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Being a Stark [Superfamily]

Chapter 32

When Peter Parker was a kid, he didn’t have many friends. People would think he was weird, or laugh at him because of his glasses and his braces. Others would call him a freak for how much smarter he was than the others. But even when it was offered to him to skip a few grades and be placed a few classes higher, he didn’t want to. Because people already didn’t like him, and he didn’t want the older kids to find him strange, too.

So he stayed in his year, his parents agreed. And when they died, there had been nobody in his class that came to comfort him. At least, nobody but one individual.

Harry Osborn was exactly one year older than him. They shared a birthday, but that was about it. He had been pulled back a class because he couldn’t follow with his peers, and they’ve been sitting next to each other in class all the time, mostly because the others wouldn’t sit with them.

They never spoke to each other, until that day. When Peter returned to school after a few days of staying at home, Harry was there with him, and gave him a box of chocolates.

“My mommy tells me that when people are grieving, it gets a little better with choc’lates,” Harry told him, not seeming certain what all of the words meant. But Peter took the box, and ever since that moment, their friendship started.

Now, about twelve years later, Peter finds himself unbelieving of the fact that the person sitting in front of him is actually Harry Osborn. The kid who had been sent away to boarding school after his mother died, and had no possible way of contacting him afterwards. He looks different from when Peter last saw him.

But that’s not difficult; the last time, Harry had been trying to strangle Peter with his legs.

“Oh, and remember that one time when-“ Harry continues their banter, and Peter goes with it. They’ve been going back and forth, talking about their past and the fun memories they have from it. Peter happily indulges him, because this feels good. After all, how long has it been since he’s had a good conversation with Harry?

After a little while, when they seem to be dry on the fun memories, Peter decides to bring it up.

“Have they said something about your illness?” Peter asks. The illness that drove you mad? Harry, who had been in the middle of taking a pizza slide, hums and starts to pull his food away.

“Uh, yeah,” he says with a mouth full. Then he chews and swallows before continuing. “Apparently the Spider-Venom burned it away before attacking my body. The combination of the Goblin Suit healing-systems took care of it. You know, aside from frying my brains completely.” Harry shrugs. Peter just looks at him, taking in the small scars on his cheeks, the only proof of what happened to him other than how skinny he’s become.

“That’s good, then,” Peter says. He forces up a smile, and Harry believes it. Good, because this is supposed to be a happy moment.

“Uh, how about Gwen? You two still together?” Harry asks then after a while. “You know I met her. She seems nice. Way out of your league, of course.”

Peter blinks then. Does… does Harry not remember anything of what happened after he took the venom? Is that why they haven’t talked about this sooner? But what will happen when he finds it out, then? Will he snap again?

“Actually, uh… Gwen… she died,” Peter admits sadly. Harry drops his pizza and his mouth, suddenly sitting up straight in the couch and looking at Peter with gigantic blue eyes.

“No! What happened? I’m so sorry, Peter!” Harry says reaching out to him. Peter wants to say it’s his own fault, that he should have kept Gwen out of the Spider-Man business. But then he realizes Harry doesn’t remember. He doesn’t know about Peter being Spider-Man.

This is an opportunity to do things right, this time.

“Nothing I want to talk about now,” Peter admits. He needs to have a conversation with Harry’s doctors first about how he should handle this. “I’ll tell you later, alright?”

Harry gives him a sad look, but then nods.

“I feel like you’ve changed, Peter. How much time have I lost?”

Peter then shrugs, trying to count it out. “A little more than a year I suppose? We’re almost November now, 2016.”

“Holy shit! A whole damn year…? How’s my company doing?”

Peter thinks. He hasn’t been to Oscorp ever since picking up the journals.

“It’s still standing, looked like it was doing good despite the hits it got,” Peter offers. By hits, of course he means Harry turning into the Goblin and killing off most of his board members with the help of Electro. “Though I’m not sure they’re going to want you back so soon.”

Harry shrugs.

“Not that I want back; I’m too young to own a company! Jeesh, if we’re 2016, that means I’m 18 now, right? Who in their right mind would pass me down a company now?” Harry picks up another pizza. “When I can get out of here, I’ll pay the current board members a visit, see what we can arrange. Maybe something for later.”

“You want to be the leader of your company?” Peter asks, a little bit surprised. Harry shrugs.

“Yeah, it’s still my legacy. But I want to graduate first, you know? See the world a little bit, get some experience. Maybe it’s something for when I hit thirty.”

“That’s a long time,” Peter offers. Harry just smirks at him.

“Yeah, well, I heard you’re now the rightful heir to Stark Industries? You’re gonna be in my shoes one day when your dad hands it down.”

Peter bites his lips, hoping that day won’t come soon.

“Actually, my Dad isn’t CEO anymore. I mean, he owns the company, yeah, but Mrs. Potts is the boss for now.”

Harry doesn’t answer, having his mouth full. All he does is offer him a smile, and Peter smiles back, grabbing another pizza from the box. He doesn’t know how long they’ve been here, but it must be a while. He’s not too surprised when somebody knocks on the door, and suddenly Tony is standing inside.

“Hey champs, I hope you’re not forgetting that it’s school tomorrow, right? I’ll bring you home, sport.”

Peter nods and goes to stand up. Harry does the same, following Peter to the door and exiting the room as well. When Peter and Tony turn right to head to the exit, Harry stands still.

“Uh, my room is this way,” he offers, pointing towards the hallway that lead to all the Avenger’s bedrooms. They’re all unoccupied now, as far as Peter knows. “I’m staying next to the Android that doesn’t like doors.”

The three of them laugh, and then Peter goes to give Harry a strong hug.

“I’m glad you’re back, pal,” Peter tells him. Harry slaps his shoulder twice before pulling back.

“Me too. And hey, who knows, maybe I can come back to school soon? Finish the education? Go to college, afterwards?”

Peter nods. “That would be awesome,” he says. Then the two say goodbye, and go their separate ways. Peter is grinning the entire way to the car, and even before he can step inside of the vehicle he grabs Tony and gives him another strong hug.

Tony just laughs and taps his back a few times.

“Thank you, Dad. Thank you so much, for bringing him back,” Peter says, squeezing his father a little tighter until the man lets out a shaky breath.

“Peter, I can’t breathe,” he says, and Peter lets go. After loosening his limbs again, Tony hands Peter the keys to the car. “Here you go.”

“I can drive?” Peter asks. Tony nods.

“Yeah, why not? I want to make sure you can still do it without crashing it,” Tony jokes, and Peter punches his arm in return. After that, he hurries to the driver’s seat and installs himself behind the wheel.

He keeps on being surprised at how awesome Tony’s cars are. He hopes that one day, he’ll get to have one like this, too. Maybe a bit smaller, though. He doesn’t need something too big.

“Hey, uh, maybe we can go back to the workshop tomorrow? Work on some stuff? It’s been a while,” Peter offers. Tony hums while taking out the tablet from the compartment box.

“Yeah, sounds good. I know a few bots that are dying to see you again,” he says with a smirk. Peter guiltily thinks back of the last time he’s seen Dum-E, or U, or Butterfingers. It’s been too long, and he can’t really say why. “And you can finally get to finish that own bot of yours. You haven’t touched the thing ever since I gave you your new suit.”

“Yeah, I know, I’m sorry,” Peter mutters, not taking his eyes off the road. It’s not like there’s much traffic here underneath the trees. “So, uh… you talked to Steve by any chance?”

Tony lowers the tablet and gives him a small glare.

“Why?” he asks, suspicious of Peter’s question. The teenager just shrugs.

“No reason, just… wanted to make sure you two are okay,” he says like it’s not that much of a big deal. He figures he’s wrong when Tony sighs sadly and turns off the screen of the tablet.

“I know you care about him, champ. But we’re… too much has happened, and I can’t stay with him and pretend everything’s fine, you know?” Peter blinks for a moment.

“But don’t you love him?” he asks in confusion.

“Yeah, I do. But that didn’t stop me from kicking the crap out of him now, did it?” Tony returns with a bitter tone in his voice.

“But… it didn’t give you pleasure, right? You were grieving, angry, and it’s not like he didn’t punch you back or anything. He wasn’t defenseless, you know? I mean, I kicked Harry’s ass as well, you don’t see me walking away from him? No matter if he’s just a friend, he was actually like a brother to me.”

Tony stays quiet after that, lowering his gaze and eventually turning back on the tablet. Peter doesn’t know if he managed to change Tony’s mind.

“Even so,” Tony suddenly starts without looking up, “Steve is stuck in Wakanda, and I am here. As long as we haven’t changed the accords, we won’t get a chance of being together.”

Then Peter squeezes the steering wheel, bringing the car into the usual traffic that will forever stay in New York.

“Then you should do everything you can to fix that, shouldn’t you?” Peter offers with a smirk. After that, he reaches out to turn on the radio, letting the music fill the car’s upcoming silence. Tony doesn’t say anything else, but there’s a small smile on his lips that Peter wouldn’t have seen had he not known Tony Stark a little bit longer.

When he stops the car in front of his apartment building in Queens, Tony puts the tablet aside again and turns to Peter with another smile.

“I, uh… I got another little surprise for you,” Tony admits. Then he reaches underneath the dashboard and takes out what looks like a lunch bag but in the larger scale. “I was going to put it on your bed for you to find, but I couldn’t be sure May would find it or if you would put it on with her still in the house, so here you go instead.”

Peter takes the bag from Tony and stares at him with an open mouth. If he talks about ‘putting it on’, that could only mean one thing, right?

Inside of the bag, there’s his suit.

“Holy crap!” Peter almost shouts out. Tony smirks.

“Yeah, uh, just… stay away from the big guys now, huh? At least until we’ve tweaked the accords enough,” Tony warns him. Peter nods, not planning on going after the big cases for a while. He gives Tony another strong hug, and then pulls away with a smile.

“Thank you, Dad,” he says. Then he loosens his seat belt and reaches for the door. Tony, too, steps out to take his place behind the wheel. He watches Peter hurry back to the door, but before he gets inside, Peter turns to Tony with an arm raised in the air. “See you tomorrow! Love you!”

And then he’s gone. He doesn’t see Tony smile fondly, rubbing the scar on his chest as he mutters back: “Love you, too, son.”

Neither does he see Tony run out of the car and puke into some bushes the moment Peter is inside of the building.

Peter gets a report from the scientists at the Compound the day after seeing Harry again. He’s at the tower, tweaking his own bot that he’s forgotten all about while Dum-E is there making sure that he stays hydrated. Tony is somewhere in here as well, but he stepped out a little bit ago to make a phone call and Peter isn’t sure when he gets back.

The report comes in through mail, and once Peter opens it he sees almost everything that’s been written down on Harry Osborn’s recovery. At first, he wonders if he should be allowed to see this, but the first thing he comes across is a written note from Harry himself saying that he consents on letting Peter see these things.

He can understand the tests they’ve been doing. The blood reports indicate strange valuables that seems to change with each test, stabilizing more and more towards the end until it comes close to resembling a normal blood report.

There’s some videos on the test he’s undergone. There’s a few therapy sessions, most of them containing Tony’s therapy-glasses (Peter refuses to call it BARF), and even a few where they test his strength. He’s not really surprised when he sees Harry hasn’t lost all the reflexes, as well as the strength he gained from being the Goblin. He’s not as strong, that much is clear, but still more than a normal human should be.

Peter decides not to look at everything, still wanting to give Harry some sort of privacy. He puts the files away, stands up and stretches his arms. When something pokes him in the side, Peter can see U holding the cellphone and motioning Peter with it.

“No, I’m not calling him when Dad’s around. That would be a crap move,” Peter tells him, taking the phone and putting it back on the desk. A short look around and he sees Dum-E is rolling back from the little kitchenette to bring him a bottle of water. “Now I’m going to stretch my legs for a bit, just put the water on the desk.”

Dum-E looks up for a moment before diving back into the refrigerator. U pokes him in the sides again.

“No, I already oiled your gears one hour ago. I’m not going to do it again!” Peter tells him, gently pushing the bot away. The doors of the workshop suddenly open, and Pepper walks inside, looking down at her tablet.

“Tony, there was an Everett Ross on the line, he wanted to talk to you about another meet-up for the accords so you can- oh, hello Peter, I didn’t know you were here?”

Peter smiles at her, and then gives her a little wave. He remembers the day he had been introduced to her as Tony’s son. At first, there seemed to have been surprise on her part, but that didn’t take too long before she started slapping him on the arm, saying ‘I told you there was a mini-you somewhere!’ for about five times. She’s the one who helped them out during the entire ‘legal father-and-son’ thing, and has been kind of an unofficial distant aunt of some sort. He doesn’t see her too often, but when she’s there she’s always making sure that he’s doing alright.

“Dad’s on the phone, been for about thirty minutes or so. I’m not sure what it was about, though,” Peter says with a shrug, pointing to the balcony where, through the window, the two can see Tony walk around, moving his hands in the air as he’s talking about something.

“My, looks like the call is serious,” she says, frowning a bit. “Say, don’t you think he was a bit… strange yesterday? I mean, he seemed… quiet? I wonder if he’s doing alright?”

“Well, as far as I know, he broke up with Steve, so I’m pretty sure he’s not doing too great right now,” Peter offers, giving his Dad a look. When Tony notices them staring, he gives them a wave. Peter waves back, but Pepper turns to the teenager with wide eyes and a mouth fallen open.

“’Broke up’? What do you mean? Did they finally get together?” she asks. Peter gasps and then bites his lip.

“Crap, you didn’t know?” he asks. Then he slaps his forehead. “Shit, I’m sorry. They were kind of a thing for about three months, maybe four? I don’t know. The problem is that Steve didn’t want to reveal it yet, so nobody really knew.”

“Nobody?” Pepper asks, raising her eyebrow, putting her hands on her hips.

“Well, maybe the Avengers. But that’s mostly because Steve lived with them 24/7, you know. Tony never really told anybody,” Peter shrugs. “The reason I found out is because they were being lovey-dovey when I was supposed to be asleep in the hospital-bed.”

Pepper snorts, still looking at Tony, seeming pensive. “I’m not surprised,” she says, sounding a bit distance. Then she clears her throat and stands back up – Peter hadn’t realized she’d been sitting on the desk. “Anyway, can you tell Tony I’m not his assistant anymore, and that these people need to stop calling me when they need him?”

Peter salutes her in agreement, taking the note with the message for Tony from her and putting it on his desk. Then she straightens out her skirt and starts walking back out of the workshop. When she passes Dum-E, who is on his way back to Peter’s desk, she gives the bot a light kiss on the ‘head’.

“Hello, buddy,” she says fondly before walking off. Peter smiles at the sight.

Right when Pepper walks out of the workshop, the door of the balcony opens up to let Tony back in. He’s in the process of putting his phone away when he blinks around and sees that Pepper’s no longer in here.

“I thought I saw Pepper?” he asks in confusion. Peter points behind him, to the door that leads to the hallway.

“You did, she had to leave again. But she left a message,” he says, picking up the post-it and handing it to Tony. The engineer blinks a few times at Peter’s outstretched hand holding the piece of paper, but eventually reaches out to take it.

“Holy shit I would just love for this crap with the accords to be over with soon,” Tony mutters, rubbing his brow and shaking his head as he reads the note. “You goin’ out this evening?”

“Me? Uh, not really. Ned has stuff to do, and I don’t really have any other friends available or that I want to hang out with,” Peter shrugs, clearly meaning Wade with the last one. Tony then looks up, unimpressed. “Oh, you mean-? Uh, yeah, maybe? I always have the suit with me, so…”

“Cool,” Tony says, putting the note away without responding to whatever the message says aside of the fact that he’s already picking his phone back up and starting to type down another number. “Just, be careful. If not, I might take Karen away from you so you’re less distracted.”

Peter gives him a glare. Tony just sticks out his tongue while pressing the phone to his ear. Not long after that, the other person on the line picks up.

“Ah, Evie! Been a while, hasn’t it? You called?”

With that, Tony once again steps out of the workshop and back outside. Peter watches him go with a wave of sadness going through him at the idea of how Tony must be feeling right now. He’s been pretending that everything’s fine, but Peter knows he isn’t. It must be so much on the man’s shoulders, and Peter just wishes he could take a break once in a while. Of course, he knows Tony won’t take one as long as these accords are not yet tweaked through.

Tony hasn’t been looking all that well the past few days. He appears tired, exhausted; as if he’s not getting enough sleep at all. Peter has caught him rubbing at his stomach as well, as if the man is aching somehow, but doesn’t want to admit it. Tony’s been jumpy, on edge. Clearly, he’s not doing well at all.

Peter clears his throat and starts to take his bag where the suit is safely tucked away. Without feeling any shame for taking his clothes off in the workshop, he quickly puts it on. It feels just as amazing as the first time he got to wear it, but now, the moment he puts his mask on, he’s greeted by Karen’s happy, soothing voice.

“Welcome back, Peter,” she says. Peter folds his clothes and puts them on the desk. He startles when suddenly three bots are poking at him, wondering what he’s wearing. He shoos them away quickly.

“Karen, I’m wondering; what are you doing when I’m not wearing the mask? Are you put on sleep mode or are you just waiting for me to arrive?” he asks as he steps towards the door that leads to the balcony. Before he gets out, though, he hurries back to his bag to take out his badge. That way he won’t have to do the embarrassing speech again to be allowed in afterwards.

Tony gives him another small wave when Peter passes him by, but otherwise doesn’t pay too much attention to him. Peter doesn’t take it personally; he’s been quite busy lately, and mostly tense.

“I am always present. I work a lot like FRIDAY, you could say; you could install me on your computer or phone and carry me around everywhere,” Karen answers in that soothing voice of hers. Peter smiles. Then he gives his father one last wave before dropping himself over the balcony until he gets into a free-fall.

After about five seconds, he shoots out his first web to the nearest building. After that, he starts swinging, letting out a relieved scream at the familiarity of it all. He’s so glad he didn’t end up losing this after going after Mr. Toomes.

There isn’t a lot to do, so it seems. Peter comes across another mugger, which he stops easily. The woman thanks him by pressing a few dollar bills into his hands before running off to her friends. Peter wants to give the money back, but then she’s gone. So, the first homeless person he comes across, he offers him the money.

“Here, pal, you need it more than I do,” he tells the man, who stares at him with wide eyes.

“Bless you, Spider-Man. Bless you,” the man says, shaking his hand and running towards another group of homeless people underneath a bridge, where he can see him share the money. His throat suddenly goes dry, and his heart aches. This isn’t how it should be, right? Peter, a kid who used to have too little money, now suddenly has tons of it. He can’t, in good conscience, pretend like everything he’s seeing here is alright.

But he can’t just go and hand out money everywhere as Spider-Man. He doesn’t want that kind of press on his name.

“Karen, uh, can you call Dad?” he suddenly asks.

“Calling,” she says, and Peter waits for his father’s image to show up on the screen. Of course, it’s clear that the line is still busy, so he hangs up again and decides to bring it up when he gets back home. He leaves the group, and swings up into the sky, moving from Brooklyn to Queens, until he’s back in Midtown. That’s when he sees it.

A young girl, about Peter’s age. She’s wearing a bonnet, but the dark red curls are slightly visible – Michelle, his mind tells him. She’s sitting at a café, talking to somebody Peter doesn’t recognize. Just, for a moment, he stays on the roof of the building, blinking a few times as he looks.

Michelle doesn’t seem happy. He can’t hear what she’s saying – and he’s not able to use Karen’s tricks to listen in again, thanks Dad – but he can see on her face that she’s angry in a way. Then, without warning, she stands up, pushing the table aside and starts walking.

“Hey! Don’t walk away from me!” the other person, a man, shouts. Michelle snaps something back in a lowered voice. Then, eventually, she starts walking off carrying her bag over her shoulder and keeping her thick coat closed with her hands. Peter follows her with his eyes for a short while until she’s passing a corner, and then he leans back on the roof.

“So, she has some drama of her own sometimes. Who knew? I thought she was barely human,” Peter mutters to himself.

“My scans indicate that she is in fact a hundred percent human on a superficial view,” Karen adds, unhelpfully. Peter rolls his eyes.

“It was just a figure of speech,” he counters.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t catch that.”

“It’s alright.”

Peter sits up again when, suddenly, he sees the guy she was arguing with running after her. That doesn’t look good at all. Peter jumps up, swinging towards the other building until he’s on another roof that can get him a full view. He needs to know if there’s something going on that needs his intervention here. He might not like Michelle all that much, but she’s still kind of a friend.

He arrives just in time when he sees the guy pull her back to him by grabbing her arm. Then he pushes her against the wall. He hears a painful grunt coming from Michelle, and he jumps up. He needs to help, here.

“Hey!” he shouts. The man jumps back. Michelle takes the opportunity of the distraction by kicking the guy in his balls. The man drops down on his knees, his hands reaching for his groin with a face red and tears in his eyes. “Uh, yeah, take that, I think?”

Michelle then picks up her bonnet and ties the scarf around her again. She gives Peter a long look.

“Thanks, but I had that covered,” she then says.

Oh, so that’s how she’s going to play it, huh?

“Well, to me it looked more like he was getting too hands-on. I just wanted to help.”

“Oh, he was,” Michelle counters. She’s slowly walking up to him, her bag swinging over her shoulder. Her hair is messy as always, but Peter figures it’s just how she like to wear it. “But I could have stopped him easily.”

“Sure,” Peter says, not really believing the tough-girl act she’s trying out here. “So you know him, or…?”

Michelle turns around, facing the man lying on the ground. He looks about two years older than they are. Probably some college-drop-out that has devoted his life for drugs instead. He looks the type.

“My ex,” she says. “Though he can’t really accept that fact yet.”

So she had a boyfriend? Who knew!

“Yeah, they do that sometimes,” Peter mutters out, not really knowing what else to say. He hasn’t really spoken to Michelle much since he’s known her. He doesn’t even know if he’s considered ‘friend’ enough to call her MJ, like she said.

Michelle raises an eyebrow at him, but then smirks and punches him in the shoulder.

“You’re kind of a doofus, aren’t you?” she says then, laughing. Peter wants to say something in return, but she stops him. “Keep it up, it’s kinda cute.”

Then she starts walking off, giving him a wink and sticking out her tongue before turning her back to him. Peter watches her go for a moment, seeing a whole other side of Michelle that he’s never seen before. At first, he thought she was some sort of cyborg like in those Terminator-movies. Her icy-cold glare used to bring those thoughts into his head, really. Now she seems… human, in a way?

The ex-boyfriend groans again, pulling Peter out of his train of thought. He hurries towards the guy, leaning down but making a move to help him up.

“I would say you deserve that. You’re kind of a dick,” Peter tells him. The guy doesn’t respond. “Now, uh, you better stay away from her, or you’ll get to see me more often.”

He tries to sound threatening, but he wonders if it really comes over that way. He should better just go home, it’s already dark and he still has a bit of homework he needs to finish. He starts running before pulling himself back up into the air, swinging his way back to Stark Tower.

Having thought of the card this time, he swing it in front of the door to the balcony and it opens immediately without needing Peter to do another embarrassing speech to his father. He pulls off his mask, crashes down on the couch and starts up the television.

And that’s when he smells it. Peter blinks a few times, taking multiple small sniffs in the air as he tries to place the odor. It shouldn’t be here. Why does it make him feel so uneasy? He stands up, dropping the mask on the couch and heading towards the kitchenette.

He’s not even halfway when he hears some cracking underneath his feet. A quick look down, he sees that it’s glass. There’s some liquid on the ground as well. The shards on the floor seem like… did somebody drop a bottle?

“FRIDAY? What happened here?” Peter asks. “Why is there a broken bottle on the floor?”

“I’m sorry, Peter. You should have gone home to your Aunt but I'm still glad you're here,” FRIDAY responds sadly. Alarms ring immediately inside of Peter’s head after that.

“FRI, where’s Dad?” he asks, voice suddenly raised. He starts running to the kitchenette, finding more broken shards on the ground. Is that blood? Somebody cut themselves here! There’s a small trail of drops, leading towards the hallway.

“Mr. Stark is in the bathroom. I was not allowed to contact anybody,” the AI says. Peter shudders as he follows the blood, finding that it does, indeed, lead to the bathroom. He knocks once, but there’s no answer.

“I thought you weren’t forced to take direct orders anymore?” Peter asks.

“He used his overrides to prevent me from calling anybody.”

“Dad?!” he shouts, banging the door now with his fist. If Tony fell asleep, Peter needs to wake him up one way or another. “FRIDAY, can you open up the door for me?”

“I’m sorry, I cannot,” she returns.

“Okay, uh, override code-“

“Your codes have been changed, Peter. The ones you have don’t work anymore,” suddenly comes out. Peter’s eyes open up wide, his mouth falls open. Holy shit, you can’t be serious, right? Now, of all times, his codes don’t work?

“DAD!” he shouts again, knocking the door so hard it almost breaks. Maybe that’s their only solution here, now? “FRIDAY, I thought he was doing better?”

“He was, but it seems like it all just became too much for now,” she responds. “After finishing his call, he took a drink, but after that he didn’t stop. And you know what the combination of alcohol and antidepressants do. Besides, he’s been feeling a bit sick lately, as well."

Holy shit, yes he does know what it does. It’s an experience he never wants to have again. And, sick? Tony Stark being sick is something Peter can’t really imagine.

“I’m breaking the door,” Peter then says, wondering if it’s to prepare himself or to warn Tony. After taking a deep breath, Peter runs forward, banging his shoulder against the wood and feeling it come along. The door stays in one piece, falling down on the ground, pulled out of its hinges. Peter rubs his shoulder for a bit, looking around and finding a body on the ground.

Peter kneels down next to him, pressing his finger against Tony’s neck to search for a pulse. When he finds one, he lets out a relieved breath. Then he starts shaking him, ignoring the stench of puke around him.

“Dad! Hey, wake up!” he shouts, but there’s no response coming from him. He’s in it too deep. Peter curses, looking around for something that might help him. He sees bloodied tissues scattered around, another one wrapped around Tony’s hand where he must have accidentally cut himself.

“FRIDAY, call up Dr. Cho, tell her I need assista-“

“Dr. Cho isn’t at the base. She went to a medical convention in Hong Kong for the upcoming three days,” FRIDAY warns him. Peter curses.

“Is there anybody else at the compound qualified for this?” he asks.

“I’m afraid not. With the lack of Avengers lately, there hasn’t been much reason to keep medical personnel at the base.”

“Shit, shit, shit,” Peter mutters, suddenly standing up and running towards the workshop. What he sees there is nothing but a mess. Tony must have thrown a small rampage here, probably in anger. Peter runs to his desk, searching for the flip-phone. “Where is it?” he mutters to himself. When he looks to the side, he finds it lying on the ground. Did Tony throw it there? Peter picks it up and flips the screen open.

6 missed calls? Holy crap. Running back to the bathroom, Peter goes through the call-log, seeing that Steve has been trying to reach him all the time. But he frowns when he sees that, at eight p.m., somebody answered.

It wasn’t him… So that must mean…

Crap.

Peter dials in the number, pressing the phone between his head and shoulder as he tries to lift Tony’s head up a bit. He needs to check if his airways are still clear. That’s what he remembers from first aid, at least. Check for a pulse, check for breathing.

“Hello?”

FINALLY! “Steve! Shit, hi! Help! I just came home and there were shards everywhere and-“

“Shards? Peter? What happened, are you alright?”

“I just, I found blood on the floor, and I followed it to the bathroom but the door was locked and Tony changed my overrides so I couldn’t get in. I had to break the door and Tony is on the floor and he’s unconscious and I can’t wake him up but he’s breathing and-“

“Peter, calm down, you’re scaring me. Are you alright?”

“I’m fine, but Dad isn’t!”

“What happened?”

“He’s been drinking again. He hasn’t drunk in months and suddenly he did it again. I don’t understand why- He was doing better, Steve!”

Peter isn’t even crying. The shock and the panic is too strong for that right now. All he can do is gently tap Tony’s face, regularly checking for his pulse. It’s slow, but it’s there.

“You said something about blood? Is Tony hurt?”

“He cut his hand on a broken bottle I think.” Peter takes bloodied hand and lifts it up to remove the bloodied tissue. It sticks everywhere, and Peter gets blood all over his fingers as he takes it off. The bleeding seems to have stopped for now, so that counts at least for something.

“Have you called Dr. Cho?” Steve asks.

“She’s not in town,” Peter clarifies. “There’s no-one else at the compound qualified for this.”

Steve sighs on the other side of the line. Peter swallows in worry when he feels Tony’s heart beat slowing down gently.

“Call an ambulance. Tell them what happened, and to be as discreet as possible. Give them instructions to go through the garage, and take them through the private elevators – you know which one. Then after that, call Pepper, let her know what happened and let her prepare herself for the possible press they might get. You can try and keep this completely anonymous, but there’s always a chance that somebody will find out.”

Peter nods, looking at the ceiling and willing for FRIDAY to have heard all this.

“I can’t be there, I’m sorry Peter. T’Challa won’t allow me to head back to the States twice in one week. Besides, if the government learns that I’ve been in contact with Tony outside of accords-business, they’ll arrest him, too.”

“I understand,” Peter says. He doesn’t. But he can’t really care about that, now. He can’t be disappointed at Steve now. This isn’t the time for it. “I need to go.”

“Alright, keep me updated,” Steve quickly says.

“I will,” Peter assures him.

He doesn’t.

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