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One name on your left wrist, one name on your right. One person whose life you’d change forever, and one who would change yours.
There’s no finite calculation to be done. In some cases, people don’t even know which is which, even after meeting both of their names. Ultimately, the life-changing relationship is mutually beneficial. Love flows from all directions.
The relationship formed between the names is unlikely to be romantic in nature. It happens from time to time, but the most likely relationship is familial, whether by blood or by choice. Children will change their parents’ lives, best friends will save each other from the brink of despair, even an odd grandparent or cousin has the ability to show up on someone’s wrist. The only unifying factor is the experiences shared with the person are positive. You can get in a paralyzing car wreck, but the person’s name on your wrist won’t be the one behind the other wheel. It’ll be the one who drove you to physical therapy, held you while you cried, and helped you recover.
There’s a chance there won’t be a mutual match between two people. It mostly happens with celebrities, philanthropists, or just general kind souls. People who leave a lot of positive impact on the world around them but only have one wrist to show whose life they impacted the most. If you have the name of say, a superhero, on your wrist, it’s likely that they’ll save your life at some point. It can be disappointing to know one of the supposed two most impactful relationships in your life will be simplified to a minute-long encounter at best, but hey. C’est la vie. Maybe you’ll be the lucky one who ends up on one of their wrists.
---
Peter gets his names in the middle of his first birthday party. He is sitting on his high chair smashing a piece of cake and giggling with the rest of the table when it happens.
For just a moment, there’s a sharp little zing on his wrists as if someone scraped them with a live wire. The feeling is so different from the smooth frosting and crumbly cake that he starts to cry. It only takes a few seconds of fat crocodile tears rolling down his cheeks before his mother lifts him out of the chair and brings him out of the dining room and into the kitchen.
“Oh, Petey. Let’s clean you up, huh?” she coos as she sets him on the counter by the sink and wets a sponge. He starts to calm down once he’s away from the crowd and focuses on admiring the change of scenery.
Mary hums to herself as she washes the smeared blue frosting off of his face. She smiles and gives him a kiss on the cheek once it’s clean.
“Are you having fun at your party, Petey-pie? You’re quite the celebrity today,” she says as she starts to wipe off his hands. The cake guts are spread all the way up to his forearms. “You’re really hitting it off with those gals from work, I’ll have to keep an eye on you or they’ll snatch you up after the party!”
Peter giggles as she talks, more because of her tone of voice than anything else. She makes quick work of the rest of the mess on his hands.
“That’s strange, there’s still…” Her voice trails off as she wipes a finger along a black smudge on his wrist. She pauses and grabs his other wrist, where another smudge is mirrored.
“Hey, Richard!” she calls into the kitchen, hoping she doesn’t sound too suspicious, “Can you bring me a magnifying glass from the study?”
Richard responds with a quick, “Sure thing, hon!” and then she turns her attention back to Peter.
“Petey, this is so exciting! Your names came in today!” Peter babbles and gives her a big toothy smile. She can’t help but smile back as she picks him up and tucks his head under her chin. That’s how Richard finds them when he comes into the room with a magnifying glass.
“What’d you need this for, did you—” he cuts himself off when he sees her looking at him with misty eyes and holding Peter close to her heart. He looks down at the magnifying glass he brought and then back to her. “No, there’s no way they came in today. Mary?”
He keeps switching between looking at Peter and her with awe in his eyes. Mary just nods and passes Peter to him. He sets the magnifying glass on the counter and grabs Peter with both hands, lifting him above his head.
“Look at you, little man! We’re so proud of you! I was four when mine came in. How old were you, Mare?”
She smiles softly. “I was six.”
“She was six! You’re so smart, Peter. What a guy. You’ve always been ahead of the curve.”
Mary wipes her eyes and chuckles at her husband. “Richard, it’s not like he chose to get them this early.”
“I know, I know. But wow. One year old and he already has his names. Pretty soon he’s not gonna need us anymore.” He looks back at Peter. “Is that right, Pete? You’re just gonna grow up and get your own house tomorrow, huh?” Peter squeals and laughs as Richard keeps talking. Mary laughs at them.
“Well,” she says, grabbing the magnifying glass from where Richard set it down, “don’t you want to know who they are?”
Richards nods and puts Peter back on the counter in front of his mom. She carefully grabs his left wrist and looks at it through the magnifying glass. It only takes a moment for the name to come into focus.
“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me,” she says through a laugh as Richard looks at her expectantly.
“What? Who is it?” He tries to grab the magnifying glass from her to see for himself.
“It says Anthony Stark.” She can’t help but laugh when Richard’s wide-eyed face snaps to hers.
“Are you telling me our little boy is going to work for Stark Industries?” he hisses incredulously. He looks towards Peter and whispers, “I take back what I said earlier. You are such a traitor, little man. What happened to following our footsteps at Oscorp?” Peter just smiles and babbles something incoherent, which weakens the blow of Richard’s words.
“No, no,” Mary says between laughs, “I’ve actually read about this in a magazine. A lot of people have his name, no one knows why. Maybe he’ll stop making weapons and start doing something good. Who knows? Maybe he’ll save little Peter’s life someday.”
Richard chuckles. “Yeah, over my dead body.”
Mary smiles and hits his arm softly. “Oh, stop. You’re just jealous. Don’t you want to know who his other name is?”
“Yeah, of course. But Mary, Tony Stark. Tony Stark!”
“Keep going and his other name’s going to be Justin Hammers,” Mary says with a smirk. Richard groans but leans into her as she looks at Peter’s other wrist.
“May Reilly,” she states. “Why does that sound so familiar?”
Richard opens his mouth to say something, but he’s interrupted by someone coming into the room.
“Hey, you guys have been in here a while so I came to see if you needed help with anything—” Ben stops himself when he sees Richard and Mary huddled over Peter with a magnifying glass. “No! At one year old? I always thought I was special for being two and a half!”
Mary nods. “We’ll make an announcement after everyone’s done eating. We were just checking his names.” She gives Richard a look to make sure he won’t tell Ben about Tony Stark being on their son’s wrist. He clears his throat and looks over to Ben.
“Hey, Ben, what’s your girl’s last name? We’re trying to get a jumpstart on Christmas cards this year.”
“If I don’t marry her by then, it’ll be Reilly.” He watches as Richard and Mary share a meaningful look. “You’re kidding!”
“You can’t tell her!” Richard says as Ben starts to pace around the kitchen.
“I can’t even remember if I’ve told her about Pete yet!” He walks over to the counter where Peter is still sitting and chiming in with a babble every once in a while. He points to Peter. “I won’t tell her about this. Yet. But we’re gonna have a Parker Christmas at my place this year, and we’ll tell her then.”
Mary and Richard nod in tandem. “That sounds like a plan, Ben.”
“Alright,” Ben says, “Now, I’m gonna give my favorite nephew a hug.”
---
Peter Parker is one year old when he gets his names.
He’s one year old when he meets one of them.
He’s eight years old when he meets the other.
(Well, meet is a vague word.)
---
Peter doesn’t know where his uncle is. He’s trying hard to be brave but, to be honest, he’s a little scared.
They came to the Stark Expo together, but he got lost when everyone started running around halfway through the presentation. Peter had begged Ben to let them stay because Iron Man had just shown up when everyone had to leave.
Everyone’s running past him, but none of the faces he sees belong to his uncle. He readjusts the Iron Man helmet on his head, hoping maybe it’s blocking Ben from his vision. It was the second part of his Christmas present last year, the first being the Expo tickets themselves. He opens his mouth to call out for his uncle, but freezes when he sees a huge drone in front of him. Oh. That must be why people were running.
He’s okay, he can do this. He raises the hand that has the gauntlet towards the drone. They handed them out at the doors when he got here, so they must work like Iron Man’s gauntlets.
Something shoots the drone, but it came from over his shoulder rather than from his palm.
“Nice work, kid,” a robotic voice says from behind him. He turns around just in time to see Iron Man fly away.
As if that broke a spell, he can suddenly hear Ben’s voice. “Peter? Peter!”
“Ben!” Peter only has to look for a few seconds before seeing his uncle. He rushes over and gives him a hug.
“Hey, Petey. Where’d you go? I was worried sick,” Ben says as he takes the helmet off of Peter and puts a hand on his cheek.
“Oh, Ben, it was so cool! A drone was about to shoot me—”
Ben tilts Peter’s chin up so they can make eye contact. “A drone was about to shoot you?”
“Yeah, but Iron Man saved me! He flew in and was all like, ‘kapew,’ and then he said I did a good job!”
Ben ruffles his hair and chuckles, despite the stressful tone that still paints their surroundings. “Well, now we know why his name’s on your wrist, bud.”
Peter’s doe eyes flash with curiosity. “Why?”
“If someone’s name is on your wrist, that means you change their life or they change yours.” Ben scans their surroundings to make sure they can safely continue to talk. “He just saved your life, which is about the most changing it can take.”
“Am I on your wrist?”
“No, buddy. But that doesn’t mean I don’t love you to bits. It just means that I didn’t just save you from being shot by a drone.” His voice is still unbelieving. If it weren’t for the fact he just saw the presentation on the stage revolt, he wouldn’t have believed Peter at all.
Peter ponders Ben’s words for a moment. “...Am I on Tony Stark’s wrist?”
“It’s hard to say, Pete. Superheroes save a lot of people and he’s only got two wrists. But if I were him, I’d want you to be there.”
That seems to placate Peter for the time being. He looks at the Iron Man helmet that Ben’s still carrying in his hand and then back up to him.
“I love you, even if you’re not on my wrist.”
Ben’s heart swells in his chest. “Aw, buddy. I love you too. Now c’mon, May’s waiting for us in the car. Let’s not tell her that you almost got shot by a drone, or she’ll freak out. And if she freaks out, we all freak out.”
Ben grabs his hand and they walk to the parking lot together, leaving the debris of the convention center behind them.
---
“Okay. Elephant in the room. Tony Stark’s on your wrist and now you spend practically every weekend at the compound with him and Spider-Man. What’s going on, Peter?”
May looks at Peter from across the table. They’re eating at some new fusion restaurant Ned recommended, but Peter hasn’t decided if he likes it or not. He was picking at the food on his plate but looks up when May speaks. He rubs the back of his neck before answering, hoping May isn’t disappointed.
“Well… He doesn’t know he’s on my wrist.”
She leans back and puts a hand on her chest. “Peter! Really?”
“It’s not like we’re a match!” Peter’s voice raises an octave as he tries to think of an excuse. “He probably has one of the Avengers’ name on his wrist for all I know.”
“Oh, Peter…” May leans back towards him and puts a hand over his. “You should tell him. Even if he doesn’t have your name, he’d be flattered.”
Peter snorts. “Sure, he’d be flattered by a random kid thinking he’s their match. May, he probably has a thousand people tell him that every day!”
“But none of them were you.” May’s face is somehow both pitying and sympathetic.
“I guess…” His eyes slide to the side as he struggles to put his thoughts into words. “I just don’t want to get my hopes up. He saved my life when I was eight, how do we know that’s not it?”
May laughs. “Peter, I love you, but you’re so stupid.”
“Oh.” He doesn’t want to get offended, he really doesn’t.
“It’s obvious he cares about you and he clearly changed your life. I don’t think he offers a free super-suit to everyone whose life he saves.”
Peter nods. That’s true enough, he supposes. But there’s still something bothering him. They eat a few bites in silence as he thinks.
“But,” he starts, keeping his voice level and thanking his therapist mentally for helping him speak truthfully, “if he’s on my wrist for changing my life, that means I changed yours, and I just don’t see how I did anything to you besides be a burden.”
“Peter.” May clutches his hand. “You gave me a son.”
Peter gives an awkward laugh, unsure of how to respond. “What?”
“Ben and I tried to have kids.” May’s voice is gentle, like a stream flowing over pebbles. “It had been over two years when we found out I can’t have kids of my own.”
“May, I’m so sorry.” And he is.
“You don’t have to be sorry, Peter. You were the best thing that happened to me. I’m so proud of you.” She adjusts her glasses, dabbing at her eyes surreptitiously. “Never say you’re a burden. I love every moment of taking care of you.”
Peter coughs, pretending he just choked on a piece of noodle instead of having an emotional talk with his aunt. “I love you, May.”
“Love you too, Peter.” She turns her attention back to the food in front of her. “But you are being stupid. Just tell Tony.”
Peter chuckles. “Yeah, alright.”
---
Peter kicks his legs while he sits at the edge of a rooftop and messes with the fabric of his mask in his hands. There was now another 25 or so criminals going to jail, thanks to Spider-Man. Mr. Stark had told him to wait until him and Rhodey could fly over to help, but the gang was already starting to pack up and leave the warehouse. They would have been long gone by the time backup arrived; he had to fight them alone. He just webbed them all up and called the police. He did fine. He wasn’t even hurt. But it would only be a matter of time before— yep.
He hears the rough clank of the Iron Man suit landing behind him. He refuses to look over, focusing his eyes on the building across the street. The sun had set a while ago and the rooms that have their lights on create a crossword-like pattern of lights.
The sound of metal sliding as the suit opens is all the warning Peter has before hearing Tony’s voice. “What did I tell you about waiting for backup?”
“I did fine without it,” Peter says, keeping his voice as steady as he can.
“That’s not the point.” Evidently Tony didn’t care if his voice was level or not. “You were supposed to listen to me.”
Peter finally stands up from the edge of the rooftop and faces Tony. “If I waited any longer, they would have gotten away!”
“If they get away, they get away. We have people who can handle that,” Tony says dismissively.
“I did handle it.” Peter punctuates his words by pressing the spider insignia on his chest. “It’s not like I’m on the Avengers, I don’t have to listen to you. I trusted my instincts and I took them down.”
“Right, you’re not on the Avengers,” Tony snaps with a cold voice. “If you keep acting out like this, it’s going to stay that way.”
“What? Why?” There’s a short moment where Peter’s anger dissipates and leaves behind his fear before it returns.
“Why? Because you need to learn how to listen to orders! I’ve been around the block a few times.” He motions to the Iron Man suit behind him. “I know what I’m doing.”
“And you never made any mistakes?”
“Nope, never. Not a single one,” he says with a hard stare.
Peter shakes his head and looks away. “Unbelievable.”
“Unbelievable? You wanna know unbelievable?” The strength behind Tony’s voice forces Peter to snap his head back to look at him. “Unbelievable is giving a kid a multi-million dollar suit and letting him swing around to his heart’s content, and yet he still doesn’t listen when you tell him no.”
Peter stings as if he was just slapped in the face, but he grits his teeth and refuses to look away. “Look. I don’t want to be your ‘helpless orphan’ good publicity stunt, okay? If you don’t want me around, just say so.”
“That’s not what’s happening here, Peter,” Tony cautions. While he isn’t yelling like before, there’s still threads of anger tying his words together.
“Isn’t it? Whatever, I get it. What I did was wrong.” Peter rubs a hand over his face as he takes in a breath. “But God, Mr. Stark! Can’t you see where I’m coming from? You’re just always so— You treat me like a kid all the time! As if one wrong look from a bad guy and I’ll explode.”
“Of course I see where you’re coming from! It’s the same road I went down in 2012, and I’ll spare you the details.” He lowers his voice until it sounds like a dull roar. “Nothing good can come from acting like this.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not like you, okay? I’m not Iron Man 2.0, now with dog-like obedience to authority. I’m my own person. I can handle myself. I did handle myself.”
“This time. What about the next time? And the next? And the one after that?” He steps toward Peter with each sentence until they’re almost a foot apart. Peter’s face starts to crumble, but he keeps pressing on. “Because congrats, Spider-Man. This was the best-case scenario. How often does that happen? I’ll give you a hint— it’s not a lot.”
Peter makes some weird growl-like noise in the back of his throat. He breaks eye contact with Tony and steps away so it’s unclear if he’s talking to him or to some higher power. “I hate this! Am I allowed to hate this? You know, you’re supposed to change my life, Mr. Stark. But all you’re doing is keeping me from saving people.”
Tony freezes, all of his anger forgotten for the moment. “I’m on your wrist?”
“Yeah, you’re on my wrist. Who else would be there?” Peter looks at him, the small, needy part of him desperately trying to gauge a reaction, but Tony’s face is blank. “God, I just… God. I’ve gotta go before May starts to worry. Feel free to leave me an angry voicemail. I’ll delete it when I get home.”
“Peter—” But he’s already gone.
---
Someone should have warned Peter that Spider-Manning while angry was dangerous. They should make PSAs about it. Maybe get Captain America to star in them. He’d flip the chair around and sit on it backwards to be cool and relatable. Then he’d be all, “So… You fought with your kinda-soulmate kinda-father figure and then you got stabbed in the middle of angrily swinging back home because you have to save every New Yorker you see,” and then go into some story about he once fought with someone close to him and ended up getting stabbed, but because of his level head and can-do attitude, he came out on top. All the people on the school board would clap. It’d be inspirational.
Peter laughs at the mental image and then cringes as he curls around his stomach. Ouch. Stab wounds suck. He’d much prefer detention right about now. Maybe then MJ would draw him and he could pretend to not like it before putting it up on the corkboard in his locker. Or he could make a collage with it and do a cute homecoming proposal. Like, “Hey, MJ. You’re the best artist I know. Want to draw a future together?” and she’d say, “Wow, Peter. You’re so charming. Of course. By the way, I don’t think you asking me out is perpetuating the heteronormative idea of the man being the one to take charge in a relationship. And I also think you’re capable of overcoming your personal racial and sexual privilege in a very graceful way,” and then they’d ride off into the sunset together on the bus ride home.
Yikes, trying to move was a mistake. God, this sucks. Why did he become a superhero again? Oh, right, dead uncle. Can’t let Ben down now. With… great something something comes something. Jeez, why couldn’t he process the death of his loved ones in a way that doesn’t require him to get stabbed on a regular basis?
He hears a clang from the opening of the alley. With great loud noises comes a great trip to the hospital? Hopefully? Yeah, that was probably it.
Someone’s removing his mask and touching his face. Oh, shit. He has a secret identity, he can’t let people just take off his mask. He bats the hands away.
“Pete, it’s just me. Good guy.” Oh. Well, that’s cool, then. He relaxes as the hands move his face around a bit more. “Okay, we’re taking a little trip to the compound. I’ll text your aunt.”
“Sorry, Tony…” God, is that him? He sounds like shit. Maybe he does need to go to the compound. He barely notices his mask being put on again.
“Save the apologies for when you’re not delirious, kid. Get ready for some vertigo.”
Why is that voice so familiar? He called it Tony… He doesn’t think he knows any Tonys, but who knows? He just got stabbed, so. He has an excuse this time. Not like the time where he met Ned’s older sister and then forgot her name by the time the conversation was over and he stuttered for almost a minute before saying, “See you later, girl!” God, that was awkward.
Woah, the world is tilting. He might throw up. No, nevermind. Okay, okay, this is fine. He’s just being carried. He can pretend that it’s just Ben carrying him to his room after he pretended to be asleep in the back of the car.
Oh, shit. Except Ben never started to fly. He’s done with being stabbed. What happened to letting a guy bleed out in an alleyway in peace? His eyelids droop as his vision starts to get gray around the edges.
“Fuck, kid. Stay with me. Don’t pass out.”
Whoops, too late.
---
For Peter, it just seems like he blinked somewhere in an alley and then opened his eyes again the next morning inside of the medical wing of the Avengers compound.
(He doesn’t get to experience the joy of carrying a passed out 16-year-old for fifty miles and waking up the resident doctor so she can start an emergency surgery. And then finally getting a chance to sit down, just to remember to call the kid’s aunt who is, quite frankly, a level of scary-hot and/or hot-scary that the world isn’t ready for.)
The early morning’s sunlight filters through the window. Peter doesn’t feel too groggy, which is a good sign. The worse he feels, the longer the lecture from May and Tony. He can still see straight and he doesn’t feel like throwing up, so there’s that.
He looks over to see Tony sleeping at the side of his bed. The image of Tony prompts him to remember their unresolved argument from the night prior. He’s wearing the same clothes, albeit a little more rumpled. The only difference is the addition of one of his seemingly endless pairs of tinted glasses.
He groans at remembering how much he sounded like some half-rate angsty Disney television-movie teen. Maybe they were hiring. But he doesn’t have much time to think about his future acting career before Tony starts to wake up.
Once he’s awake, they make eye contact for a few seconds before Peter speaks. “I’m sorry, Mr. Stark.”
“Kid, you’re okay.” He sounds tired. At least, more so than usual. “We’re good. I should be the one apologizing. I have been a little… overprotective.”
“No, you were fine.” This is always Peter’s least favorite part. Apologizing in the hospital is too weird. It makes him feel guilty, like he got hurt just to manipulate Tony’s feelings. “I was just making a big deal out of nothing.”
“Well, how about we just call it even,” Tony says with a short sniff.
“Oh.” That was easy. “Okay.”
There’s a few beats of silence before Tony takes off his glasses, giving no barrier for their eye contact. “Kid… Why didn’t you tell me I’m on your wrist?”
“I’m really sorry, it’s just that…” He takes a breath. “It’s not like I’m on yours, right? I didn’t want to make things awkward. But they are anyways. Sorry.”
“We gotta work on the apologizing, first of all.” Peter chews on the inside of his cheek nervously as Tony speaks. “Second of all—”
Tony breaks eye contact with Peter and starts rolling up his sleeves. He takes off the watch and bracelet he always wears, and— oh.
There, on the inside of Tony Stark’s right wrist, is his name. Peter Parker, written in sharp black script. He can’t look away for a couple of seconds.
Once he forces his eyes to look at something else, he sees James Rhodes in black text that contrasts against the pale skin of Tony’s other wrist. Something in the back of his mind tells him he should say something, it’s been an awkward length of silence.
“Wow…” He feels like the world has shifted in its axis. ”I can’t believe Rhodey’s name is actually James. Do people call him that?”
Tony rolls his eyes and replaces his accessories. “The Daily Bugle is right, you are a menace,” he says lightly before sobering and looking at Peter meaningfully. “But you get it, right? I know… I know I inherited a lot of my dad’s inability to talk about emotions. But, this is okay, yeah?”
“I mean, that’s not even a question to me. Of course, it’s okay.” Peter’s eyes slide to the side as he thinks about how to put his thoughts into words. “You saved my life, you know that, right?”
“When, last night?”
Peter ignores that. “No, I mean before I was a superhero. Stark Expo, 2010? Little kid vs. Hammer Drone?”
There’s a moment before recognition lights up Tony’s eyes. “You’re shitting me.” Peter can only blush lightly and shrug while Tony’s brain reboots. “Jesus, kid. Your little self-sacrificing issue goes way back.”
“Yeah. I figured that was it, you know?” Peter’s eyes drop to the hospital gown he’s wearing. ”I didn’t want to get my expectations up. You save like, a million people’s lives a day—”
“Rounding down,” Tony adds helpfully.
Peter laughs. “Yeah, rounding down. You’ve only got two wrists, you know?”
Tony looks at him in silence for a few moments. “Would you believe me if I thought the same about you?”
He looks up to Tony. “Me having two wrists?”
“Don’t quit your day job.” Tony waves off Peter’s small grin. “No, I figured you had your uncle’s name on your wrist. I just gave you a suit, he gave you your whole life-motto.”
“He did. Before I met you, actually met you, I was angry about that. I thought…” There’s a pause as Peter gets lost in his thoughts for a moment. “You know, he’s the one who jump-started my whole superhero career. He practically raised me. Who would I be without him?”
Tony looks into Peter’s expectant eyes for a few seconds. The silence slowly starts to turn awkward before he says something. “Am I supposed to answer? I thought it was rhetorical.”
“No, it was, sorry. I’m just thinking.” Tony gives him another few moments of silence as Peter’s eyes drift to his own wrists. ”No one knows how the names are chosen. Maybe our lives are reduced to numbers. I’m sure you’ve directly saved my life way more than Ben. He wasn’t a superhero, he just looked after a snot-nosed asthmatic.”
Tony laughs at the image of pre-bite Peter. The noise surprises Peter, as if he forgot Tony was in the room with him.
Peter’s eyes move to Tony’s. “But I like to think it’s more than that, right? Maybe it means something. Ben impacted my life, but it was his death that really changed it. It’d be depressing to have a reminder of his death on me all the time. But if he was still alive, I wouldn’t have anything to fight for. I’d be a hero’s journey without the call to adventure.”
They sit in silence for a few moments after that. Tony tries to think of something intelligent to say, but just comes up with, “Show me your wrists, kid.”
Peter hesitates for a minute before stretching his bare wrists out towards him. Tony gently grabs his hands in reverence. He looks at them in silence for a bit. Peter is content to just let him.
“How do we know who’s who?”
Peter looks up to see Tony looking at his face now, instead of his wrists. “What do you mean?”
“How do you know you changed May’s life and I changed yours?”
He laughs nervously. “I mean, it’s obvious, right?”
“I don’t think so. Let’s say it was the opposite. Rhodey changed my life, but who knows? I’m helping him relearn to walk. I was his best friend in college. Yeah, he was the first real friend I had, but as long as we’re talking hypotheticals. Maybe I changed his.”
“Mr. Stark—”
Tony just holds up his hand. “Hey, the adult’s talking. You changed my life too, kid. In case you haven’t noticed, there aren’t many original Avengers around nowadays. You’re helping me through that just by showing up. You’re giving me hope for the new generation of superkids, as terrifying of a thought as that is.”
“What about May, then?”
Tony looks to Peter’s right wrist, where May’s name resides. “Then if you’re changing my life, then May changed yours. She’s raising you, kid. And maybe she’ll become a superhero too. You never know.”
There’s another few beats of silence before Peter says, “I guess we don’t.”
“Sorry?” Tony shakes his head as if coming out of a daydream.
“No, what you said earlier- you asked how we know.” Tony nods for him to continue. ”I don’t think we do. Maybe everyone else who has your name just is part of how being a superhero changed you.”
Guilt passes over Tony like a cloud. “They kind of got the short end of the stick.”
“Yeah, maybe. The only way we’d know is if there’s someone who has a very clear name, and then we just process-of-elimination our way back to ourselves.”
Tony leans back into the hospital chair. “Unlikely.”
“I still think you changed my life.”
“Agree to disagree, kid.”
They sit in silence, letting their final words float in the air. Peter starts to laugh to himself and it only takes a few seconds for Tony to join in.
“This is so stupid, right? I’m Tony Stark’s match!” Peter flops back on his hospital bed. ”This is one of the coolest days of my life. Ned is gonna flip his shit.”
“Not stupid, but yeah. You might need to learn CPR before you tell him.”
Peter hums in response. When he speaks again, his voice is a little more fragile. “You’re not disappointed that your match is a 16-year-old from Queens?”
Tony snorts. “Are you disappointed that yours is a 35-year-old from Manhattan?”
“Oh, no way you’re 35. You’re like, almost 50 at least.”
“Ouch, no sugar coating from the peanut gallery.”
While he understands that Tony joking means he’s not upset, sometimes it doesn’t hurt to be sure. So he asks again. “But you’re not, right?”
“Kid, do you know how many people have Peter Parker written on their wrist?”
Peter shakes his head. “No.”
Tony scoots his chair closer to Peter’s hospital bed. “Well, neither do I. But it’s got to be at least double the amount that has mine. You’re only going to be 16 for so long. But you’ll never stop being you. You’ve got morals pure enough to make Cap cry, but with the heroics of all of the Avengers put together, which would… Probably also make Cap cry. The guy cries a lot, they won’t teach you that in school.”
Peter laughs but gives Tony a look that urges him to continue. He puts a hand on Peter’s shoulder and squeezes lightly.
“What I’m trying to say is that you’re something special, kid. One in a billion, except there aren’t six other Peters crawling around somewhere. I’m not disappointed at all. The opposite, really. I’m incredibly proud of you.”
Peter blinks in surprise. “Oh. That’s nice.”
“Yeah, it is.” Tony removes his hand and leans back into this chair. “I should say it more often.”
Peter smirks. “No, I think it’s like, a cool hardened old guy being taught the wonders of the world from his young handsome sidekick type thing.”
Tony throws his head back and laughs. “Oh, I will be having words with your aunt.”
“She’d probably just give you shit for not encouraging me enough.”
“Yeah, you know her better than me,” he says lightly. Tony can still feel a lack of closure in the conversation. He takes a deep breath before speaking. “I am proud of you, Peter. Even when I’m yelling at you. That’ll never change.”
Peter hums and leans into his pillow. “Okay, I take it back. I could get used to this.”
“Alright, sidekick, you should get some more sleep. It’s still too early for spiders to be awake.”
As if on cue, Peter yawns. “I thought they were nocturnal?”
“Not the kind that bit you.”
“You’re just jealous I can walk on walls,” Peter mumbles, his head more pressed into the pillow than looking at Tony at this point.
“Would have been a great party trick at MIT.”
Peter’s voice is hardly decipherable. “It will be.”
The room is blissfully quiet as Peter starts to drift back under. The last thing he notices before falling fully asleep is the ghost of fingers pushing the hair out of his face and the sound of a soft, “Love you, Pete.”
He tries to mumble something in return, but the message doesn’t quite reach his mouth. Oh well, he’s not going anywhere.