a word and Fury started talking again, voice almost attacking Tony with how harsh it was.
“What do we want from you? What do you want from me? You have become a problem,” said Fury, and Tony rested his head on his head, feeling the dizziness hitting him again. “A problem I have to deal with. Contrary to your belief, you are not the center of my universe. I have bigger problems than you in the southwest region to deal with.” He looked at something behind Tony. “Hit him.”
Tony jumped in alarm when Romanoff stuck a needle in his neck for less than a second.
“Oh, God! Are you gonna steal my kidney and sell it?” he demanded as his head started to clear in a way he forgot was possible. He looked from Romanoff to Fury as the agent sat next to Tony, inspecting him. “Could you please not do anything awful for five seconds? What did she do to me?” he asked Fury once he realized Agent Not-Rushman wasn’t going to respond.
“What did we just do FOR you,” corrected Fury. Tony wanted to object but the feeling of being able to think overwhelmed him. He felt… he felt a lot better, actually. “That’s lithium dioxide. It’s gonna take the edge off. We’re trying to get you back to work.”
“Give me a couple of boxes of that—I’ll be right as rain.”
But they weren’t going to give him the damn thing, of course. Tony felt frustrated when Romanoff said it wasn’t a cure, just something to abate the symptoms.
“Trust me, I know. I’m good at this stuff,” Tony told them. “I’ve been looking for a suitable replacement for palladium. I’ve tried every combination, every permutation of every known element.”
Fury had this little smirk on his face. “Well, I’m here to tell you, you haven’t tried them all.”
Tony stared at him until his phone started ringing again. God, the kid was persistent, Tony would give him that.
Fury and Romanoff both looked at the name on the screen.
“Who’s Sophie?” said Romanoff.
“Oh, just my latest conquest. She used to do the trapeze at the circus. Gonna take that real quick.” He shoved past her and walked out of the diner, just to make sure they couldn’t hear him. But he still kept his eyes on them through the door, making sure they weren’t getting up to spy on him. “Kid, I’m kind of in the middle of something here.”
“You answered.” The boy sounded shocked and incredulous.
Cringing, Tony hid his lips with his hand—just to be extra safe in case Romanoff or Fury could read lips. “I know. Because I need to focus and you repeatedly calling is kind of achieving the exact opposite of that. Look, I’ll call you later, all right? Just go be with the others—”
“There’s a video online of you fighting Rhodey,” Peter cut him off, his tone brimming with accusation.
Tony exhaled a little and closed his eyes. God, he never meant for Peter to see all of this, but of course there were people filming it all from a distance. He wished he could make the kid unsee it, but it was impossible. That was what he had coming for him, of course. Now, looking back, Tony had to agree that he was acting like a complete jerk, cutting everyone off. God, he even ended up sending Peter far away so that he wouldn’t be around for Tony to worry about.
He waited for the boy to be upset at him, too—he knew he would’ve been angry had he been in Peter’s shoes.
“Are you okay, Dad?”
That wasn’t right. The script didn’t go this way. Peter was supposed to be angry or upset about Tony going nuts. He wasn’t supposed to ask Tony how he was feeling.
“I’m…” Tony shook his head in confusion. “I’m fine. I’m all right.” He locked eyes with Fury. “There are people here who think they can help me, kiddo.”
Peter was quiet for a moment.
“I wanna come back home,” he said quietly, voice shaking a little. “Please, I wanna come back.”
Tony looked down at his suited body. “Soon, buddy, okay?” he said, heart breaking a little at the pathetic sound that came out of Peter’s mouth. He could imagine the boy’s pout and his hand that was holding the phone trembled a little. “Hey, kid, I swear I’m gonna do my best to deal with this as soon as possible and, hopefully, not die. All right? It’s gonna be okay.”
“Okay,” muttered Peter.
“I need you to try and enjoy the Expo in the meantime, okay? Have fun with the others. Learn new things. Laugh at the stupid inventions that don’t belong to Stark Industries,” he said. The boy chuckled a little. “It’s gonna be fine. You’re gonna come back soon enough and everything will be back to normal.”
A voice called Peter’s name from the kid’s end and Peter shouted that he was coming. “Can I laugh at Hammer Tech?”
Tony snorted. “You have to laugh at them. If you don’t, I don’t think I’ll be able to keep you around,” he joked. Peter chuckled. “All right, go. Bye, kid.”
“Bye, Dad.”
The call ended with a beep and Tony lowered the phone and stared at the screen for a moment before he looked back at the spies inside the diner. They were both staring at him, expressions pinched in a clear attempt to understand what was going on with him. Well, at least it meant Romanoff didn’t know about Peter. So Fury didn’t either.
So Tony could at least feel secure about one thing—Peter was safe.
“I’m surprised you can keep your mouth shut,” said Romanoff. She started picking things up from Pepper’s desk once the woman and Happy left Tony alone in there with the agent, not knowing that she was, in fact, an agent.
Tony didn’t spoil the surprise, of course, because where was the fun in that, right? Plus, he had other things he needed to take care of—like saving his own life with something his father might have been working on.
Tony put both hands on the table. “Boy, you’re good. You are mind blowing duplicitous,” he babbled quickly. Romanoff spared him one unimpressed look. “How do you do it? You just tear things— You’re a triple imposter. I’ve never seen anything like you. Is there anything real about you? Do you even speak Latin?”
She said something that was definitely in a dead language, because it was so meaningless, it had to be dead. Nobody would ever speak in that language.
“Which means?” said Tony. “Wait, what? What did you just say?”
The woman leaned on the table to look at him, her eyes narrowed. “It means there’s something not adding up about you that we can’t figure out yet,” she said. “What is it, Stark?”
Tony leaned back in his chair. His heart raced inside his chest. He didn’t want her to find out about Peter, so that was good, but he didn’t feel too confident about it. She worked for Fury. She managed to fool Jarvis into thinking her fake identity was real. He didn’t trust that she wouldn’t find out about the kid in the long run.
He folded his arms over his chest. “You know, I guess some things do ought to remain a mystery, huh?” he smirked at her.
“You can either drive yourself home or I can have you collected,” she told him bluntly and left before he could protest. Not that Tony was going to protest—he had better things to do than sit here in his old office, alone.
It was all crazy. Tony watched the empty Expo, his heart still racing, though not as much as before. Not entirely for the same reasons, either. Earlier it was adrenaline, fear and the excitement of inventing something new and having his life back under control. Now it was more about adrenaline, fear and the relief of having kissed Pepper Potts after defeating Ivan and his drones for good.
Also, having arrested Hammer. Seriously, that guy had it coming.
“How are you gonna resign if I don’t accept?” Tony asked Pepper once Rhodey left in his suit—which now… didn’t really need to be with Rhodey since Tony wasn’t dying anymore, but he was gonna let it slide for now.
He held Pepper’s hands as she chuckled a little, clearly still running on the high of everything that’s happened to them.
And then Tony’s mind screeched to a halt and he glanced around frantically, letting go of Pepper’s hands. “Oh, no, wait.”
“What is it, Tony?” she said, her body tensing again like she was expecting another assault of robots to come and target the two of them. But it wasn’t that, this time.
No, Tony looked around at the empty Expo in search of one kid he’s seen earlier; one that he was too busy trying to fight to save his own life to pay too much attention to the fact that he was alone in the Expo, about to get killed by a drone.
Tony had saved him, muttering a “Nice work, kid” to the boy that stared at him through the narrow slits of his Iron Man mask, but it still made him sick to think that the kid was out there. Was he all right? Did he find the others? Were the others even okay? Alive? Were they hurt?
Letting his faceplate fall over his face, Tony turned to Pepper. “The kid was here. I have to make sure he’s all right,” he said.
Pepper’s eyes widened, clearly distressed at the thought, and she nodded at Tony before he took off, his eyes scanning the ground in search for Peter’s familiar face or a kid wearing an Iron Man mask in the middle of the chaos that was caused by Iron Man himself. Hell, he would settle for just finding Sophie and Will and the other kids at this point. Just… someone. Anyone.
“Jarvis, found anything?” muttered Tony, eyes observing everything quickly.
“I’m afraid not, sir,” replied the AI, and even though it was a program Tony has made, Jarvis sounded almost concerned for Peter, too.
Well, that didn’t matter at the moment. He cared more about finding the kid than understanding his AI and how it worked. Tony was just about to snap when Jarvis spoke up, identifications showing up on Tony’s display at the sight of four people gathered below.
“I believe I have found Peter, sir,” said Jarvis.
The thing was, the other three people with the kid weren’t from the group home. Tony had no idea who they were. Still, he ignored that in favor of feeling relief at the sight of his kid standing there, his mask still on his head. Tony dived toward the group and then landed with a clang on the ground, his faceplate coming up to uncover his face right when Peter turned around to stare at him.
The three people gaped—it was a couple and a kid around Peter’s age that gasped, wide eyes locked on Tony—but Peter just pulled off his mask quickly and ran toward Tony, clinging to him like he was terrified the man might disappear.
And the thing was, Tony could have died. Actually, ever since meeting Peter, Tony’s chances of survival have somehow plummeted down. He got kidnapped, tortured, nearly killed by Obadiah, suffered from blood toxicity, almost cut open like a piñata by Vanko, and then also nearly died by the man’s drones and new suit. Honestly, it was scary to think about.
It wasn’t the kid’s fault, of course. He just happened to stride into Tony’s life in the worst time possible. So Tony crouched down, his suit still around him, and hugged the boy as tightly as possible without crushing him with the power of the armor. Peter whimpered and sniffled pitifully, not letting go of Tony even with the stares of this little family trained on them.
“Are you okay?” said Tony. “Are you all right?”
He knew he sounded a little strained and deranged, maybe, but he couldn’t help it. Whether or not he liked it, the kid grew on him. He couldn’t lose him from something Tony himself had caused. True, the kid was already going to die at some point, but Tony didn’t want to be the cause of the death.
Peter nodded against his arc reactor. “I’m fine.”
Tony pulled away from Peter so he could look him in the eye. “Are you hurt? Did you get hurt? Tell me you didn’t. Are you bleeding? Jarvis, scan him—is he bleeding?”
“Dad, I’m fine,” insisted Peter. And the thing was, he looked fine, too. He was still skinny and paler than most people; more than was healthy. But he wasn’t worse than usual and he didn’t seem to be hurt.
Tony ran his fingers through the boy’s hair, trying to make sure there were no unseen wounds on his sculp. Peter giggled and pulled away, saying, “It tickles!”
“Oh, does it, now?” Tony looked around quickly. “Where are the others?”
Peter shrugged. “I lost them at the beginning. I couldn’t keep up. I can’t run fast,” explained Peter, and then pointed at the family watching them. “And then I found Ned and his parents and I stayed with them. But their phones aren’t here so we can’t call Will and Sophie,” he pouted. Then he perked up. “Dad, Dad! This is the friend I told you about!”
He tugged at Tony’s hand to make him come closer to the stunned family.
The parents stared at Tony with both admiration and wonder, like they had no idea how he was actually standing in front of them. Their son shifted his gaze from Tony to Peter to Tony to Peter over and over again, his jaw dropping further and further down even though it didn’t seem humanly possible.
Peter hopped over until he was standing right next to the other kid. Them standing side by side only made it more glaringly obvious that Peter looked much more sickly than other kids his age, but Tony tried to ignore that.
“Ted, was it?” said Tony.
“It’s Ned,” corrected Peter.
The boy squealed. “Oh, my God! Tony Stark knows my name!” he whispered in awe.
Peter looked at him fondly. Tony has never seen the kid with a friend before. The other kids at the group home weren’t exactly his friends. They were more like… family he wasn’t related to. And now he stood next to this other kid, and Tony could tell Peter was happy.
He turned to Peter, holding out his hand for the boy to take. He did, not even hesitating. “Okay, I’m gonna take this little munchkin out of your hair,” he told Ned’s parents.
They nodded wordlessly, expressions still frozen in this weird mixture of awe and disbelief.
Tony nodded at Ned. “See you around, Ted.” Peter frowned up at him. “Come on, kid. I’ve gotta get you back to the others before they lose it. Let’s go.”
They managed to walk three seconds in silence before Peter seemed to peer up at the arc reactor, his eyes widening a little as he mumbled, “It’s different.”
“Yeah, it’s a new element now, that hopefully isn’t going to kill me,” he told the kid, who beamed at the arc reactor, like it just did a miracle. And, um, no. Tony was the one who created the element, thank you very much. It wasn’t the arc reactor, and it was certainly no miracle.
“Unlike you, by the way,” added Tony. “Kid, don’t you ever do something like this again, you hear me? You see a killer drone? Run the other way. Don’t just stand there. You’re gonna give me a heart attack. I have a heart condition, you know.”
He scrunched up his nose. “Do you really?”
“Shut up. Focus on what I just told you. No more stunts like that.”
Peter exhaled heavily and nodded. “Okay. Next time I’ll make sure I have a real weapon,” he relented and started skipping ahead. It wasn’t too fast because the kid really couldn’t go too fast without wasting too much energy, which he desperately needed, but he still passed Tony.
The man groaned. “Gray hairs. I’m getting gray hairs because my kid is suicidal,” he muttered under his breath, a smile tugging at his lips. “Kid, slow down! You’re not getting anywhere near actual weapons anytime soon, you hear me? Let’s say never, how about that?”
The kid laughed.
