butmomilovepeter:

you taught me the courage of stars before you left

another one??? another one?????

~

There’s a boy on the screen. He’s handsome—in the teenager kind of way—and with soft brown eyes. But he looked young, too young to be showing up on the screen.

And why he was even on this screen, Steve didn’t know. It was made by FRIDAY for those in contact with…the Avengers? Or at least whatever they make up now.

So why there a kid here?

Peter Parker

Missing

So not confirmed dead. Good. Whoever the kid was, he was definitely a kid, and going missing was better than…going.

But who—

“That’s Peter.” Rhodey’s voice startles him. Steve turns sharply on his heel to look the other man in the eye. He looks exhausted. Who wasn’t? But Steve guessed that having your best friend lost in space did a number on you.

“Who is he?” Steve asked. Rhodey shows somewhat of a smile before tapping on the screen again to show multiple pictures of the Peter kid. A better look showed him being very young, sixteen at most. There were a couple candids of him laughing, a few videos of him talking, but multiple with Tony in them.

And honestly? Steve had never seen Tony happier.

“The two of them…” Rhodey begins. “They had something. Did them both good. They had a cute little mentor/mentee thing going.”

When Rhodey senses Steve doesn’t really understand, he sighs and continues.

“Peter was a good kid. A genius. I wouldn’t be surprised if someone combined you and Tony’s dna to make him.” Rhodey chuckled a bit sadly. Steve returned with a smile.

“A reckless genius with a hero complex?” Steve inquired.

“Exactly.” Rhodey paused and the smile faltered. “Kid lost his parents really young. Lived with his aunt and uncle…until he was about 14. His uncle was shot one night.”

“Shot?” Steve asked with wide eyes. Rhodey nodded.

“Right in front of him. In some Queens alleyway. Tony says he still blames himself.” Rhodey’s voice was wispy.

And then it hit Steve.

“Is he Spider-Man?” Everything would make more sense if he was. Rhodey sighed before nodding.

“Before you go off on Tony for bringing a kid into this, he didn’t know until it was too late. The kid would have done it anyway. The day Ben Parker died changed him.”

“How old?”

“He would have turned 17 in August.” Rhodey’s voice caught in his throat a bit.

“Would have?” Steve wondered mournfully. Rhodey didn’t respond, instead changed the screen slowly to a different picture, this time of one of Peter and Tony both passed out at their respective lab stations, and by the look on Rhodey’s face, Steve figured he took it.

“Neither of them have great self preservation skills. The kid can go days without sleeping and doesn’t even realize. Tony says he gets nightmares a lot.”

“Nightmares?” Rhodey nodded again.

“It’s complicated. Peter got a building, sorta, uh, dropped on him. By his homecoming date’s dad.”

“He what?” Steve exclaimed. “A building?”

“Again, complicated. Kid just hasn’t really come back from it.”

“Not sure that’s a thing you can come back from.” Steve concluded, and Rhodey gave him a hum in response. Something faltered in Rhodey’s demeanor suddenly.

“Pepper got a message from Tony. He’s…we don’t know where he really is. We’ve got an idea but…”

Steve hated this feeling. He thought he had gotten somewhat over it (half the world dying isn’t something you completely get over), despite him missing Bucky late at night. When it’s too dark to see and his last words echo in his dreams.

He’s lost a lot of friends, too many friends.

And suddenly he realized, he couldn’t really afford to lose another. Despite everything that happened between him and Iron Man.

“His oxygen runs out tomorrow morning.” Rhodey’s voice truly broke for the first time. “Or maybe it already has, we don’t know when the message sent.”

“Jesus, Rhodes. We can’t lose him too.”

“You’re right.” Pepper’s voice spoke definitely from the doorway. Her eyes were red and puffy from crying, her hair a bit frizzled. “I haven’t been planning this wedding for a year for nothing.”

“Hey Pep.” Rhodey said softly. “How you holding up?”

“Been better.” She was a wreck, and rightfully so.

Steve begrudgingly rememberers the conversation he overheard last night.

“I can’t raise my kid without him, Rhodey. I just can’t!”

“We’ll find him, Pep. I promise.”

“Why didn’t I… tell him?”

“Pep, how could you have known?”

He had forgotten she was pregnant for a moment…and he doesn’t want Tony’s child to grow up without him either.

“We’ll get him back.” Steve says with shaky confidence, which earns him a grateful look in her eyes. Her eyes then trail to the screen, and more tears fall.

“Oh God.” She whispers. “Peter—he wasn’t—he wasn’t in the video.”

“Pep…” Rhodey seemed to have realized something as well.

“What? Should he have been?” Steve said, trying to read their faces.

“Yes. God, yes he should.” Pepper cried, hastily wiping fresh tears away.

“Steve,” Rhodey turned and faced Steve. “Peter went up with Tony.”

“Against Tony’s will.” Pepper supplied with a fond eye roll. “Rhodey…you know what that means.”

Steve did too.

Peter was dead.

He went up and didn’t come back down.

“What are we going to tell May?” Rhodey asked after a moment.

“What can we tell her?” Pepper replied tearfully.

“Is May his aunt?” Steve asked quietly. Pepper nodded.

“Basically his mother. Peter…Peter was all she had left.”

And then no one talks.

“I can go tell her. If you want.” Steve offers.

“No, it should be me,” Pepper said. “I’m her friend. And he was her baby.” She subconsciously rubbed her stomach. That’s her baby.

“I hate this.” Rhodey’s voice choked again, summing up just about everything Steve was thinking.

Buck, wherever you are, take care of the kid. Of Peter.

~

It’s the middle of the night when Carol Danvers comes to them and tells she can get them to Tony. Steve doesn’t hesitate when she makes them a portal to jump right through. There’s light for a moment before he sees the ship. He knows he’s followed by Rhodey and Bruce, but he’s the first one to see Tony. He’s obviously broken. Starving and pale, with tears evident down his cheeks.

“Tony!” Steve has to admit he missed the man. Tony doesn’t wait, he runs into Steve with minimal energy, but wraps his arms around him.

“Who’d you lose?” Steve already knows.

Tony takes a deep shaky breath.

“I lost my kid.” He sounds older.

And Steve doesn’t respond out loud, instead he kept the grip on the man he once thought was his enemy.

Rhodey follows suit, and when Steve lets go, Tony goes right into Rhodey’s arms.

I’m getting my friends back. I’m getting Sam, Wanda, all the Wakandans…Bucky. Especially Bucky.

And I’m getting Peter back. For Tony.

I can’t wait to meet this kid.