Spider-Son & Iron Dad two shots

Another Idea For Peter

a/n: three years later! a rewrite of surprisingly a lot of people's favourite oneshot. it still makes no sense plot wise but nonetheless i hope u enjoy

⚠alcoholism, grief⚠

Day 22. His body was just as dilapidated as his heart. Thinning hair, weak muscles, his bones showing out from the skin. It cost everything to fall asleep, now, but he was exhausted. He just needed something, he needed—He needed Pep to know. He needed something to survive the trip back.

"Hey Ms. Potts. If you find this recording," Tony took a breath and leaned back on the wreckage of the ship. He was dizzy from the movement forward and exhaled with a heavy sigh. "Help post it on social media, it's gonna be a real tearjerker."

"I don't know if you're gonna see these," Tony admitted. "I don't know if you're still—"

Peter was ash on his hands. He was gone, whisked away in a fit of dust. Dying and dead in the span of a few seconds. Tony couldn't do a thing, it was too late— There was something words couldn't reach about the feeling one has of holding their child in their arms and it being all they can do.

"Oxygen will run out tomorrow morning, and then it'll be... it." Tony licked his lips and stared out into the endless nothingness. No planet or star in sight to put his place in the universe into perspective. He was as small and meaningless as you could be in the great void of space. "I know I said no more surprises, but I was really hoping to pull off one last one."

"Please note, that when I drift off... I'm fine, I'm totally fine," he assured her, his tone remaining steady and clear. He had reached an acceptance, now. There was no need to tell Pepper he was dying a guilty man. This is how he imagined it, in the end. "I'll dream about you. Because it's always you."

Then everything was so bright. It was burning, it was like staring directly into the sun, and with his sunken-in eyes he assumed he was seeing some sort of miracle, or heaven, or the real end of all things. But instead the glow faded and some super-powered chick he'd never seen on the Avengers roster stared at him and narrowed her eyes. 

He wasn't fine.

It's been a month into his recovery, and while his body is gaining enough strength to stand on his own two feet, his mind is something else entirely. Shredded to shrapnel in all he'd seen, in all he couldn't do. Pepper is at his side every time she can be, but when she's gone, he keeps finding himself going back to old habits.

Nobody was doing well, though. It seemed like nothing when anybody would pop open a bottle and pour themselves a hefty glass. It was a temporary solution to a permanent problem, and Tony hated himself for it, but he didn't know what else to do.

It's a dark night. His head is exceptionally stormy, his skin feels like shards of ice and his head is full of cotton as he limps down the hallway to the elevator. He leaned against the steel wall and downed the glass in hand.