Dorthea

cursed him from the moment he touched him

marvel parallels 57/?

And then he thinks about it a little more and he sees his own face in his daughters and he realizes that Morgan is him, and Peter is Steve, and he is howard, and there’s no way to break free of the cycle.

He dies praying that Morgan will forgive Peter some day, the way Tony never was able to forgive Steve.

When the decathlon team decided to meet up to study after school, Peter’s out on patrol, getting his ass beat. When Peter’s got a free afternoon, he texted his friends, and usually they’re busy doing normal teenager stuff. Ned’s getting dates, MJ’s got job interviews, they both have extracurriculars and futures that exist for themselves.

Peter wasn’t mad. He couldn’t expect everyone to live on Spider-Man’s schedule just because Peter Parker wanted to feel normal for once.

And maybe it’s because he tended to ramble in the lab, or maybe he put something in a voicemail, or said something in a text, but — Tony must have picked up on it. All of the sudden, Peter’s getting offers to swing by the compound at 10, 11pm.

And Tony started doing other stuff, too. Offered to drive out takeout at 1am-3am, the usual hours Peter wrapped up patrol these days. One notable moment, he called Peter when he got home from an early patrol so that they could watch a movie together— while Tony was in a total other country.

It was on his time, as inefficient as it was for everyone else. Meeting him on Spider-Man’s schedule, even though it probably made Tony tired as hell, just to make Peter feel like a normal kid.

It was exactly the kind of sacrifice that made Tony such a great dad, when it came time for it.

He gets a summons to the library an hour later, pulled out of science class confused and ends up brought to the IT desk where a very confused IT worker is chatting with Stark himself.

Stark is helping put together a broken chromebook.

The employee page never has issues again and Stark ends many lab sessions then on with “tell john from IT I said hi”.

The rough draft/vision

you threaten security with pepper spray? your name is pepper forever now.

you look perpetually grumpy? your name is now happy. congratulations.

james rhodes? nope. that’s rhodey actually.

May Parker, standing in the middle of a frantic office hallway in 2018, watching the tv as Iron Man bolted into the sky to follow after a spaceship that had her nephew clinging to its side. She’s trying to stay calm. She had her own thoughts on Tony, but Iron Man hadn’t failed the city before.

(Tony Stark, ignoring the blood seeping down his side, and the chips in his armor that keep buzzing in an attempt to repair itself. Nearly everyone else had fallen already. He’s holding Peter as the kid’s legs fail him, and he’s just thinking, it’s okay, it’ll be over fast, and Peter will be in my arms the whole time.

He waits, prays, for his own hands to turn to dust.

* New student, very small. Grace said it was pebble. Pebble is small Earth rock. Pebble likes name.

* He found out Eridians have no gender rules.

* Students brought him mineral sample. After he stopped crying he said he loves show-and-tell game. Human naming conventions oddly literal.

* I told him Earthsun grew bright.

* I took him up atop atmosphere bypass elevator to look at stars.

* He woke up from nap and found me still with him. I did not wait on his chest; he says I am heavy like “elephant” and he “couldn’t breathe.” I laid my arm over him instead, kept him close, feeling safe. He said “cuddle” was warm.

* Before class he heard younglings singing.

* He has plants in house from sprouts on ship. Plant grew “bud.”

* Engineers got seawater temperature right. He took off shoes and stood in water, sighing. He didn’t care about pants getting damp. Cried until shirt was also damp. Humans very endlessly wet.

* He missed “Doritos.”

* Adrian helped food scientists make taumoeba dried paste. Made it crunchy after heating. We fused it into triangle form. Told him it was Tauritos. That made him laugh-cry. Laugh-cry is rare and precious.

* He remembered Eridians have no gender rules.

* We made him celebration outfit. Used metals he calls pretty. He can see frequencies named “colorful” and “shiny.” These make humans happiest.

* I gave him hug when he wasn’t expecting it. Easier to hug close now with exosuit. Hug when Grace sitting down so he does not fall over.

One moment, he’s snapping at the kid for doing something reckless, dangerous, and the next, he’s eight, twelve, fourteen, biting his tongue and daring himself not to cry. We have a reputation to uphold, Anthony. This work isn’t something to toy and tinker with, it isn’t a joke. This is your legacy. Our legacy. You’re irresponsible, Anthony, these are future people’s lives on the line. No son of mine—

The first time Peter cried in front of him, it was after a really awful mission. The kid had gotten out unscathed, but Tony, scared shitless and fuming that Peter had ignored his orders to retreat, had gone off on him.

Ten minutes into his lecture, Peter had clenched his jaw and he’d sniffled, once, twice, and then. Tears. The sight of them had stunned Tony. Knocked his brain loose and his jaw slack and his heart tumbling out of his chest.

He’d apologized immediately, of course. Felt every muscle in his body vibrate with something sick, like the palladium was still poisoning him from the inside out.

He remembered thinking, God, I’d do anything to make him stop crying, and, how do I fix it, how do I fix it, how do I fix it?

It was such a visceral, tangible thing, the way loving something, a child, could make someone feel. Within the span of one second, Tony had full intention to rewire his own nervous system, rework his entire paleomammalian cortex, just to prevent this specific pain.

It’s a rare day for peter that he turns down the chance to talk to someone friendly. So it’s an especially bad day, when peter decides the incoming call without a second glance. He doesn’t feel like being a person today.

So he started a habit of “deep breathing” by breathing as deep as he could, then holding his breath at the physical limit. He started to like the way he could now measure his breaths. They all compared to one another. The arc reactor gave him a means of measurement.

And when it was removed, he kept up his habit of shallow breaths. He wasn’t used to the freedom that comes with no blockage on his lungs, and taking breaths deeper than he previously could would set off his anxiety horribly.

It became known to the people closest to tony that pressure on his chest would actually calm him down from panic attacks, because it was familiar.

And 2 of them DIED! While they were asleep with no one to watch over them!!

Because, yes, his arc reactor is now known. People know what happened and how and when and why, people can look up the official story. But it’s different to see it. There’s a curiosity there, they ask more questions, they see his chest where the scar is and they want to know everything about how that scar got there.

tony wants to be left alone about it. He wants to be left alone about it so badly that he attempts to study medicine himself so that he can be his own doctor. He does a few sleepless nights trying to catch up, gets decently knowledgeable but inexperienced.

He’s good enough to know when something REALLY needs to go to a REAL doctor.

Which is why he knew, in the middle of a battle as Peter didn’t stand back up again, that this condition needed a REAL doctor. That Peter might not make it. That something was very very wrong.