You Are Not Tony Stark

Mom? I Don't Feel So Good...

Chapter summary:

"Ned, hey. I need you to cause a distraction."
"Holy shit! We're all gonna die!"

Or, Peter decides to listen to Tony and returns home. So it's up to Pepper to watch their son turn into dust.

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"Hey, man! What's up, Tony?" Peter said causally as he easily caught the alien's hammer.

"Kid, where'd you come from?" Tony asked in surprise as his heart tightened with anxiety. The whole situation was bad enough. He didn't need Peter to get involved.

"The field trip to MoMA. What is this guy's problem, Tony?"

"He's from space, came here to steal a necklace from a wizard," he replied, thinking how to get rid of him. If something went wrong, at least one of them must return home to Pepper. Needless to say, Peter was always in the first place. "Kid, that's the wizard. Get on it," he said as Doctor Strange passed through the park.

"On it!" he yelled and shot the web at the flying wizard. It seemed to have him for a while, but then the big space donut appeared over them and began pulling the wizard up. "Tony? I'm being beamed up."

"Hang on, kid. Give me a little juice, Friday, and unlock 17-A," he said as he followed the spaceship that was heading back into space. With his son on it. "Kid, you gotta let go. I'm gonna catch you!" he shouted, remembering the moment he said the same thing to Pepper, and then he failed to catch her.

"But you said to save the wizard!" he said, and Tony groaned. Why did he have to be so stubborn? "I can't breathe!"

"You're too high up. You're running out of air."

"Yeah! That makes sense," he gasped and then passed out, free-falling and Tony felt his heart stopped for a moment, but not for long before the pod reached him. It attached itself to him, becoming the Iron Spider suit. Now being able to breathe, Peter landed on a bottom part of the ship, standing up. "It smells like a new car in here!" he said enthusiastically, and Tony finally caught up with him.

"This is the end for you!" he said in a firm voice.

"What? Not a chance!" he protested.

"This isn't something we're going to discuss. You're going home!"

"I can't leave you alone! What if something happens?!"

"I'll be fine, kid. Go home and take care of Pepper."

"Okay, fine. I'll go if you promise me you'll come back," he murmured.

"I will do everything in my power."

"That's not enough. Just promise me you'll come home... Dad."

"I promise. Friday, send him home," he said, firing a parachute from Peter's suit. He'd rather go home with him. Damn it, Peter called him a dad for the first time! But this Thanos thing had to end once and for all. Then he could calmly return to his family.

Peter didn't like it. He was falling from the sky back to earth, and his spider's senses went totally crazy. Something bad would happen in the near future and he didn't like it. He probably should have stayed. He was supposed to stay with his dad and fight at his side. He didn't believe his promise. He knew what he was. He was a self-sacrificing idiot. But in one he was right. Someone had to go back home and make sure mom was all right.

He returned home and changed into normal clothes. Then he went to Tony's lab, where he tried to find out something about this whole thing. About the stone that the wizard had. Anything. But he found absolutely nothing.

"Tony?" a woman's voice said.

"Only me, mom," Peter replied, and immediately found himself in her embrace.

"Oh, thank God you're home!" she sighed.

"Sorry I didn't let you know, I headed it to the lab right away to find out what was going on," he murmured, still hugging her.

"It's all right, honey. The important thing is that you're home! Did you find anything?"

"No."

"It doesn't matter. Somehow it will work out, but you should know that Tony being Tony, has gone on that spaceship," she said worriedly, and Peter pulled away from her.

"I know," he said, swallowing hard. "I was kind of there with him."

"Excuse me, what? Are you out of your mind?! I never want to hear about space travel again, do you understand, young man?" she said sternly, and Peter nodded.

"He promised to return, mom," he said.

"Yeah, we just have to wait and try not to freak out."

"Well, now that you've mentioned it. My senses are really freaking out now and I'm pretty scared. I think something's going to happen," he whispered.

"It's okay to be scared, Pete. Come on, I'll make us some hot chocolate, and then we'll try to distract each other so we don't think so much about it," she said, and then they both left the lab together.

They were almost in the kitchen when Peter's senses were really unbearable. Something was wrong. Something was wrong with him. His whole body vibrated strangely. He felt like he was going to vomit.

"Mom?" he spoke in panic, forcing her to stop and turn to him. She must have known that something was wrong because panic appeared in her face too.

"Peter?"

"I don't feel so good..." he groaned in pain and tried to stay on his feet, but it became increasingly difficult for him to do that.

"You're all right," she said with her voice shaking as he looked at Peter in terror.

"I don't know what's- I don't know what's happening. I don't-" he muttered and fell into Pepper's arms. He was clutching her tight while he began to cry.

"Shh, you are okay, baby," Pepper said with a broken voice.

"I don't wanna go, I don't wanna go, mom, please. Please, I don't wanna go. I don't wanna go..." he cried. He knew she couldn't stop it. His body was decaying, and his quick healing was trying to prevent it, but it only postponed the inevitable. He looked at his mom, who was also crying, for the last time. "I am sorry, I love you, mom. Tell that dad too for me..."

He closed his eyes and disintegrated into ashes in Pepper's arms.

"NO!"

Pepper was sitting in the hallway on the ground.

In front of her the dust that her son had turned into.

Her husband was somewhere in space.

She was alone.

And she was broken.

(...)

Pepper stood on the lawn watching the giant spaceship land in front of them. And then when she saw her husband, she hadn't waited for even a second to trap him with a cry in her embrace.

"Oh, my God! Oh, my God!" she sobbed and gripped him tightly, fearing he would disappear just as Peter did.

"It's okay," he said in a cracked voice.

"I lost the kid. I lost Peter. I lost our son," she repeated over and over, and Tony's heart broke into a thousand pieces. He sent him home to be safe. To protect Pepper and not to have his wife watch their son turn into dust.

"I'll solve this, Pepper. I promise you. I'll bring him back. Whatever it takes," he murmured.

***

I am not crying, you are.