Tony held his hand high in the air, fingers gripping tightly to the stem of his champagne glass. The bubbly liquid inside fizzled and sparkled from the windows nearby.
“To not dying!”
“No,” Pepper curtly responded — not amused, never once raising her own champagne glass to meet his.
Tony frowned, looking offended and slightly childish in his pout.
“What? Why?”
“I’m going to hurl something at your head, I swear —”
“What?” Tony asked again, nudging his glass playfully against hers. It only managed to spill some champagne onto the cut-stone flooring below. “Come on — to not dying!”
There was a pause. A deadly one, the type that came with Pepper’s scolding hot stare. Her eyes held enough heat that Tony was worried they might wind up burning him; a firey Medusa if he’d say so himself.
“I’m not toasting to that,” Pepper insisted, all the while curtly shaking her head.
“I think it’s a lovely toast.”
“And I think that palladium poisoning may have had some lingering and very unfortunate lasting side effects,” Pepper bit back, smooth-talking, quick for banter.
“Preposterous.” Tony smiled, his grin wide enough to show his back molars. “I’m all good. Promise.”
“Mhmm...” she eyed his champagne glass with hesitance. “I still think you should be checked out by, you know, an actual doctor.”
Tony’s eyes flickered up to the ceiling as he lowered his glass from its raised position.
“JARVIS?”
Tony couldn’t resist a chuckle, eyes staying locked on Pepper as he said, “Thank you, JARVIS.”
Pepper, however, seemed less than convinced. Her head cocked to the side, skeptical, and Tony could see her fingernails grip tensely around the stem of her glass. Any tighter and it might just break.
“You think that’s all it’s going to take for me to believe —”
“You heard it for yourself, with your own two ears —”
“And why exactly should I have faith in the medical diagnosis of your intelligence programming.” Pepper looked upwards to the ceiling. "No offense, JARVIS.”
“Because I wouldn’t lie to you.” Tony gave a slight grimace when Pepper shot him a look, the same maddening look that usually had him scampering across the room. She earned the moniker Pepper for a reason, after all. “That is, I wouldn’t lie to you after this — not again, not ever again. You have my word. Cross my fragile, shrapnel damaged heart and any other silly elementary school promise you’d like to throw in. Here, you want to grab my pinky? I mean, I’d much prefer you grab another appendage of mine but by all means —”
"Tony!”
“We’re good. I’m good,” Tony stressed the last two words with heavy sincerity, his foolish grin turning more somber in the moment.
Pepper still seemed hesitant, frowning as she looked back and forth between both champagne glasses. He really couldn’t blame her, not after all they had been through. Her hesitance surely came with a cause — Iron Man, Obadiah Stane, Justin Hammer, Vanko — the hairs on his arm shot right up at the very thought of the crazy bastard.
After that whole ordeal, Tony would be happy to never again deal with another psychopathic Russian in his life.
“That’s up for debate,” Pepper finally said, soft under her breath but loud enough that Tony could hear the smile in her words.
He took that as his go-ahead.
“Okay, let’s try this again.” Tony raised his glass, the bubbly carbonation beginning to sprinkle over and send droplets onto his knuckles. It only stung slightly, open cuts from the Stark Expo battle already beginning to scab over and heal. “To...revoking an importune resignation. And to new beginnings.”
This time, with only a beat passing by, Pepper lifted her hand to meet his.
“To new beginnings.”
Glasses clicked together and the otherwise small sound echoed across the large room inside the mansion, accompanied by each of their steady sips.
Pepper was quick to swallow hers, adding, “Hopefully to one that doesn’t include the entire destruction of the New York State Pavilion —”
“We paid for that.” Tony paused on his way over to the sofa, half sitting when he asked, “We paid for that, right?”
Pepper chuckled dryly, joining him on the beige leather couch. “Yes, we paid for that.”
Her weight dipped the sofa low, one of Tony’s arm stretched over her shoulder while his other laid on the armrest, glass in hand. He let out the breath he’d never realized he’d been holding. The sunset across the Malibu ocean reflected through the enormous windows spread across the room, streaks of gold and tangerines coloring the otherwise white walls and architectural beam structures.
It had been a long day, and even then, that could be the understatement of the year. The moment of relaxation felt earned.
“Good,” Tony reaffirmed, taking another sip, relishing in the bubbles that danced across his tongue. “Damage paid for, that spicy double-agent Romanoff is out of our hair, Hammer will rot away with his boy toy in Seagate Prison — oh, I saved a kid.”
The sudden and unprompted statement had Pepper quirking an eyebrow high into her hairline.
“You saved a lot of people, Tony,” she needlessly reminded.
“That goes without saying.” Tony crossed one leg over the other, eyes locked on his champagne glass. The sunset through the windows made the drink sparkle in just the right light. Or perhaps that was his arc reactor glowing through his button-down shirt. “I’m talking about a kid, though, wearing this cheap-looking plastic Iron Man helmet — which by the way, when did we start selling those? We are selling those, right? China better not be black-marketing my brand and pocketing the sales.”
“Tony,” Pepper admonished, head tipped low, chin practically resting against her chest.
Tony waved it off with his free hand.
“Anyway, little brat was like, this tall?” It was more of a question than a fact, leveling his hand out in the air to a height that barely reached his sternum. “So what’s that, five? Six?”
Pepper huffed. “No five-year-old is that tall. Eight, at best.”
“Don’t care, too young. Stood right in front of one of those Hammeroid’s, thinking his low-budget Toys R Us get-up could save the day.”
Something about the memory, all too fresh in his mind, had Tony downing the remains of his champagne — which was nearly all of it, taken in one large swig. He grunted as he leaned forward to place the empty glass on the coffee table ahead, sore ribs making themselves known.
“Go figure, Hammer’s programming was recognizing anything remotely close to Iron Man and I suppose China is doing a good job with our merch, because that Halloween costume nearly got him blown to smithereens.”
Looking to where Pepper sat next to him, Tony was surprised to see she was actually smiling. For a story that had him reeling with hypotheticals, dizzy with ‘what if’ scenarios involving him arriving a millisecond too late, she seemed to be beaming with joy.
In fact, he nearly did a double-take to make sure his eyes weren’t deceiving him — she was, indeed, happy. The very opposite of a reaction he’d expect after telling her that a child almost died because of Iron Man.
Because of him.
Why was it that the firey Medusa never came out when he expected it the most?
“You saved a kid.” Pepper laid a hand gently on his knee, words warm and tender.
Tony scoffed. “Barely. Nick of time sort of deal. Definitely would have been a messy spill to clean up if I hadn’t — bad PR, stocks down the drain...”
Tony hadn’t meant to trail off, his voice somehow tapering away amid a memory. His eyes stared absentmindedly ahead, the familiarity of guilt resurfacing with full force. At the time, it had been easy to ignore the harsh reality behind the incident. Adrenaline and fear had kept him moving — flying, fighting, desperate to save Rhodey and Pepper from Vanko, to save all of New York from that insane, violent bastard.
But now that he had a moment of relaxation, the truth sunk in. And it sank deep, far into his core where it hurt the most. Where reminders of Gulmira made his chest ache more than palladium poisoning ever could.
“I...can’t imagine having a child’s death on my conscience, Pep.” Tony realized a moment too late that he had said the words out loud. He cleared his throat before Pepper could even open her mouth, quick to ramble off, “You know, now that I think about it — scrap the kid toys, pull the plug entirely, do a world-wide recall on all of it. Don’t be selling that crap to them.”
“I think it’s cute,” Pepper said quietly, her hand squeezing his knee before letting go. “You’re creating heroes already.”
Tony was a bit slow on the uptake with her words, eventually giving a hearty chuckle when he realized what she’d said. Somehow hearing kids and heroes in the same sentence simply didn’t compute, not for him. This was never about being a role model, never about being someone for the younger generation to look up to.
To think, it all started as a way to rid the world of the weapons he had naively created.
“I’m just glad I’m not that twerps dad. With an attitude like that...” Tony let out a long whistle through his pursed lips. “He’s going to be the biggest headache for his parents.”
“Brake. Brake. Parker, you need to — brake, Peter, BRAKE!”
Tony’s nose nearly became one with the dashboard as Peter slammed on the breaks to the car, his seat-belt the only thing saving his very famous face from needing possible reconstructive surgery.
The engine beneath them hummed and the smell of burnt rubber began to drift into the open windows of the Audi. Tony hadn’t noticed, not over his heavy breathing. His face flushed with sweat, pulse racing and thumping in ways he knew wasn’t good for his heart.
This was it. This was how he was going to die. At the hands of a sixteen-year-old teenager who managed to swing thousands of feet in the air but couldn’t obey a stop sign if one smacked him head-on.
Peter smiled sheepishly from the driver’s seat, his hands gripping the wheel tight enough Tony was worried it might break.
“Sorry?”
Tony shot his head over in his direction with breakneck speed. His sunglasses dipped from the bridge of his nose — chest heaving, eyes bulging.
“You were just released from the medbay last week," he thundered out. "Was the pudding that great? Were the nurses that cute? Are you trying to get yourself re-admitted?”
Peter rolled his eyes. “The car was going thirty-five, I wouldn’t get hurt if —”
“What about me!?” Tony all but shrieked, clutching his seat-belt for dear life.
This was why he didn’t have kids of his own, he kept telling himself. Over and over again in a way he was sure would prove more effective than a vasectomy ever could.
Peter decided it was best to keep his mouth shut. He slowly put the car back into gear, trying his best not to laugh as Tony flinched from his every move; from adjusting the mirrors to using the turn signal, the man was a complete spaz case. Not even Aunt May had been this on edge with him driving, and he had crashed into six-and-half shopping carts with her trying to teach him.
PingPingPing sounded from the blinker as he looked both ways on the road before turning — the very empty road, surrounding the outside of the Avenger’s compound where literally no more than one car ever seemed to be driving at a time — and once out of the intersection, Peter picked up speed.
To a whopping twenty-five miles per hour.
Awesome.
Granted, it was faster than he ever went driving with May, so he really couldn’t complain all too much. Plus, Peter was worried if he drove even one mile faster, Mr. Stark might jump straight out of the car and make a run for it. Something told him the ‘I have a suit on standby’ joke wasn’t really a joke after all.
“How long ago was it that you took drivers ed?” Tony spoke up, his voice a little stronger as his breaths came in a tad bit calmer.
Peter kept his eyes straight ahead on the road. “Not long after I crashed Flash’s car.”
“That’s right,” he nodded. “You crashed that kids car. I’m pretty sure I paid out the insurance for that kid’s car.” There was a beat of silence before, “Why am I letting you drive again?”
“No idea.” Peter turned the wheel a sharp left, the car pulling in that direction. “In my defense —”
“Wouldn’t go there —”
“Getting my permit was so much easier than this,” he finished with a sigh, shoulders slumping dramatically with defeat. “I’m just not cut out for driving, am I? I’ll be subway taking, Uber calling, web-swinging Peter Parker for life.”
It was Tony’s turn to roll his eyes, especially as Peter mentioned web-swinging. That was a new habit he wasn’t all too found about. In fact, it was only shortly before the whole Mysterio-and-Dmitri incident that he discovered the kid was basically flying through the streets of New York at precarious heights.
At first, it hadn’t been much of a cause for concern. But what started as the occasional swing quickly became more of a means to transportation, and he was about to tell the kid to play it safe — ie: knock it off — when all that nonsense went down in what he'd later deem as 'the spring from hell.'
Now, Tony couldn’t care less. Anything to keep Peter Parker off the streets — far more for the safety of the New York residents than the teenager himself.
“Tell you what,” Tony started, watching as they drove closer to the Avenger’s compound. More relieved than he was willing to admit that the lesson was nearly over. “There’s this long, empty, practically deserted stretch of road on Interstate 80 in Utah. I’ll consider letting you drive then. Maybe. We’ll see.”
Peter grinned ear-to-ear, his smile brighter than the afternoon sun that baked through the sunroof of the Audi. Tony pushed up his glasses to better protect his eyes.
“I still can’t believe you’re taking me on a cross-country road trip, Mr. Stark,” Peter’s voice was thick with excitement, the one leg not operating the gas pedal bouncing in place. “I mean, I would have been cool with Paris, but this is —”
“You’re such a little shit, Parker,” Tony joked with a laugh, gesturing ahead with the hand that wasn’t white-knuckle clutching his seat-belt. “Okay, brake up ahead. Right about...now — Pete, here. You need to brake here—BRAKE!”
It turned out by the end of their trip, Peter didn’t drive once. Not unless he counted the time in Malibu when after filling up the car, Mr. Stark let him drive from the gas station to their hotel.
The hotel was literally half a mile away.
Peter had been pouting so hard Mr. Stark said he might have burst a blood vessel.
It was all good, though. Because Malibu was absolutely gorgeous. The bright sun, the clean, salty air — what the internet showed him would never compare to the real beauty of it all. Peter couldn’t comprehend why Mr. Stark would ever want to move away.
And yeah, sure, Mr. Stark eventually told him all about how his mansion had been blown up and they decided it was safer living in the Avenger’s headquarters on the East Coast but let’s be real, the sand between Peter’s toes had him sold on the beach life.
“Tonight, Peter!” May hollered from outside his bedroom.
“I will!” Peter shouted back, belly-flopping onto the bottom bunk of his bed with his phone so close to his face, he could see his breath marks on the screen. It was an easy way to ignore the open handy-me-down suitcase from Uncle Ben that laid on his floor — t-shirts, pants, and boxers spilling out that still needed put away.
He knew full well what May was asking from him because it was the same thing she’d been asking for three days now, ever since he returned home.
Without even thinking about it, Peter scrolled through his phone and opened his text messages. He’d get around to unpacking at some point. It’d probably be around the time he didn’t have any clean clothes left but hey, it’d get done.
A part of him realized that unpacking made him a little sad; it would officially put an end to what was an amazing summer. Even without getting a real chance at driving, Peter had the absolute time of his life. Never in his wildest dreams did he think he’d get the chance to spend an entire month traveling the country, and with Iron Man nonetheless.
Peter had to admit that while he never, ever wanted to experience almost dying again — not even if you paid him a billion dollars — it certainly came with its perks. And despite really not needing the road trip as some sort of extra apology from Mr. Stark, Peter also didn’t have the heart to turn it down.
If he didn’t know better, he’d say Mr. Stark seemed just as excited. In his own weird way.
Still, by the time the month-long trip came to an end, he admittedly missed the city life enough to say goodbye to the beaches of the West Coast, the deserts of Arizona and the odd alien-abduction culture in Missouri.
Both him and Mr. Stark were surprised to see the quaint little state had New Mexico beat in the ‘obsessed with aliens’ department. Something about a boy going missing in 1988 and the entire town of St. Charles being under this absurd impression that a UFO took him and — well, Mr. Stark had high tailed it out of there before Peter could learn any more.
The stories he came back with seemed endless, and if he needed to keep his suitcase full a little while longer before saying goodbye to summer, than so be it.
Peter grimaced as he ran his tongue across his upper teeth, the sticky film of plaque a gritty sensation he’d been ignoring for too long. There was one thing he needed to figure out sooner rather than later, something procrastination couldn’t take hold of any longer.
He pulled up a text message conversation with one quick swipe across his keyboard.
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Peter laughed, letting his fingers dance across the touch screen.
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A —ding— sounded from his phone, another message popping up on the top of his screen.
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Peter was mid-reply when his fingers stopped darting across the screen. His looked to his right where his bedroom door was mostly open, a respectable halfway point between total privacy and ‘sure, come on in! I’m not doing any embarrassing teenage stuff at all, May, I promise!’ The sounds of his aunt’s footsteps could be heard even from where he laid, enhanced hearing picking up the sound of her humming, the neighbor’s television playing M.A.S.H for the five hundredth time this week, and the persistent drip of a broken faucet.
drip. drip. drip.Peter's forehead creased with eyebrows furrowed tightly. From what he could tell, it was the sink in their apartment causing the noise. Not the neighbor or anyone else the building to blame but them.
Usually accustomed to fine-tuning his enhanced hearing so those sounds didn’t bother him, Peter was surprised to realize that ‘holy cow!’ was it annoying. Not to mention it was bothersome. Each droplet of water hit their bathroom tiled floor louder than if Thor’s hammer was swinging down onto the ground.
Of course, that may have been a slight exaggeration. Just slight.
A few more swipes touched his phone.
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“Hey, May!?” Peter shouted — already in a sitting position on his bed, phone discarded at his hip.
Within a few seconds, May had popped her head in-between the door, shouting back,
“Hey, Peter!?”
“Whoa.” Peter cringed, one hand rubbing tenderly and dramatically at his ear. “Loud much?”
May cocked her head to the side, the smile in her eyes giving away her faux serious posture.
“I’m literally in the kitchen,” she sassed back, one hand smugly resting against her hip while a dishtowel dangled in the other. “You didn’t need to yell for me.”
“Right, right.” Peter nodded too many times for his own good, following up with, “Hey, do we have any tools to fix the bathroom sink? I can hear it dripping from my bedroom.”
May gave an incredulous laugh. “Of all the things those super-duper ears pick up on and that’s what’s bothering you right now? Didn’t you once mention that the Johnson's in 3.B play M.A.S.H about —”
“Five hundred times a day and yes, someone needs to introduce them to something new!” Peter gestured to the wall of his bedroom, arm extended fully. “Of all the amazing things Netflix and Hulu have to offer and they insist on playing those reruns day in and day out. It’s driving me insane.”
“You can’t beat the classics,” May said, grinning at his over-the-top theatrics, eye-roll included. “And regarding the sink, just fix it yourself. You know...”
She gestured her hands in a twisting motion — like she was tightening a pipe.
“Yeah..” Peter drawled out, inwardly cringing, “last time I did I...sorta broke the kitchen sink?”
May froze and her eyes squinted with realization. “So that’s how that happened.”
Sitting on his bed, Peter smiled sheepishly, somehow managing to make himself seem two times smaller than his physique actually allowed him to be.
“I’ll call the landlord," May wagged the dishtowel in his direction, "see what he can do.”
Peter's nod was enough acknowledgment for them both. May turned on her heels to leave, barely two steps out the door when she spun back around, the kitchen towel waving at the movement.
“Hey — last day of summer vacation. Any big plans?”
Peter shook his head. “I don’t think so. Mr. Stark’s road trip was enough, ya know?”
His eyes drifted to his phone, laying by his hip, face down across the ruffled blankets and sheets of his twin bed. The last stream of text messages from Ned stood out fresh in his mind.
“But there is this party —”
“You should go!”
Peter shot his head back to her with wide eyes and an expression so wild May nearly doubled over laughing. He couldn’t help it, beyond confused — practically bewildered at her uncanny encouragement to attend some random teenage party. Which, now that he thought about it, was a common experience before knowing about Spider-Man.
Things definitely changed after Homecoming though, even tenfold after his whole ‘death fake-out' four months ago. Some days he was still surprised she let him on the trip with Mr. Stark, though he was sure some smooth-talking was likely had before a yes was even given.
“I feel like you have an alternative motive here,” he managed to squeak out. “You know, Ned’s mom is taking him out for dinner —”
May threw the dishtowel at him. “Well I’m not Ned’s mother and you know I can’t stand that woman so why would you compare me to her?”
Peter laughed, catching the dirty rag before it could land on his face. He tossed it right back at her. “I’m just saying. Feeling a bit kicked out here.”
May softened, leaning against his door frame with a warm smile. Her demeanor seemed to change all at once, her shoulders dropping, her fingers fidgeting with the seams of the dishtowel.
Peter hated when she looked at him that way, her face conveying a sort of sympathy for all he had been through. It only reminded him that she’d been through so much herself, more than she needed to with him dragging her along for this crazy superhero ride.
At the same time, he didn’t know what he’d do without her.
“Seriously, go have some fun,” May stressed, lighthearted with encouragement. “You had a rough spring, you deserve to end the summer with a bang. Hey, I’ll even drive you there.”
Peter picked up his cell phone, tossing it between both hands as he stared ahead at nothing. If he was completely honest with May, he didn’t have much of a desire to go. Ned wouldn’t be there, he still got odd feelings when he was around MJ, and it was Flash’s party — which just meant all sorts of yucky things.
But the suitcase on the floor was still open with clothes needing to be put away.
“Actually...” Peter felt a grin pulling at his lips. “I might be able to catch a ride.”
May gave him a corny thumbs up and Peter stopped tossing his phone like a ping-pong ball. One person in particular came to his mind, someone he knew he could rely on no matter what. He didn’t waste another second once having made a decision.
The chat was up on his phone in seconds.
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