Spider-Son & Iron Dad one shots

Shake On a Deal

a/n: hey, it's been a while. I really just don't know what to write for this fandom anymore, we're so far gone from the canon IronDad years that everything I write has a very hollow feeling to it that makes it very difficult to continue. I think I've written about a gazillion drafts that never got past the first few paragraphs. but, I wanted to write something so here you go.

Peter saw Tony stumble on his feet, and he couldn't help the immediate catch in his breath that felt like a burn. He was quick to reach for him, but his movements felt too slow. Tony steadies himself before Peter can even blink.

"I'm fine," Tony says, leaning against a kitchen counter. "I've got it, Pete. You can rest your superhero arms for one evening, this old man has been through worse than a little fall."

Ever since the incident-- (His eyes are grey and dull, his entire left side is mangled with thorn marks of celestial power from the force of the stones. He can't look at Peter, or Pepper, or even Rhodey for that matter, because he's too weak to turn his head. Peter can hear his heartbeat. It's weak, fading, too fast and too slow-- He knows he'll never get the sound out of his ears after this, it will stay in a continuous loop like Ben's did when it faded to nothing.)-- their dynamic has been... different.

Peter could feel it in the marrow of his bones that he wasn't the same. He could tell from the way colours looked when he opened his eyes, he could tell by the tired reflection staring back at him in the bathroom mirror every morning. He couldn't just be the kid anymore, no matter how badly he wanted to. He had learned the cold hard truth about sacrifice and illusion of safety. He had responsibilities, a burden to carry on his shoulders that could only come from war, and the grief and displacement that came from the fallout of everything else.

(May noticed it, when they came back from dust. After the chaos of the final battle, after Peter had waited hours upon in the hallway of a starch white hospital, covered in sweat and tears and dirt, after Pepper came up and told him that she called May, after he was sent to Tony's "new" cabin in the woods because their apartment was no longer theirs. The sun rose again to signify the start of a new day. He remembers the morning well, from the smell of damp earth to the sound of the lake.

That's when May met him again for the first time in five years, when to them it had only been the span of a day. He had changed out of his suit when he was in the hospital, into sweatpants and a baggy shirt that a nurse had grabbed for him in the lost-and-found so that he could more easily hide his identity. He hadn't showered, so May could see the blood splatter on his face. He wondered in that moment which had caused May to break out in tears, seeing the blood or the haunted look in his eyes as he stopped in the doorway.

The next morning, Peter still hadn't said a word about what he had seen. May didn't ask, but he could tell from the way she looked at him that she knew he was a different boy than the one she left that morning on his field trip to the art museum.)

He was exhausted on a level that he's only known a few times before, a certain emptiness mingling with fear that lived in his chest just under his heart, weighing him down and keeping him from sleeping. He can count four times this week where he turned in his bed, staring at the ceiling of his room until the birds started their early morning chirps and praying to nothing for a small list of things he kept secretly written on the inner part of his ribcage, close to his heart. These things included, but were not limited to:

Let Mr. Stark heal okay. Please let him heal and for everything to be fine. I don't know what to do without him. I just got him back. I can't lose him. I almost did. Please let him be okay. Don't let him--

Peter started wondering at some point if they were prayers or a to-do list. And he does know that he should be grateful, 'should' being the key word. He should be grateful because Tony is alive, defying all of the odds. But how can he be grateful when he sees Tony struggle with picking up a screwdriver with his new arm? How can he be grateful and happy knowing Tony will be okay when nothing is fully known?