Peter struggles a lot with his memories of Tony’s death. He’s a little ashamed of how much it bothers him. He’s an Avenger, after all. Death shouldn’t leave these kinds of scars.
But it did. It had. The images of Tony slipping away, the smell of his charred skin, the way his breaths had wheezed in, out, then shuddered to a halt, arc reactor flickering into nothingness…
The memory of Tony’s hand falling limply away from Pepper’s was always playing in the back of his mind.
But most of all, he couldn’t stop replaying the fact that Tony hadn’t said anything to him. He’d just laid there, still and silent. Peter hadn’t gotten any last words, final comforts. All he’d gotten was hazy eyes and a bucketful of trauma.
There was no escaping the memories, no running from the horror that bubbled in his throat whenever they resurfaced. And he knew he couldn’t survive like this. Maybe even more so, he knew that Tony would never want him to.
There were only two people on Earth who truly understood. Sure, Steve and the others had watched from afar, but Rhodey, Peter, and Pepper had been on the frontlines. They’d been close enough to hear his last breaths, to see the life dwindle out of Iron Man’s eyes.
He could’ve gone to either Rhodey or Pepper, of course, but he chose her because the memory of Tony’s death wasn’t the only one that he could recall with frightening clarity.
In the settling moments, the ones that came in the shockwaves of that final breath, Pepper had kissed Tony’s cheek. Peter had felt like throwing up. Rhodey had held him back, steel arms around his stomach.
“Rhodey,” Pepper had gasped, “Rhodey, let him come, now. Let him… Just let him come.”
He’d been released, and he would’ve face-planted if Pepper hadn’t twisted around to grab his arm, steadying him as he sunk to his knees in front of Tony’s body.
“Mister Stark?” He whimpered. He’d reached for Tony like a child, hands grasping helplessly just inches from his motionless chest. It was a physical call for action, a plea to be held.
Tony hadn’t answered it, was far past that, now, but Pepper had.
She had pulled him into her chest, chin resting on the crown of his head. “Shh, sweetheart. It’s alright now. It’s over. It’s… It’s all over.”
“Tony?” At any other time, he would’ve been ashamed of how cracked and desperate his voice was, of his entire reaction in general. But then, he’d been strangely detached, out of control. “Tony.”
Pepper had been the one to guide him as he tucked himself against Tony’s chest, had been the one to rub his back as he sobbed. Eventually, she’d been the one who’d rocked him while Rhodey scooped Tony into his arms, to carry him back. To carry him home.
Although the memories were hazy, he knew that she’d stayed with him once he slipped into shock, too. She’d filled the role of May, of Tony, without missing a step. And she’d done it all while struggling under the weight of a loss that even Peter couldn’t begin to comprehend.
And, sure, Pepper had always been kind to him, but she’d taken more of an interest in him after… well, after. He knew it was probably only out of a lingering need to protect whatever Tony loved, but he clung to that connection all the same.
So he skips school, comes to the cabin when Morgan’s at playgroup. The conversation he needed to have wouldn’t feel right with her in the house. It would feel wrong.
As soon as the door opens, he can see Pepper’s surprise, see the reprimand on her lips, but then she takes in the look on his face, the bags underneath his eyes, and she ushers him in.
She makes him sit on the couch, offers him tea. He shakes his head, just curls into himself until she finally sits beside him.
“What do you need, Peter?” She asks, voice soft. Peter wonders if that’s why Tony fell in love with her: because her ability to gentle was good for his rough edges.
“I… I keep thinking about it.”
Pepper didn’t need clarification to at least understand the ballpark of his meaning. “Oh, Peter. It’s normal to feel the… the loss of presence in your life-”
He shakes his head. “No, no. I mean I keep thinking about it. About the.. the moment. It won’t stop playing in my head.”
“What bothers you about it?”
It feels like a ridiculous question at first. What bothers him about it? Well, the fact that Tony died, for one. The fact that he was just sixteen and confused and watching something horrific happen without the gravity of the moment really registering until after, until it was too late to really process it at all.
But then… but then he realizes that there was a reason behind why it bothered him so much. That despite the generic awfulness of the whole experience, there was one aspect that stung above everything else. One fact that he was constantly tangling himself up in.
“He didn’t say anything to me,” he whispers, voice breaking. “He… I don’t even think he knew that I was there.”
He would’ve comforted me. He would’ve said something stupid, smiled, cracked a joke. If he’d known I was there, he wouldn’t have acted the way he did.
He wouldn’t have just laid there.
“He knew,” Pepper murmured, and she said it like she never once doubted that it was true.
He wanted to believe it. God, he really, really wanted to believe it.
“Because I saw him recognize you, Peter. He… He wasn’t at peace until he saw your face. Didn’t you notice him look at you?”
If he was being honest, he hadn’t been seeing much of anything at the time, besides the blur-wobble of unshed tears.
“He did.” Pepper tilts his chin up, the same way Tony used to, when he refused to look at him after a rough day at school or on patrol. “He looked at you like he’d be alright if that was the last thing he’d ever see. And I don’t think… I don’t think he could talk, sweetheart.”
He hated how petulant it sounded, how childish and resentful. Of course Pepper deserved those final words. She was Tony’s wife, the mother of his child, the love of his life. What right did Peter have to resent Tony’s last gift to her?
But Pepper didn’t seem upset. She just smiled, genuine and sad. “And you heard how it sounded, didn’t you? He was trying not to scare you, Peter. At least, not anymore than he already had. You were so frightened. I think he knew that if he said anything, it would just make it harder for you to accept.”
He felt a sob threaten to crawl up his throat. When he spoke, his voice was strained with it. “He just… he used to talk so much.”
“I know. But, honey,” Pepper’s thumb swiped under cheek, caught a tear he hadn’t even known had fallen, “sometimes we don’t need to say anything to tell someone we love them.”
“Did he… Do you really think he…?”
“Loved you?” At his reluctant nod, Pepper laughed. “Peter, look outside. Half the birds, half the children, half of everyone: they’re all there because of you. Tony stitched the universe back together just so that you could live in it. If that isn’t love, what is?”
And for once, Peter didn’t really know what to say, either.
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