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Peter knew what home was.
He knew the definition like the back of his hand, knew the feeling, the smell, the taste. He knew what it was like to be away from home, to long for it; knew what it was like to be in a place he was told was his home, but know it wasn’t. Peter Benjamin Stark knew that home could be carried and taken with you; he knew that it was a portable concept, attached to people, not things; knew that home never tried to run away or escape; home never tried to betray or lie.
Home, to Peter, was not a foreign concept.
It was familiar, intimate, known.
It was his to hold, to touch and turn in the palms of his hands.
And Peter’s home, quite decidedly, was his favourite place to be. Not that he was surprised – no, when he realised he had a favourite place to be, it made sense all the way down to his core that it was with his parents.
Because Peter Stark, in his opinion, had the best parents in the world.
-
@PeterStark: clint thought he could beat me at mario kart but he seems to have forgotten that I’ve got a lot of free time and better hand-eye coordination than anyone actually needs.
@TheHawk: @PeterStark didn’t your parents ever tell you not to get on the bad sides of highly trained super secret agents?????
@PeterStark: @TheHawk of course they did. you don’t see me calling out natasha do you???
From across the room, a pillow hit the side of Peter’s face. He sensed it coming the vague way, in his danger sense whispering move quietly in the back of his mind, telling him it wasn’t a massive threat, wasn’t anything too big, he could get hit by the projectile and all it would do is mess up his hair.
Peter frowned at Clint, throwing the pillow back. It didn’t even reach the highly trained super secret agent, who snorted, shoving his phone in his pocket and picking up the cushion.
“Respect your elders, kid,” Clint said, dumping the cushion on the sofa. Clint hit the sofa right after, landing heavily with a grunt, and Peter swung his legs up and onto his lap.
“FRIDAY, are they here yet?” Peter asked, Clint rolling his eyes with a smile.
“No, Peter. I will inform you when they arrive,” the AI responded from overhead.
Peter turned his attention back to Twitter before Clint snatched the phone from his hand.
“Hey!” Peter whined. “Give it, come on.”
Clint held the phone just out of Peter’s half-hearted reach as he scrolled down the app. “They’re staying for the weekend, huh?” Clint asked as if he didn’t already know.
Peter nodded. The coffee table was covered in snacks, movies and games, ready for the visit. He’d never had a sleepover before in his life but he was incredibly excited.
“They’re staying for the weekend, which means you can leave my house and not bug me for two days.”
Clint laughed, climbing up onto his feet. Peter groaned and followed him.
“Your house, huh? Last I remember, this was Tony’s place, and it’s super not yours.”
Clint let Peter chase him around the Iron Suite, his fingers flying across the phone screen as he dodged the projectile pillows Peter was aiming in his direction. Eventually, Clint ground to a halt, locked Peter’s phone and held it out.
“Fine,” he said. “I’ll go. It’s clear I’m not wanted here. Old Uncle Clint, passed over by his favourite nephew. Unwanted. Alone. Terribly depressed.”
Peter rolled his eyes at Clint’s melodramatics and swiped his phone back. “I’m not calling you Uncle Clint,” he replied, making Clint’s frown deepen. Peter was calling Rhodey “Uncle Rhodey” but largely only in Clint’s presence, or in the presence of someone who would take that news back to Clint.
“Peter,” FRIDAY cut in, “your guests have arrived. They are coming up the main drive now.”
Peter grinned, calling thanks, FRI over his shoulder as he darted out of the Iron Suite and ran down the stairs to the entrance. He made it to the main door in time to see Ned and MJ climb out of one of Tony’s Audis, Ned’s face open and wide and MJ seeming indifferent bar her single raised eyebrow.
“Peter!” Ned shouted, noticing Peter’s presence at the top of the steps, and came running, his duffle bag leaping around in his grip. Ned barrelled into Peter for a hug, and the boys laughed. MJ sent him a smile and a nod as a greeting.
“I can’t believe we’re at the Avengers Compound,” Ned gushed, turning around in a circle to get a look at everything. He whispered, in awe, “The Avengers Compound.”
MJ rolled her eyes. “You live here now, right?”
Peter nodded. “Yeah. Come inside, guys. Oh! How was the last exam?”
Ned and MJ replied with their varying opinions of their final exam. It was their senior year – it was Peter’s senior year, too, but Peter had been kidnapped and brainwashed and only acknowledged to the world that he was up and about a month ago. He hadn’t bothered to return to school, due to all the exams he’d missed, and his parents had shrugged it off and had a discussion with the school to get him on the list for next year’s exams instead.
Peter would work from home, rather than go into class, because the thought of sitting in a room filled with strangers was making him uneasy, especially when there was so much nervous energy in his body, and he’d come back to take the exams instead.
(“You need something less rigid,” his therapist had told him. “Structure is important, sure, but you grew up under a strict one that hindered creativity and increased your stress levels. Going to school and being a regular student was a good idea to emulate normality, but I think after everything that you’ve gone through, it might be a good idea to just take a year off and relax. You’re very lucky that you’re in the position where doing so won’t affect your future. Go have fun, Peter. Go enjoy your life.”)
Peter led his friends through the compound, answering Ned’s rambling questions to the best of his ability as they went in search of the Iron Suite.
“Why does Mr Stark get his own apartment and everyone else shares?” Ned asked as they came upon the door (in Stark-style ostentatious red, gold and black).
“Some of them do have apartments,” Peter replied with a shrug. “Like Clint. His family stays here sometimes. But it’s also because Tony likes to remind everyone that this is his house and not theirs and that he’s paying for all of their utilities and so he gets the bigger place.”
MJ nodded knowingly, and she opened her mouth to no doubt say something snarky when it was cut off by Ned’s enthusiastic gushing over the suite. They settled themselves into the sofa, dumping their bags by their feet and MJ pulled out her phone as Ned and Peter started going through the assorted junk food and games.
“Oh my god, is that Rockem Sockem Captain America?” Ned asked, pulling out a box. It was based off the game where robot-figures stood in a boxing ring, but one was quite clearly an inaccurate rendition of Captain America and the other an even worse depiction of Adolf Hitler. “I thought this was limited edition? Like, only fifteen made!”
“Twelve,” Peter corrected with a grin. “When Tony found out about its existence he went searching for weeks to get it. Steve hates it with a passion.”
“Parker,” MJ interrupted as they laughed, “I think you’re in trouble.”
Peter frowned. “Why am I in trouble now?”
MJ turned her screen to face him and Peter groaned, Clint’s grubby hands all over his phone flying back into his mind.
@PeterStark: ok ok uncle clint is my favourite, I’m only mean to him for banter’s sake and I never mean it because I love him
@IronPatriot: @PeterStark Wait you’re calling him Uncle Clint now? I thought “Uncle” was reserved for me alone.
@FlyBoyFalcon: @PeterStark can I be Uncle Sam now I’ve been asking for months
@JBBarnes: @PeterStark I’ve only used Twitter 3 times and 1 of those is right now, because I’m not in your general vicinity. If you’re not calling me Uncle Bucky by the end of the week I’m going to release the footage of that time you slipped on a banana.
@FlyBoyFalcon: @JBBarnes he slipped on a banana?
@JBBarnes: @FlyBoyFalcon He was trying to prove that they weren’t slippery.
@Romanov: @PeterStark Clint’s currently in my personal space raving about how you’re calling him Uncle Clint now. Either fix this mess or call me Aunt Nat.
Peter flopped back onto the floor as Ned and MJ laughed. He fished his phone out from his jeans pocket, ignoring the way Ned gushed about having the Avengers as a family.
@PeterStark: i do not and will never call clint ‘uncle clint’. i do however have an uncle rhodey, uncle sam, uncle bucky, uncle steve and aunt nat. clint’s just the guy who lives in the vents.
-
At dinner, Tony ordered pizza and joined the kids on the sofa with their Iron Hero movie – a low budget Iron Man rip off with continuity errors and bad acting. Tony pointed out everything he hated about it in real time, Pepper mentioned that if she ever got a suit, it better look cooler than that one, and Peter ate an entire large pizza in under ten minutes.
“Pepper should totally get a suit,” Peter said to Tony as his parents left for the evening, the kids having already turned the living room into a blanket fort to sleep in.
Tony rolled his eyes. “If you don’t think there’s a backup suit specifically designed for Pepper in case she ever needs it, then you don’t know me at all, kid.”
-
For one weekend, Peter did teenager things with MJ and Ned.
They watched movies, they told jokes, they talked about the colleges his friends had applied for and played Rockem Sockem Captain America and the Avengers version of Monopoly (Peter’s counter was the Hulk because Ned and MJ took Iron Man and Black Widow before he got there). At night, they stayed up until early morning, MJ beating them at every game they played on the TV or not (she had a particular talent for Halo but wouldn’t tell them why) and found midnight snacks in the kitchen.
Peter, for once, relaxed. He didn’t think about HYDRA or Spiderman, didn’t think about Jessica or the Black Spider. When he finally slept, he had a dreamless night, which he was thankful for.
Peter wanted nothing more than to not wake up screaming in front of his best friends.
-
His friends stayed until Sunday, and they spent the morning hanging out with the Avengers, as Clint had been pouting all Saturday about how Peter was now pointedly calling everyone his Uncle and Aunt apart from him. MJ cheered him up however by announcing she’d always wanted to try archery, so he gave her a beginner’s course with the targets outside (she didn’t once hit bullseye, but she still did pretty great), while Peter and Ned made daisy chains on the grass.
After, the three of them adorned their daisy chain crowns (Peter had made one for MJ too, because of course he had), and they put the photo on Peter’s Instagram, so the world would know that today was a good day for him.
-
The next day wasn’t a good day, because he had those.
He had dark days, endless days, monotonous, heart aching days.
He had days where his senses were too sharp, too loud, too bright, and even the feel of his shirt on his skin would send him into hyperventilation. He had days where he wanted nothing more than to stop breathing, too – not die, necessarily, just stop. He spent those days in his bedroom, sitting with his face pressed against the cool glass of the window and ignoring his parents as they made attempts to bring him outside or hand him food.
Monday was one of those days.
He’d woken up screaming from a nightmare where he’d shot Tony in the temple, rather than the shoulder, and Barnum’s hand had been cold on his back when he’d said good job, Peter. You just killed your father.
The day dragged on and Peter couldn’t even look at Tony when he came into the room, couldn’t do anything but freeze and stare out at the treeline and hope that his father would leave soon.
Dad, Peter wordlessly cried, the moment Tony vanished from his room, realising that him going was the last thing he actually wanted. Still, he didn’t call him back.
-
They got a dog at the end of June.
Peter had been asking for one for a long time, and they had been planning on getting one before the abduction. Eleven years late was okay by him.
Tony and Pepper took Peter to an adoption centre, and they let him spend time with all the animals, looking at them one by one and talking to each of them with a smile on his face. He had no idea what kind of dog he wanted – small and fluffy or big and dopey – so he talked to all of them and watched the way their eyes lit up at the sound of his voice.
“Dr Baker said this would be good for him, right?” Pepper checked, standing at the beginning of the aisle while Peter spoke to a puppy at the end.
Tony nodded. “Dogs are good at providing comfort, and you know he won’t always let us do it.”
Pepper leaned into Tony’s side, his arm snaking around her back as she pressed her cheek against his shoulder. Tony laid a kiss against her hairline as they watched their son – their prodigy baby, their prodigal son, their one and only – laugh at the way the dog barked.
Half an hour later, Peter had made his decision with a brown and black German Shepherd called Thor (“I can’t believe you chose the only dog in the entire building named after an Avenger,” Tony griped, though there was a smile on his face) whose previous owners had to give him away when the medical bills for his heart problem became too expensive.
“Don’t worry,” Pepper heard Peter whisper to him, though she had a feeling she wasn’t supposed to. “My heart’s a little broken too. We’ll help each other, alright?”
-
Thor couldn’t run for long, but Peter didn’t mind. Peter already had a jogging partner in Steve Rogers, whether they were at the compound or in the city, so Peter was happy to take Thor on walks twice a day and not worry about their speed. Though he didn’t run much, Thor was great at fetch and caught every frisbee Peter threw without a problem.
He also had a knack of eating the sausages from Peter’s hot dogs, so Peter just resigned to eating the bun and ruffling the fur on Thor’s head as they ate their lunch in Central Park.
It was on one of these walks that the press finally realised Peter had a dog – they tried to keep information about themselves at least one week behind, so Peter hadn’t posted a picture of the puppy (who was certainly not a puppy) just yet.
The photos were online by that evening; Peter sitting on a bench, laughing, as Thor pulled the sausage right out of the bun with his teeth, then chowed down on the grass. They also caught a few shots of Peter walking alongside his new dog, and then Ned and MJ, who’d come to the park to hang out and meet the newest Stark. In the background of each of the photos was a member of Peter’s security detail, fading into the distance and looking on with a watchful eye in case of any danger, despite Peter being entirely competent at looking after himself.
“I love him,” Ned said, his voice muffled by the dog’s fur as he pushed his face into Thor’s side. “He’s so soft. I love him.”
“Would you mind if I stole him?” MJ asked, by Thor’s head, holding their faces so close together that their noses almost touched.
Peter scratched behind his puppy’s ear with a nod. “I would definitely mind. I’d be heartbroken. I’d never be the same.”
“Worth it for a doggo this cute,” MJ replied.
-
The first photo of Thor on Peter’s Instagram was cross-posted to Twitter. It was of his brand-new dog lying in his dog bed in the lab. The dog bed was situated beneath Tony’s primary worktop, and where Tony worked, his socked feet were lying on Thor’s back.
It was captioned meet the newest member of the family, thor stark, who dragged his dog bed to this place because he loves dad with all his heart
The next day, Peter posted another photo of Thor, in a similar position in another dog bed, this time in Pepper’s office. Peter had followed her to work that day and took the photo as she spoke fluent Japanese on a conference call. Pepper’s heels were placed neatly beneath her chair, her bare feet stroking Thor’s fur.
don’t be fooled, thor loves mom just as much
-
There were bad days, but Peter always powered through them to get to the good.
They burned the remains of the Black Spider suit, and he burned the remains of that person in his soul. If there’s one thing he had to learn (and he would, one day) it was that Peter was not what HYDRA made him to be. He was so much more. He was so much better. He was built with his father’s brains and his mother’s heart, and something wonderfully his own.
The Black Spider may have existed once, but he didn’t anymore. He was buried at the bottom of a HYDRA base with the Scarlet Spider, with all the bad things he’d done and all the blood that soaked his hands.
Peter was just trying to clean them. He was just searching for the shade of his skin through all the red. He’d get there one day.
-
He finally pulled on the Spiderman suit on a Wednesday and swung into the city. He climbed the tallest towers, leapt off the rooftops with the best views and swung down the streets, whooping and cheering wherever he went.
New York had missed their friendly neighbourhood Spiderman, and Spiderman had missed New York.
He started with the small stuff. He helped people cross the road, gave directions and carried heavy shopping bags. He stopped a man stealing a purse. He helped someone get into their apartment after they lost their keys. He carried someone else to the hospital to get there in time to see their baby girl be born.
Occasionally, he stopped a grand theft bicycle. He put an end to a mugging in a hidden alley, he walked girls home when the sky got dark and talked to jumpers on the bridge, bringing them back to his side of the railing and taking them to the hospital to get help.
He stayed out all day, all night.
He went wherever the feeling took him, Karen chatting helpfully in one ear, Tony’s mix of his favourite music in the other. Peter stopped a robbery at a convenience store, helped a few drunk guys get home, took food to the homeless guys hidden behind the bodega. He talked to people, got to know them, answered their questions with as much honesty as he could.
Peter took photos with people, grinned even though his mask hid it, accepted the occasional churro or pretzel he was given for his help and ate it on a fire escape. He took his parents’ calls when he received them, laughed through their conversations, promised he wasn’t hurt and continued on to help people.
He’d be home by sunrise, he swore, and they wished him luck.
Karen directed him to a car chase and he leapt into action, followed quickly by stopping an attack two streets away and helping a woman bleeding out in her home get to hospital. He swung through Queens, as he often did, high-fiving a girl from his school he recognised, though she had no idea who he was.
He stopped by Ned’s house, sitting on the roof of the café opposite, and nodded to himself when he saw Ned’s light off, his friend sleeping safely in his bed. He swung by MJ’s, saw her through the window of her bedroom, nearing three AM and working despite it being summer, despite exams having passed them by already. (He returned only a little bit later with a pack of donuts from a nearby store, leaving them on her open window and hiding in the shadows to watch her notice them, roll her eyes and collect them from the sill.)
He even took a detour by Flash’s place, a large three-floor townhouse with private parking, a flashy silver Mercedes sitting out front. This house was totally silent too, and Peter continued on his way.
Peter stopped to watch the woman in the nurse’s uniform walk through the dark streets of Queens, saw her cross sides of the road when two men appeared from a house. They caused her no trouble, but Peter caught sight of the edge to her back, the way she held herself like she was knitting together the nerves to make herself steady.
He swung down to the street, well in her eyeline, and greeted her, asking if she wanted any help getting home. She said no thank you, and Peter shrugged, when a group of men, rowdy and loud, appeared at the end of the road, and she changed her mind, at least for a while.
“May,” she said, introducing herself, after she and Peter had passed the men.
“Spiderman,” Peter replied.
They talked quietly, about nothing much and Peter stepped back when she reached her apartment block, thanking him. He gave her a salute. “Anytime, May,” and leapt off into the night, only to find himself perched on a nearby building, watching as a light flickered on in an apartment, and she entered, safely locking the door behind her and waking the slumbering man on the couch. They smiled, laughed at something he said, kissed.
Peter turned back towards Manhattan.
He wouldn’t save the world, he figured, but he could save one person at a time. And that was a hell of a lot better than what he used to do.
-
He stumbled into the compound just after sunrise, finding Thor padding up to him on approach. He scratched behind his ears and led him back through the Iron Suite, Pepper already up and making breakfast.
“Have a good night?” she asked, pulling him into a hug. She pressed a soft kiss to his forehead before turning back to the stove.
“Yeah,” Peter replied. His first night back as Spiderman. He smiled, wide. “It was a really good night.”
-
Peter was on the news twice, when he was out a few nights later, though the news didn’t know they’d done that. Instead, Tony and Pepper, bundled up on the couch with a blanket across their laps and a dog across their feet, watched the news show a segment on Peter Stark visiting a hospital with his parents and hanging out with the sick kids that morning, and then, ten minutes later, a segment on the reappearance of Spiderman, who had just saved a woman who fell from a forty-storey building after being pushed.
When the pieces were over and the weather section was playing, Thor huffed once, chewing on a squeaky Thor’s hammer dog toy. Pepper laughed, quiet, leaning forward to watch him, before looking back to Tony.
“I think,” she said, her voice a whisper, “we should talk about it sometime.”
“Talk about what?” Tony asked, his arm around her shoulders, pulling her back into his side. They slotted together like puzzle pieces, their edges softened and smoothed over time to find alignment with each other.
“We have the dog,” Pepper said, her mouth close to Tony’s ear, “and we have Peter. Not now, but sometime, we should talk about Peter II.”
Tony’s eyes widened a fraction, darting to Pepper’s steadfast gaze. When they kissed, they kissed because they understood each other so well they didn’t need words to explain themselves. Tony smiled against Pepper’s lips.
“We can talk about that,” he agreed.
-
Family, Rhodey wrote as the caption to the photo he posted on his Twitter. A shot of the Avengers at dinner, crowded around sofas, on the floor, the coffee table hidden beneath a mountain of pizzas and side dishes. Bucky Barnes on a beanbag of all things, a slice of pizza in his mouth. Peter Stark sitting by his feet, cross-legged on the floor, a pizza box on his lap as Clint Barton leaned across him, trying to swipe a piece.
Natasha Romanov on the other side of the coffee table, a bottle of beer in her hand, taking a leisurely sip as Sam Wilson, sitting by her side, told a story with hand gestures. Then, on the sofa, James Rhodes sat side by side with Tony Stark, laughing with each other. Pepper Potts and Steve Rogers in conversation, a glass of wine in her hand and a stolen box of sides in his. Happy Hogan, sitting on the remaining beanbag and looking indifferent about being there, clearly trying to smother his smile as he watched everyone else, and the dog, Thor, with his head on Happy’s lap.
-
The summer was for Spiderman. It was long days and long nights and a thousand places to explore in a city Peter barely had the honour of getting to know. It was a hundred run-ins a day, quick take downs and swinging off for the next big thing. It was not killing once and being so fucking relieved. It was lying on top of the sandwich sub van and talking with the customers while eating his lunch. It was swinging by a place called Delmar’s and chatting with the owner while they made him his dinner.
It was walking May home from the hospital after her nightshifts and neither talking about how often it happened. It was watching her through the window of her apartment, happy and carefree with the love of her life – Ben, she’d told him the third time he walked her home.
It was chatting with Ned while he hung out in the suit and giving MJ piggyback rides through the city when she was bored. It was meeting Flash out on the street and watching with amusement as he stumbled over his words out of sheer awe.
It was Tony in his Iron Man suit, occasionally flying over and following Peter’s lead during patrols. It was sitting on rooftops as they drank cold coffee and talked about the stars Peter had barely ever seen. It was laughing and joking and flipping through battles because he no longer had the weight of death and a gun on his shoulders.
-
They visited Malibu and Peter stepped into a home he didn’t remember.
His old blanket was stuffed in his backpack, whether he told anyone about it or not, and Thor sat obediently by his side as he stared at the front door. The mansion had been destroyed once but painstakingly rebuilt to all its former glory, even if Tony and Pepper had promptly moved across the country.
Peter wandered through the mansion, seeing it all for the first time and releasing a long, worn breath with the feel of a home he didn’t know.
He didn’t know his bedroom, nor his parents’. He didn’t know the kitchen or the swimming pool. He didn’t know the lab, when he wandered through it. It was a hollow shell of a room, but Peter could imagine the clutter, the mess. Tony led him further down, to where the old suits used to stand in their chambers, fifty of them dormant and waiting.
He didn’t know any of it.
Or, well, that wasn’t true.
Peter didn’t know the house, but he knew the ocean like he’d been waiting for it his entire life. He recognised it like the back of his hand. The smell hit him and he knew it. When they waded out into the water, the four of them – Tony, Pepper, Peter and Thor - he relished in the way it hit his skin.
His smile was wide, thankful. He’d needed this. He’d needed to know that this was his home, whether it was anymore or not. He’d needed some sort of connection to it, some sort of acknowledgment that it wasn’t gone from his mind – not forever.
They had a barbeque on the beach. They swam and swam and swam. Peter laughed when he found a washed-up screwdriver and Tony caught it when it was thrown over.
“My entire house is under there, somewhere,” Tony said. “It wouldn’t surprise me if millions of dollars’ worth of art just washed up on the beach sometimes.”
Peter let his old home sink back into his bones. He let the waves and the sand form his body and he drew his breaths, one at a time, slow, poised, in no rush.
There was no hurry here. Peter had nowhere else to be.
-
Peter caught sight of his parents in the kitchen, dancing and dancing and dancing. He snapped a photo for posterity before heading back up to his room, leaving them to it. Pepper’s head thrown back in laughter. Tony’s smile so soft.
He didn’t share this one. He kept it for himself, eventually printed it off and placed it on his bedside table, for the mornings he needed a reminder. Pepper and Tony dancing, in love, and next to them, the three of them at that press conference, Peter’s shirt reading I AM TONY AND PEPPER STARK’S SON.
Yes, Peter thought, yes, I am.
-
Peter Stark was Spiderman and he was something so much more.
On his eighteenth birthday, he wandered into the kitchen and jumped ten foot in the air at the yelled HAPPY BIRTHDAY from everyone gathered in the room. His family, his friends, the Avengers. They were all there, half of them still in their pyjamas.
They ate birthday cake for breakfast, Ned and MJ giggling as Thor ate a slice on the floor and got it all over the carpet. They gave out birthday presents and Pepper sighed heavily at every weapon that passed through Peter’s hands.
“Are you kidding me,” she said, exasperated, at the fourth weapon he’d unwrapped. “He’s eighteen. Get him a Gameboy or something. A t-shirt. He does not need another flail.”
They put Thor in a party hat, played a Mario Kart tournament (which Ned won, much to his excitement and everyone else’s shock), ordered every kind of take out they could think of and let the smells battle it out across the kitchen.
Peter danced with Natasha when she pulled him from his seat, he leapt onto Clint’s back and whispered in his ear, “this is the only time I will ever say it: thank you for the party, Uncle Clint,” and pretended not to see him tear up. They had fun, they spent hours outside on the grass of the compound, Thor bounding around all he could before he grew tired, soaking in the midsummer sun and bringing out a variety of kiddie pools they could sit in as the only thing to keep them cool.
Peter received two different Iron Man t-shirts and Tony cackled at the sight of them. He hugged his dad tightly for the boxes of books piled at the side of the room, hugged his mother even tighter for the Cooking for Dummies book she’d wrapped so perfectly, promising to give him full and instructive cooking lessons this year.
He was thankful for the light everyone brought to the day, everyone knowing that his birthday hadn’t been something Peter had ever known to celebrate, but instead ignored as another day of the year. He was thankful for the joy they brought, the happiness and glee they didn’t let falter even once, even when Peter spared a thought of Jessica, beneath the rubble, and the way she’d swiped an extra juice box for him on his thirteenth birthday, her smile knowing and wide.
When the day came to a close (five hundred thousand happy birthday messages across his social media, multiple articles written on his life story and too many photos to count posted from everyone’s accounts of Peter in the kiddie pool, being splashed by Thor, or Peter eating cake, or covered in silly string after the Silly String Battle of Two-Oh-Four PM), the darkness falling across the compound at last, there were fireworks.
They exploded in the sky in a million magical colours, and Peter sat on a blanket between his parents, head on Tony’s shoulder, arm wrapped around Pepper’s. They watched the colours, the lights, the others running around with sparklers and stopping occasionally to laugh or find more to drink.
On either side, his parents were warm, comforting. They were steadfast and solid, always there, always light to carry as his definition of home, from one place to another, fitting seamlessly into his heart, no matter how bruised it was, no matter how long it was taking to heal.
“Thanks for the party,” Peter said, low, a yellow flare flashing in the sky.
“Of course, honey,” Pepper replied. “We did say, once, that we reserved the right to give you surprise parties.”
Peter grinned, recalling the fuzzy but ever-growing memory of the indoor rain, of the table they hid under. Somewhere across the grass, his puppy was jumping around at the flashing lights, noise cancelling headphones over his ears (Tony had apparently spent a solid week altering them for dogs), barking at each burst of colour.
“You’re going to get a lot of them in future,” Tony promised. “Like, hundreds. Not even on your birthdays.”
Peter grinned. “Can we throw Thor a party on his birthday?”
“Sure,” Pepper replied. “I heard there’s a dog park only half an hour down the road, you should take him there on one of his walks – he might want to make some dog friends.”
“As opposed to human friends, of which he has plenty,” Tony agreed.
At that moment, Thor was being hefted into Steve’s arms, almost as big as the man but still carried as if he weighed nothing. Steve, tipsy on something stronger than Earth’s regular alcohol, danced around the grass, barefoot with his new dance partner.
“Mom,” Peter said after a beat, “are you gonna have a cool suit like the Iron Man armour?”
Pepper hummed for a moment. “I already do, somewhere,” she replied. “It’s for emergencies. But I have better self-preservation skills than everyone else and so I don’t tend to put myself in dangerous situations.”
Peter laughed. “You should come out with us sometime, though.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. Iron Man, Spiderman and – wait, what’s your cool superhero name?”
“Rescue,” Tony said. “She’s called Rescue.”
Peter grinned widely, glancing down at his Mom, whose arms were wrapped around him and the blanket that tied them all together, a loose knot of Starks, all in love with each other. “Makes sense,” he said. “That suits you. Iron Man, Spiderman and Rescue.”
“We’ll make a day of it,” Pepper agreed, her voice sleepy as she pressed her cheek into his shoulder. Peter watched her eyes gently shut on the fireworks and the dancing superheroes and exuberant teenagers.
Peter relaxed into Tony’s side, pulling his mother in a little tighter and relishing in the warmth their bodies brought. The word family echoed around his head a thousand times, as if reminding him of what he finally had, of what he’d been searching for since he was six and scared in a dark cell.
Now he was eighteen and strong – still scared sometimes but always had someone to help bring him back to the present, to the reality that he would do anything not to miss.
He felt Tony press a kiss into his hair. The moment felt like a promise, like a door opening to a future that Peter knew was all his to have. A future of days like today and nights like this; of a barking dog and flying between skyscrapers, of dancing in the grass and so much laughter it was a wonder that it sounded so great every time he heard it.
“Happy birthday, Peter,” Tony said then, his voice sober in the moment. “I’m so fucking happy you came home.”
“Me too, Dad,” Peter replied. I’m so fucking happy I came home.