Chapter Text
So they relax, once they get all the press off the premises. So they do things that make Tony feel like a kid again. They sing karaoke, and watching Thor belt out I Will Survive is up there with Tony’s favorite memories of all time. Steve singing Tik Tok is close behind. They eat tacos, they actually make an entire taco bar that transforms this into one of those all day hangouts like they used to have in the beginning, when the Avengers were first getting established. Tony thinks he eats like, six tacos in the first twenty minutes. He loses track after that.
They make daiquiris too. Peter gets a virgin one, even though Tony thinks he sees Bucky of all people sneaking the kid some tequila. Note: don’t tell May. They watch Die Hard, and Natasha and Clint critique the logistics of climbing through the air vents, which they’ve apparently both done before, separately and together. Then they all watch Slumdog Millionaire for some reason and everyone cries, like they haven’t been doing enough of that lately. Thor and Bruce start the movement on trying to recreate the ending dance, then Rhodey and Happy jump in, and Natasha sits on the bar countertop with Pepper and just judges.
So they relax. So they play around and eat and drink too much. So maybe Tony and Pepper make out in the hallway like teenagers. So maybe Peter beats everybody in pool which sets off round after round of everyone trying to take down Spiderman. But everybody—everybody—is smiling, and maybe Tony gets distracted. Distracted, for just a moment, from the fact that a week ago he didn’t have this. Any of this. He didn’t have anything. A week ago, he was moldering, full of worms, his skin caving in. A week ago they were still missing him. And now there’s this. Life. Love. The kind of love that they’re finally letting loose, and he doesn’t get it and he’s afraid of it and he’s never wanted anything more.
But there’s a looming danger. He should have known he’d come home to a looming danger. When is there not a looming danger? But then again, he didn’t even know he’d be coming home at all. He never meant to die.
They take an hour to answer the respectful notes of shock, sympathy and happiness that flood into Tony and Pepper’s inboxes, and Tony doesn’t know why it makes him fucking emotional that his e-mail is still active. There are hundreds of unread messages, and he can tell a bunch of them are along the lines of the letters he has sitting on his bedside table, the letters that are living in his head, the words that hurt most repeating themselves in an endless loop. He can see a long line of Pepper, Pepper, Pepper, Pepper then Peter, Peter, Peter, Peter, Rhodey, Clint, Rhodey, Pepper, Happy, Natasha, Happy, Rhodey, Pepper, Happy, Peter, Bruce, Bruce, Steve. Tony doesn’t even think of opening any of them, not right now. There’s evidence of seven months of pain everywhere, like a gossamer sheet with too many threads he needs to count. He still hasn’t even scratched the surface of it yet.
Pepper reactivates Tony’s phone, and as soon as he finishes setting it back up he gets a call from Vision, as if he sensed the new method of communication. It’s as emotional as Tony has ever heard the guy sound, and Wanda keeps jumping in from the background to let him know they’ll be here in the next couple of days.
He also gets a call from Sam Wilson, but this one comes through on Bucky’s phone, which Steve is currently using since his is still broken.
“He’s calling for me?” Tony asks, at close to ten o’clock that night. “I wasn’t aware he knew who I was.” Tony can barely hear himself speak over Clint and Happy singing the goddamn Grease duet, and he meets Pepper’s gaze. She rolls her eyes, probably way, way tired of all this singing. He knows Peter has filmed all of it.
“He isn’t aware of who anybody is,” Bucky says, and he definitely has a little red in his cheeks from the amount of alcohol he’s consumed. But he’s just like Steve, and none of it really makes him drunk.
Tony takes the phone out of Steve’s hand. “Hello, this is the Polar Express.”
“Is this Conductor Stark?” Sam’s voice asks.
“Yes sir,” Tony says, smiling.
“Jesus, uh—wow, wow, man. This is dramatic, even for you.”
“I know, right?” Tony asks, looking up. He sees Natasha bringing Peter a bowl of ice cream, and handing Pepper a full package of Oreos, which she takes nonchalantly, like this is a normal occurrence. “You know, I like to keep everybody on their toes. I hope you were surprised.”
“Oh, yeah, definitely,” Sam says. “But for real, man, I’m—I’m sorry it took so damn long for me to call, you know people have actually been asking me if I’m involved, since I wasn’t standing on that stage—”
Tony narrows his eyes. “Oh. Really? That’s weird.” He pauses. “Were you?”
“Did I bring you back from the dead?” Sam laughs. “I wish I had. Shit, I’ve never seen Nat like that. And I’ve seen her run a good gamut of emotions in all the time we were cooped up close with Steve, but that…losing you sent her through the ringer, man. Steve was bad, but she was worse.”
Tony hums a little to himself, looking up, watching her yank the microphone away from Clint and tossing it to Peter. She’s been a little hard to read this whole time, save for that very first expression of watery shock. Tony clicks his tongue, and he raises her a little higher up on his list.
“So yeah, I woulda done it for them. Shit, Tony, if I had the ability to bring people back—well, I’d be using it liberally, I can tell you that. So would a lot of other people. With that whole viable thing—stick to that, or some wacked-out shit could start happening, even if people do have good intentions.”
Tony swallows hard. “Trust me, I’m gonna keep a lid on it if it’s even a hair dangerous, which I have a bad feeling it is. I know people are gonna be pissed off at me but I just…” The only thing his mind keeps repeating is dangerous. Dangerous, dangerous. He wonders if something is buried in his head, something related to the spell. He wonders if there’s an invisible wire connecting him to whoever cast it, if there are any kind of indicating markers that only he could recognize.
“I trust you to be good about it, and if you share with the right people I’m sure you’ll be able to shift some of the inevitable blame that doesn’t deserve to go your way,” Sam says. He sighs. “People get into a strange frame of mind when they think they’re capable of doing something they’re not supposed to do, especially if it could help someone they love. So hopefully everybody keeps that in mind when it comes to all this, however you got back here, before they get into that frame of mind themselves.”
“Yeah,” Tony says. He feels like he’s done enough relaxing, at this point. He needs to figure this goddamn shit out, and try to protect whoever did it. If he still can.
“Well I’ll let you go,” Sam says. “I’m really glad you’re back with us, Tony. I know we’ve been on opposing sides in the past, but I—shit, I never wanted you to die. Iron Man is Iron Man, y’know? We all wish you were immortal.”
Tony smiles a little bit. “You getting sentimental on me, Wilson?”
“Shit, no. Don’t know what you’re talking about.” He blows into the receiver a little bit, makes a couple stupid noises. “Oh—I’m losing you! I’m losing you!”
“I’ll catch you later,” Tony laughs. “You better come visit or I’ll find a way to clip those wings.”
“Visit—gonna visit—oh—bye Stark!”
“Bye bird boy.” He hangs up and turns around, handing the phone back to Steve.
“Sounded kinda serious,” Steve says, narrowing his eyes.
“I guess everything is nowadays,” Tony says, with a shrug. He watches the others then—Pepper and Tasha dancing, Peter and Happy singing Time of my Life of all goddamn things, while Peter still attempts to eat ice cream. Tony doesn’t know where the movie soundtrack theme came from. Bruce, Clint, Thor and Rhodey seem to be in some kind of chugging war, and Tony knows he’d pay good money to see Thor genuinely drunk.
“What’s wrong?” Steve asks, stepping a little closer to him.
“Nothing,” Tony lies. He pictures more asinine rules this spell could have attached to it that Strange doesn’t know about. The person who casted it dying seven days later. Them having to kill someone else if the person they resurrected lives for another full year. Some kind of oncoming, physical pain that they thought would be worth it.
He pictures them all fading away, like he saw on Titan. Like Peter did.
~
Three hours later he’s the only one awake, or at least he thinks he is. He doesn’t know how anybody didn’t get cabin fever, and he kinda feels like shit for keeping them inside. He knows they could have gone out, but the press is already holding themselves back—Tony can’t really imagine they’ll be able to continue that if they actually see him out in public. If they see all of them together.
Tony knows everybody has to leave sometime. Peter is already missing school, Rhodey and Bruce helped him get his assignments done quickly earlier so the party didn’t need to stop, but May isn’t gonna let him stay here forever, and the school is eventually gonna stop allowing him to miss despite how everyone evidently knows how close Tony and Peter are. The idea of letting any of them go makes him feel dizzy and weak. He feels like a clingy asshole. He has a hard time giving himself the benefit of the doubt even though he probably deserves it here, and he knows he should probably talk to Pepper about the whole thing so she can reassure him.
Everyone is passed out in the living room. Natasha and Pepper are on the pull-out bed, Clint and Rhodey are both attempting to share the goddamn lounger, Bucky has his head in Steve’s lap, Thor and Happy have their heads together and Bruce is half on, half off the pool table.
Peter is on the ground between the couch and the coffee table, and Tony decides that he better tend to him first, then Pepper, and he figures the others can either sleep out here together or make their ways to their rooms when they wake up. They don’t have anything planned tomorrow. Well, they don’t. Tony has a date with his computer so he can set FRIDAY back up, and find as much shit on this spell as physically possible. He’s gotta get acquainted with all the new baddies, and everybody who his death affected most, outside of this room. He’s done relaxing. He feels the need to crack this case in his bones.
He bends down next to Peter and shakes his shoulder gently. “Hey, buddy,” Tony whispers. “Get up, drunky.”
Peter’s brows furrow and he turns his face to the side. “Not drunk,” he says. “Had like—two shots of tequila, that’s it.”
“Yeah, that’s two too many,” Tony says, bracing his hands under Peter’s arms and hauling him up. Peter groans but goes easily, leaning against Tony when he’s back on his feet. “Jesus, did you gain weight?” Tony asks.
“You don’t ask somebody that.”
“In muscle, I’m sure,” Tony says, smiling down at him. “C’mon, I gotta get you and Pepper to bed and decide if I’m gonna do the same for everybody else. Buncha babies.” He steers him out of the living room and towards the hallway, and Peter is doing that weird sleepy walk where he’s dragging his feet against the ground, his head hanging and his whole body swaying in Tony’s direction.
“You can leave ‘em out there,” Peter mutters. “We used to—before Steve moved, we’d all crash out there like that,” he says, as they turn into the hallway. He braces his hand on his own chest. “May too, a lot of the time. It was kinda like…we didn’t wanna take our eyes off each other.”
Tony clears his throat. Another glimpse of those painful months. “You called her to say goodnight, right?”
Peter nods. “Yup. Before the—fourth championship pool game.”
Tony snorts. He realizes he’s holding him kinda tight and he loosens his grip on Peter’s shoulder. They walk the rest of the way down the hall and stop in front of Peter’s door. Peter turns and looks at him, a little clearer than a couple moments ago. “You were the best today, at the press conference,” he says. “You always know what to say, it was…so cool.”
“Thanks, kid,” Tony says, and he’s pretty proud of himself, too. “Hopefully those guys can chill the hell out for the time being.”
Peter hurls himself forward, hugging Tony tight. Tony rests his chin on the top of Peter’s head and closes his eyes. Please tell me if it’s you. Please, please tell me. I won’t be mad. We’ll figure it out.
But Peter stays quiet. He pulls back, smiling. “Night, Tony.”
“See you in the morning, Pete.”
~
Tony takes Pepper to bed, and then he decides to help them each one by one to their rooms, which he gets chastised for by more than half of them, though they don’t reject the help and the closeness. Not even Bucky, who Tony takes before Steve, earning a few smiles and unattributed I’m sorry’s.
He sleeps for ten hours. And when he wakes up, Peter is gone.
Tony has weird pains before he even opens his eyes. His chest aches, his hand hurts, there’s a pulsing in his head that he knows Bruce would love to hear about. But he doesn’t want this shit to be too good to be true, his being back here, so he doesn’t say it out loud, not yet. He just shifts onto his side with a little groan, towards where he can feel Pepper laying.
“You’ve been asleep for a long time,” she says, carding her fingers through his hair. “Before you notice on your own and start freaking out, Peter’s not here.”
Tony pops one eye open. “Why?” he asks. She sounds too calm for him to panic, but the inclination is definitely there.
“He peeked in here earlier and let me know he was gonna go see May, grab a couple things from home and then come back. You can text him in a bit and make sure, but it’s fine, he’ll be back in a little.”
Tony feels fucking selfish for a second because he wants the kid here, but he knows he can’t hoard him, keep him away from May. But he can’t help but feel a little off, knowing Peter isn’t hanging around. He nods, rubbing his chest. Directly over the scars. He wonders if they should hurt like this. When Bruce checked him out yesterday he was still frustratingly ‘perfect’, so Tony isn’t exactly sure what’s going on.
“You okay?” Pepper asks, running her fingertips over his forehead soothingly. “Got a weird look.”
“Yeah,” Tony says, and he figures honesty is the best route here. “Just a couple aches and pains, but I’m gonna…let Bruce know, see what he says. Is everybody else still around?”
“Yeah,” she says, looking slightly worried. “Maybe you should get up and tell him right now. Maybe, for my peace of mind.”
Tony sighs, taking hold of her hand and kissing her knuckles, the center of her palm. “You think?” he asks, eyes flicking up to meet hers.
She nods. “Yeah.”
Tony scoots a little bit closer, peering up at her. “We’re gonna worry about every broken toe now aren’t we?”
Pepper looks at him incredulously. “Broken toes are a level five emergency,” she says.
Tony scoffs. “What’s a level one?”
“Bent fingernail emergency, little scratch emergency, scuffed knee emergency.”
“Everything is an emergency?” he asks, smiling.
She nods. “And that’s just the physical chart. We have an emotional one too.”
He shakes his head, the new aches suddenly covered over with something fine and deep, struck red and glimmering. Like her. He seriously doesn’t know how he ever got this woman to stick with him. Even after all the shit he’s pulled. Even after death.
“You think you’re gonna tell the others about the book any time soon?” she asks, absentmindedly sliding her fingers through his.
He has to. He knows that. Hopefully once he gets all of their individual reactions, he’ll figure out how to move forward. “Yeah,” he says. “I think I will today.”
~
Bruce looks quizzically at him. “And it’s localized where your scars are?” he asks.
“Yeah,” Tony says, putting his shirt back on. “And my hand hurts a little bit, feels like a cramp, maybe? Is all that weird? I feel like everything is weird.”
“Yeah, it sort of is,” Bruce says. “But that doesn’t necessarily mean something is wrong. Physically, you’re still in ship shape, so this has to be related to something we haven’t encountered yet. Something having to do with why you’re back. Maybe related to the voice thing, and why that happened. Which is good and bad. Because we don’t know anything about it.”
Tony clicks his tongue. “Maybe, I, uh…have something else to tell you.”
He watches Bruce’s face as he tells the story Strange shared with him about the book, and Bruce hasn’t ever really had the ability to hide the emotions in his face, and this doesn’t look like acting to Tony. There’s no anger there (thank God) but there’s that familiar shock, horror, Bruce’s eyes widening in pure disbelief.
“Why the hell didn’t you mention this before?” Bruce asks. “He told you this when he came here?”
“Uh, yeah,” Tony says, feeling a little bit like he’s being chastised by a teacher. “I was sorta…holding it close to my chest, seeing if I could determine—”
“You were trying to investigate things on your own, huh?” Bruce asks, stepping back and putting his hands on his hips. “Trying to implicate one of us?”
“Implicate?” Tony asks, raising his eyebrows. “It’s not implicate. What’s that word? I mean, yeah, I can’t really picture you breaking in anywhere, but I’m not trying—”
“I didn’t,” Bruce says. “But you would know that if you’d shared this, wouldn’t you?”
“Alright, don’t hulk out on me,” Tony says, pressing his lips together. “I just—I don’t know, I don’t wanna freak anybody out any more than they’re already freaked out. And plus, yeah, I think—”
“That it actually could be one of us,” Bruce says, sighing. “I mean. I get that line of thinking. And honestly…yeah, it probably was.”
Tony cracks his jaw.
“Or Strange could have done it himself, and he’s just lying to throw you off his trail,” Bruce says.
Tony’s brow furrows. “Huh,” he says. “Interesting.”
Bruce shrugs. “It’s insane, either way, but I guess…I guess I don’t know what I was expecting. But I really do think this is something you should have shared right off. Jesus, Tony—he says he doesn’t know more details? Other than the strength thing?”
“And that the spell is super-duper ancient and medieval and I’m probably connected to King Arthur by a blood bond now or some shit,” Tony says. “He said he’s looking into it, and I gotta start doing some research myself. I would have yesterday if it wasn’t for Natasha insisting on us relaxing. As if singing karaoke and drinking too much is actually relaxing.”
“It is for some people,” Bruce says. He stares at Tony for a second, like he’s trying to work out a problem in his head. “Tony, this…this completely changes how I should even approach everything from a medical standpoint. There could be…any number of side effects we don’t know anything about. We can’t really anticipate anything.”
His words make something boil under Tony’s skin. “Yeah, you’re really driving the point home that I gotta get started on this shit.” He hops down off the table, rubbing his chest. Thankfully, the pain is a little duller now. For some reason, he knows it’s not his heart. “Don’t, uh, spread that book info around,” Tony says, over his shoulder. “No rumors.”
“You really need to share this!” Bruce calls. “We all need to be in on this!”
“In due time!” Tony yells, walking out and into the hallway. He pulls his phone out of his pocket and shoots a text to Peter.
You think you can pick up donuts on the way back here? I’ll pay you back! I’m sure I still have money somewhere… :D
~
Tony reboots FRIDAY, and he’s reminded that he’s way too attached to his damn robots and AIs. But Neo seems to be making good friends with Dum-E and U, which makes Tony inordinately happy.
He makes a list of all the newest bad guys, and it’s surprisingly short. Some guy that can shapeshift, which presents some disturbing prospects. Some guy who can live underwater, which just feels entirely unnecessary. Some woman with a scream that can break people’s eardrums, which makes Tony a little nervous, but she hasn’t shown up too often save for some threatening bank robberies. There are a few terrorists, evil masterminds, but most of them are either dead or in jail, a few of them taken down by people inside this compound right now. There’s some dickhead that gave Peter trouble called Osborn, but he’s been in jail for the past two months.
No one really sets off any alarms, and Tony’s whole list feels wrong for this situation. Tony stores all the info anyway and puts trackers on their movements just in case.
The rebirth spell doesn’t wield results either. He gets a bunch of general shit, nothing that seems like it has anything to do with the one in the stolen book. He nearly rolls his eyes into oblivion when he gets results about World of Warcraft, and almost gives up altogether. He dives into his contacts, searches through library databases, some classified shit, government branches, and he wishes he knew more dudes like Strange and Wong so he could cross-reference more relevant information. He finds some vague mentions of it in some Wiccan manual, but the spell itself isn’t there. Only the fact that it’s ‘dangerous’ and can suck the spell-caster dry if it’s done incorrectly.
Tony doesn’t really know what that means. It makes him wonder if there’s someone dead out there. Some random person who risked it all for him and messed up somewhere, mispronounced some fucking Latin word or something and fell through the cracks while he was rising up.
He hates not knowing. It makes him want to claw his goddamn face off. He spends hours combing through archives, hacking into encrypted servers, trawling message boards, connecting everywhere that might have some kind of information or explanation. He feels like he’s gonna have to travel to get it, to ancient tombs or fallen castles, turn into a regular goddamn Indiana Jones in an iron suit.
Pepper comes in a couple times to bring him food, Rhodey and Happy hang around outside the door, and Tony still doesn’t tell anybody else about the book. He’s starting to wonder why the hell he’s keeping the information to himself. Like he wants them to come to him on their own, like he’s afraid of saying it out loud to somebody else. Like he’s afraid to get the truth. He doesn’t fucking know anymore. His chests still hurts and his brain is a jumbled up mess. It’s hard piecing any of his thoughts together, and he doesn’t know if that has to do with being back from the dead or if it’s just who he is, who he was before he left and who he’ll always fucking be.
He wants to know who did this.
Even Bruce thinks it’s one of them.
He realizes he never got a text back from Peter and that strikes the wrong nerve. He hums a little to himself and grabs his phone.
Hey bud, I know it might be disconcerting getting messages from this number, but I’d like to inform you that I’m going to be very clingy for the next couple of years for numerous reasons you’re aware of, so please shoot me a message to let me know you didn’t die. Sharing is caring.
More research. More hovering, and this time it’s Thor, who casually touches and nearly breaks everything in the lab, and informs him that Peter still isn’t back. When he leaves Tony finds even less information, somehow, and runs into webpages where people are actually discussing how he came back to life. Thankfully most of the messages are kind, happy that he’s back, but none of them get him any closer to finding out about the spell. He wishes he had the fucking wording of the thing, that would be a lot easier to search and trace, but of course nothing about this is easy.
Still no word from Peter, which effectively turns on the panic switch in Tony’s head, even though it’s only been a couple hours. Neo is hovering around him like a nervous mother and Tony scoots back in his rolling chair, sighing down at him.
“Don’t look at me like that,” Tony says, to the round black orb.
He chews on his lower lip for a second, and then he calls May. She answers on the first ring.
“Wow,” she says, laughing a little bit. “It’s very strange to get a call from this number.”
“I know, sorry, I should have warned you,” Tony says. He’s really gotta remember that. “That nephew of yours hanging around? He needs to know that I’m more sensitive than usual so every time he ignores one of my messages, I lose a year off my life.”
There’s a brief silence. “Peter hasn’t been here for a while,” she says. “He just ran in earlier, grabbed some stuff, and said he was gonna go see Ned before he headed back over there. Is he not with you?”
Red flags. Alarm sounds.
“No, he’s not here,” Tony says, rubbing his eyes.
“Wonderful,” May says.
“Should I worry?” Tony asks. He worried, back in the day, when this shit would happen. That’s why he tracked the kid like a lunatic, why he eventually started calling him whenever his heartrate went up a notch or whenever he veered away from his normal schedule. But it’s been seven months, and Tony doesn’t know what’s changed. Dynamics are already different with Peter and the others, he’s probably different on his own, too.
“I always worry about him,” May says. “But he does—he does do this. He has been since we lost you—it was really hard in the beginning, I’d chew him out and then he’d get upset and I just—he was constantly hurting, it was hard to juggle it and how to handle it. Therapy didn’t really work, and I just—he knew I was worried, so he tried to call, he’d get all weepy and apologetic when he forgot, but—I just had to—sometimes I’d crack down, other times I’d just pray he was fine and he’d call me back soon. Spiderman doesn’t help, and he dove into that more—it’s been hard to handle all of it.”
“Christ,” Tony says, his voice breaking. He messed up by dying. He really fucking messed up.
“I’ve been wanting to discuss it with you, but every time we’ve spoken he’s been there,” she says, and she sounds sad. “Peter’s…he’s lost so much, and every time I feel like he’s gonna crack under the pressure, but this is the closest he’s come to breaking, I think. It’s all been piling on. He was talking about karma, things like that.”
“He’s got a guilt complex bigger than mine,” Tony says.
“Which I know is saying a lot,” May says. She sighs. “I mean, you’re back now, he’s seemed brighter since it happened, so much—we talked last night and it’s the most optimistic I’ve heard him be in a long time.”
Tony’s heart is aching. “I’m sorry about all of it.”
“Guilt complex,” May says. “Come on, Tony.”
“I should have been more careful.”
“Tony,” she says. “You know better. If you blame yourself for dying I’m gonna come kill you again myself.”
He shakes his head.
“Hopefully he’s just with Ned,” she says. “He forgets to charge his damn phone all the time, so it could be that too. I’ll message Peter, you call Ned, we’ll compare notes.”
“Alright,” Tony says, his throat tight.
“And Tony Stark—no goddamn blaming yourself for any of this, alright? Or I’m calling Pepper and everybody else I know is there and I’ll get them to kick your ass for me.”
Tony snorts. “Even Thor?”
“Especially Thor. I’ve talked to Thor on the phone before. I’ve had drinks with Thor!”
“There are so many stories I need to hear,” Tony says.
“Yeah, well, when we get together for lunch I’ll tell ‘em,” she says.
“Deal,” he says. “I’ll let you know what I find out about the kid.”
“Same,” she says.
They hang up, and Tony calls Ned. After a few oh my God Mr. Stark you’re calling me’s and disjointed run-on sentences about his recent resurrection, he finds out that Peter was with him, but breezed out of there about an hour ago, which only adds to Tony’s nerves. He hangs up on Ned and finds out that Peter isn’t answering for May either.
Tony is close to a fucking panic attack. Neo is still rolling around him enough to put a goddamn groove in the ground, and Tony gets up, ready to go to the others and admit everything to everybody. All about the book, how much he’s freaking out about Peter. And he plans on revealing Peter as his number one suspect. This sudden disappearance is nailing in his suspicions. But maybe it doesn’t mean anything. Maybe he did forget to charge his phone. Maybe he’s just off doing some Spiderman shit.
But wouldn’t he have told them?
Tony checks the news, checks Twitter, but doesn’t see anything about Spiderman.
It’s too much. Too much in the dark, too many unanswered questions, too much panic and nervousness and possible impossible things. He gets up, heads for the door, and he hears a portal open up behind him.
He twists around and sees Strange standing there, the portal already closed. Still so weird, but whatever.
“You got something?” Tony asks. “Please tell me you’ve got something. And I’d prefer if it was something good, I need a jolt right about now.”
But then he gets a look at Strange’s face. It reminds Tony of that moment on Titan, when he’d seen their millions of failings, and the one opportunity they had to win. One, out of millions.
He doesn’t beat around the bush. “The spell puts significance on the number seven, which pops up in a lot of theological texts,” Strange says, voice low, like someone else might be listening. “In the bible, seven is the perfect number. It’s the day God rested. So this spell…it will only work correctly surrounding sevens. Seven months, seven days, seven years. The spell is precise, which is why it rarely works.”
Tony’s heart is racing. “Rarely works?”
“This is an unwritten rule,” Strange says, standing there stiffly. “Another reason why this spell is so dangerous. It doesn’t reveal itself. Others only came to this conclusion by following cases, those that worked and those that didn’t. And those that didn’t…they come back half corpse. They come back braindead. They come back and suffocate on their own blood an hour later. Anything can happen, and everything has. You were lucky. Seven months. She stole the book a week ahead of the anniversary, she could have done the spell any time between then and now and been within the margin of error of the seven months. I believe that if it had been cast more than a week before or after, that it wouldn’t have gone correctly.”
“Wait,” Tony says, closing his eyes before slowly opening them again. “She?”
Strange looks serious. Not angry, but there’s worry and resignation in his eyes. “It was Natasha Romanoff, Tony. Wong and I were able to get the footage. She made it difficult, but we were able to break through. She was on her own. And now I know I need to put more fail safes in place, to stop someone of her caliber.”
Tony shakes his head. He rewinds every moment they’ve spent together since she got here. Sam’s words echo in his ears. Losing you sent her through the ringer. The break-in does feel the most like her, and out of everyone she’s definitely the most capable of pulling it off. The earth feels different, now that he knows, like he can feel it shifting beneath his feet. She did this for him. She changed the world’s rules for him. He believes it and he doesn’t. All he knows is that he needs to fucking talk to her.
“Shit,” Tony breathes, his chest aching a little more than it was. “Uh, okay. She’s here, uh…I don’t know, I’ll pay for anything she damaged, I know you’ve got a lot of weird magical shit just hanging around in there…”
“Tony,” Strange says. “There’s more, I…I found out more about the spell. What it costs. And these are things she knew, things that were in the text.”
The moment is too fucking loaded. “What?” Tony demands. “What? Tell me.”
“First of all, it marks the spell caster, usually in a way that mimics the death of the resurrected,” Strange says. “So if they died in a fire, the spell caster will get burns. If it was a nasty car accident, the wounds will be the same. Usually in the same place.”
“Jesus,” Tony says, his stomach turning.
“But worse yet—”
“Worse?” Tony exclaims. “C’mon, Doc—”
“The spell takes from the one who casts it, whether it’s executed correctly or not.”
“Takes what?” Tony asks, his heart beating in his ears.
“In your case—in hers—seven months. The spell takes the amount of time the resurrected person has been dead off the spell caster’s life. So if someone has been gone ten years, the spell will fail, the resurrected person will come back wrong, they probably won’t remain alive, and the ten years will still be taken from the person who casts the spell. So Miss Romanoff has knowingly given up seven months of her life to bring you back into the world. She’s lucky her timing is good, so the sacrifice was not in vain. Only the sevens prevail. I can only imagine those who choose to give up ten years of their lives for the entire thing to fail. It’s difficult to think about. ”
Tony—feels sick. He feels like he’s gonna throw up, pass out. One month is too much, one second is too much—but seven goddamn months? Off of her life? He can’t think, and he can’t believe all this insane shit he knows now that he didn’t know moments ago. Unwritten rules. Horror. Sacrifice. The impending goddamn doom he felt clinging to him. Here it is.
He can’t believe it. This spell was too dangerous, it could have easily been a fucking nightmare—one month ahead of time and…and…he gets flashes of what could have been. Dirt in his eye sockets. Half formed lungs. He could have been a walking, decomposing corpse before it killed him all over again. He has no idea. He has too many ideas.
And seven months. Natasha gave up seven months.
“She knew she was giving up months of her life?” he asks. “She actually…chose that?”
“I was able to locate the wording of the original text,” Strange says. “She was well aware. It’s very simple and very clear, that particular point.”
“Okay,” Tony says, covering his face with his hands. “Okay, okay. Is there anything we can do, to…to, uh…give her the months back?” God, he doesn’t even like saying it out loud. All of this makes him feel sick.
“Not that I know of,” Strange says. “I knew you’d ask that, so I looked into it. No one ever succeeded, but they did try.”
“Yeah, well, they didn’t try hard enough,” Tony says, heading towards the door like he was before Strange got here and blew this whole goddamn thing open.
There’s a fire in his veins. Stoked by panic. Natasha. Natasha. He has to goddamn talk to her right now.
“Stick with me,” Tony says to Strange, without even looking over his shoulder. He feels like a machine, he feels like he has blinders on, he definitely feels like he’s gonna have a heart attack.
He turns into the hallway and sees Clint coming down the stairs.
“Alright,” Clint says. “We’re gonna order pizza, so I think it’s just about time for your self-imposed—”
“Where’s your partner?” Tony asks, cutting him off. He truly feels like he’s gonna fucking explode. He should have known he’d lose his shit when all of this came to light. He can’t place any of his goddamn feelings right now. He doesn’t know if he’s mad, he doesn’t know if he’s grateful or guilty. He doesn’t know if he’s gonna have a goddamn panic attack, because the idea of Natasha giving up seven months for him is unimaginable. He doesn’t know how it works, but he knows this kind of magic is probably woven in with the universe, connected to every time and date and event, and he gets a flash of one of their normal nights together and Natasha just fucking dropping dead. Tony wants to stop death for all of them, not invite it closer, and he nearly cries when he makes eye contact with Clint. Because he knows she didn’t tell him, not the details, anyway. He doesn’t think Clint would have encouraged such a decision, even if it did bring Tony back.
Clint narrows his eyes. “We’re still all camped out in the living room, why, what’s—”
“Just gotta—have a conversation,” Tony says, making for the stairs. He doesn’t see Clint turn and notice Strange, but he does vaguely hear them start talking. His head is fuzzy and he doesn’t concentrate on what they’re saying, and he doesn’t even know what the hell he’s gonna say to Natasha—it’s all said and done, set in stone, and he doesn’t know why he wants her to take it back. He’s here, he’s alive because of what she did, but seven months, seven goddamn months off of her life, he can’t believe it, he has to ask, has to ask her why—
It’s like she knows he’s there for her when he walks out of the hallway, and he’s fucking losing it, running around like a bull in a china shop, and they can all see, they’re all concerned—and Peter still isn’t fucking here. Jesus, Jesus, he’s gotta call him again, he’s gotta find him too, but Natasha, first Natasha—
“Tony,” Pepper says, worry in her eyes. “What’s wrong?”
Tony watches Natasha’s expression when she sees Strange, like she’s trying not to give anything away. But it’s too late.
“Did he portal in here?” Happy asks, irritated. “Jesus Christ, guy, c’mon—”
“Tones,” Rhodey starts, but Tony is essentially single-minded.
“Natasha,” he says. “Can we talk?”
“Tony—”
“What’s going on—”
“One sec, guys, we’re good,” Tony says, trying to make himself sound normal, but he’s seeing red, he’s panicking, seven goddamn months for him.
Natasha gets up and Tony makes a quick decision, half wanting to take the conversation off his own hands and half needing Strange to explain it because he doesn’t know if he’s gonna be able to make real words soon because the panic is eating away at him.
“Uh, Strange—can you, uh—tell them about the book, the whole deal,” Tony says, meeting his eyes. “You can explain it better than I can.” Strange nods, and the whole group starts talking over each other, asking questions, but Natasha grabs Tony’s arm and takes hold of the situation, dragging him away from the noise and the yelling and out onto the back balcony.
She pulls the door shut, leaving them in silence, and turns to face him.
“You know?” she asks, her eyes intent.
He feels tired all of a sudden. Like now that he’s in front of her he doesn’t know how to be, doesn’t know how to speak or discuss any of it. He leans against the door and laments all of it—every fucking thing—and he wishes he could have been strong enough not to die in the goddamn first place so they could have avoided this whole shit stain of a situation.
He looks down at their feet. “Why did you do it?” he asks, swallowing hard. “Shit, Romanoff, seven goddamn months? For my worthless ass? I thought it might be you but you’re one of the more sensible ones in the group, I would have thought that trade would have made you bail right out—”
“Tony,” she says, and she sounds nervous. “I messed up.”
“Uh, yeah, you messed up,” Tony says. “I get that you missed me, I’m touched—”
“I did take it,” she says, breathing a little faster. “But it wasn’t—God, Tony, I did miss you. We all did. I felt like I failed you, I was too far away there in the end, I wasn’t there in that moment when you needed me, and we were separated for so long, and I’ve had so many regrets in my life, so many opportunities to fix things and I’ve missed them, so when he told me about this book, where it was—when he came to me asking for help I knew I had to, I knew I had to help him, to help you…”
Everything seems to slow down.
“He’d been looking for so long, searching every avenue for something, anything, and I helped him, I was the only one that knew, and when he found out about the book—I just got it, I went in, I found it,” Natasha says, her voice full of emotion, and all of the information comes out in a waterfall. “I wasn’t thinking straight. I took care of it so no one could stop us, keep us from doing it but I didn’t—he wanted to do it himself, he was desperate for it to be him and I didn’t—I never got to read the spell myself—”
“Who…who’s he?” Tony asks, even though he already knows, even though the creeping realization is settling over him like a death shroud. He looks up into her eyes.
“I made a mistake,” Natasha says, wavering. “I shouldn’t have let him do it, I should have done it myself—I didn’t know enough about it, but I just stole it for him, I let him—”
“Are you talking about Peter?” he asks, quiet, and everything hurts.
There are tears in her eyes. “He’s been avoiding me since,” she says. “I had a feeling there was something more to it, that it—that it demanded something of him that it shouldn’t have—he wouldn’t tell me—I could tell from how he was acting, I’ve been trying to get it out of him but he won’t budge—”
Tony sways on the spot. He can’t breathe. He can’t think. This can’t be happening. Not Peter. Not this.
“We did it for you, Tony,” she says. “We couldn’t—we couldn’t let you stay dead, we fucking couldn’t. That kid, he—”
“That kid gave up seven months of his life to bring me back,” Tony whispers, and his voice sounds far away. “And now he’s—now he’s not answering his goddamn phone.” Everything feels cold, and it’s almost like he’s back in that moment when he pulled himself out of the ground.
Peter knew to be there.
The cut on his hand. The scars on his fucking chest. In the same place where Tony’s are. Oh fuck, oh fucking fuck.
“I’m so fucking stupid,” he breathes, covering his face with his hands. “I’m such an asshole.”
“Tony, I’m—Jesus, I should have done it myself,” Natasha breathes. “Jesus, I’m so sorry.”
It all makes sense. The way Peter’s been acting. Everything. The voice thing threw him off. He wasn’t expecting it. He was expecting Tony to come back, but not that. A hiccup in his plan. He doesn’t know the unwritten rules. He doesn’t know how lucky he was, in his timing.
Peter fucking did this. He was desperate enough to step into this danger, this darkness, with reckless abandon, no thought for himself or what could happen. What would happen. Fuck. Fuck.
He just wanted Tony back.
“It’s not your—he’s—shit, he’s got us all wrapped around his little finger, I get it,” Tony says, and it’s muffled behind his hands. “He has scars on his chest—my scars, I saw them—Strange said that was part of it too, the spell gives the caster the death markings or whatever—Jesus Christ, I should have known, they didn’t look like they were healing properly, I wasn’t goddamn thinking—”
“He cut his hand for it,” Natasha says. “I know that.”
“But that one was healing,” Tony says, and he feels like he’s losing blood, like he’s bleeding out, like he’s gonna drop any minute. He’s way too dizzy, and everything still hurts. “The scars—shit, they’re probably permanent.” He tries to breathe. His chest still hurts. He gets the fucking hand cramping thing now, like he’s feeling the cut too. They’ve got some kind of weird connection going on. But why is it flaring up now? “Did you see him when he left?” he asks, pulling his hands away from his face.
“No, I didn’t,” she says. She looks at a loss. “Tony, I’m so—”
“Don’t be,” Tony says, shaking his head. He isn’t about the guilt, especially here, with this, after what is essentially a selfless act from both of them. He knows what Peter’s like, and if he wants to do something, he’ll do it. “I just don’t trust him, I don’t trust why he’s gone right now.”
“Call him,” she says. “Leave him a really depressing message. Tell him you know.”
Tony nods. They both know Peter’s not gonna fucking pick up.
Seven months. Seven months off Peter’s life. Tony braces his hand on the railing and sucks in a breath, feeling Natasha’s hand on his shoulder. He nods, his vision going blurry. He fishes his phone out of his pocket.
Three rings. Then voicemail. He’s clearly being ignored.
“Peter,” Tony says. “I know what you did, buddy. I know what you did and I’m—I know what it cost.” Tears prick at the corners of his eyes. “Jesus, Peter—I don’t—I don’t know what to say to you.” He’s deeply fucking sad, every part of him drowning under his own failings. How could he let this happen to Peter? His fucking kid. With all the light and hope surrounding him, and Tony dragged him here. He took from him. “Peter, I—” he gasps, shaking his head. There are no words for what’s happened here. He’s back, he’s back with the people he loves, and Peter gave him that chance. Peter gave up seven months of his life to do that. Peter risked everything for him.
“Please call me,” Tony says, his voice breaking. “I need to talk to you, I need—I need you to come home, okay? It’s okay. It’s all okay, we’re gonna figure it out, we’re gonna—we’re gonna fix this in a way that—that makes me stay, but I just—I gotta see you, kid. Come back, okay?” He swallows around the lump in his throat and hangs up. He wipes his eyes.
“He was in such a bad place, Tony,” Natasha says. “He’s such a good kid, he’s lost so much—”
“I know,” Tony says, turning around. “I wish I coulda—done better by him. Not pushed him into this kind of shit. I just—every time I think about it—” He shakes his head. It makes him sick.
His phone buzzes in his hand. His heart leaps and he looks down. It’s a message from Peter.
Tony. I’m so happy I have you back. I’d do it over and over again, no matter the cost. I’m gonna get the rest of my family back, too. I can’t wait for you to meet them.
“Whoa,” Natasha says, wrapping her arm around Tony’s waist. “Tony, are you—what is it? Is it him?”
She’s holding him up. Because he’s gonna fucking collapse. He keeps staring down at the message to make sure he’s reading it right.
Ben’s been dead for four years.
The Parker’s. Peter’s parents. It must be almost twelve years.
“Tony. Tony.”
Sixteen years. Peter is going to sacrifice sixteen years, for nothing. Because neither spell will work. They’ll come back wrong, they’ll come back nightmares, and it’ll break Peter, it’ll fucking destroy him. A goddamn unwritten rule and he clearly doesn’t know it, he clearly doesn’t fucking know or he wouldn’t risk it, he wouldn’t risk sixteen years to get back corpses, walking dead, suffering, moldering versions of the people he loves that won’t get fixed, that won’t stick around, that will only hurt him and tear him apart. He wouldn’t risk it if he knew. He wouldn’t. He doesn’t know, he doesn’t know, he’s in fucking danger and Tony has to save him, he has to save him.
Tony looks at the message again. This is the worst case scenario. “He’s gonna—oh God—he’s gonna—try to bring his dead Uncle back. His dead parents. That’s like—sixteen years. He’s gonna lose sixteen years. Goddamnit. God—it’s not gonna work and he’s gonna give up that time anyway—”
“Won’t work—”
“They come back wrong unless they’re—unless they’ve been dead in sevens, only worked with me because you guys hit it on seven months.” An impossible stroke of luck. He doesn’t fucking deserve it. “It doesn’t matter, I can’t—shit, I gotta—” He’s panicking, sucking in air, but he has to focus. It’s Peter. He has to solve this shit. Now. There’s no time for anything else.
He pushes out of Natasha’s grasp and meets her eyes. “Did he do it for me in the cemetery?”
“I think so,” she says.
“Alright,” Tony says, setting his jaw and heading back inside. “I’m gonna track his phone, but that’s where I’m heading.”
He's so dizzy. He feels like the world is ending.
He’s gotta protect his kid before it’s too late.