#a crop top. because she's from germany and from what i hear it's cOLD there

[averlym]

okay you know what i’ll probs not finish colours and i want this posted by december so- here’s a silly little birthday comic, a few days late! (@holiday anon!)

[grandraconteur]

Wish You Were Here, Chapter 4

Hallucinations of his dead father had haunted Peter for years. Symptoms of trauma, a child psychologist told his Aunt and Uncle with a well-practiced sympathetic smile on her saccharine face. A natural result from surviving the car accident.

Except Peter just saw his father, and he was very much alive.

With the help of his mentor, Tony Stark, and the mysterious figure, Doctor Stephen Strange, Peter is going to have to delve into new details from a painful history to uncover the truth...

Iron Dad, Doctor Dad, Spider Son, and slow burn Ironstrange.

As always, betaed by the incomparable @merelypassingtime

Please enjoy!

1, 2, 3

Also on AO3

1, 2, 3

Chapter 4: Comfortably Numb (Part 2)

Come on, now.  

I hear you're feeling down.

Well, I can ease your pain,

Get you on your feet again.

~ "Comfortably Numb," Pink Floyd, The Wall, November 30, 1979

Around dinner time that night, someone knocked at the apartment door.

Peter was still holed up in his room, May thankfully agreeing to give him more space as long as he promised not to play Spiderman that night. He hardly paid the visitor mind, until May’s characteristic knock on his door.

“Peter? Mr. Stark’s here for you.”

With his advanced physiology, Peter was pretty sure he made some kind of record from his bed to open the door, ignoring entirely the fact that he was still dressed in his pajamas. Mr. Stark jerked back slightly at the abruptness of the movement, but, as always, played it cool and used the movement to appear as if he was looking Peter up and down. “Mr. Parker, dare I say you played hooky today?”

Before Peter could answer, Mr. Stark turned to Aunt May with his version of an apologetic smile, though it seemed far less sympathetic and more for show. “Mind if I talk to the kid in private? Got something important to discuss.”

“You mean like the last time you had to ‘talk privately’ and Peter ended up in Germany to fight a bunch of criminals under the guise of an internship?” She drawled, raising an eyebrow archly and crossing her arms.

“Yeah...that was...extenuating circumstances and kind of urgent. But this is just paperwork. Superhero business. Nothing that will require him to leave the tri-state area.”

“It’s fine, Aunt May, nothing to worry about!” Peter tugged at Mr. Stark’s sleeve, pulling him into the room. “Like he said, just some paperwork. But, you know, private Avengers business-”

“Not quite an Avenger yet, kid. Turned me down, remember?”

“-private...friendly neighborhood superhero business. We’ll be done in a jiffy!”

Before the door could close, May put her hand on it. Looking Peter dead in the eye, she remarked, “Peter...swear to me this isn’t anything dangerous. Because you do not need any more stress right now.”

That pointed look, earnest yet brooking no argument, nearly caused Peter to give in and spill everything. But, he reminded himself, he didn’t know everything yet, so…

He’d spare her, just a little longer.

“I promise.”

The door closed on Aunt May’s dubious and slightly concerned face. Peter leaned against the back of the door, breathing a sigh of temporary relief.

“Well, can’t say it looks like you’ve taken my advice.”

Mr. Stark looked him over with an apparent detached critical assessment that did not quite belie his concern.

“I’ve been doing nothing but homework, Mr. Stark. I haven’t even been Spidermaning this weekend.”

“And yet, you look like the poster image of teenage depression. Probably why Aunt Hottie had a Mayo Clinic page about it open on her laptop when I came in.”

Peter started to comment on ‘Aunt Hottie’ but redirected when the rest of Mr. Stark’s sentence registered. “She did?”

“Yeah. Might help if you got dressed. Seems to fool them. Though I have to say, I am flattered by your show of support. Terribly outdated, though. What is that, Mark VII?”

Glancing down, Peter let out a little eep at the realization he was in the Iron Man pajamas May bought him last Christmas. He crossed his arms across his chest nervously. “Well, you know. They were on clearance.”

“Oh, ouch. Hit me where it hurts, why don’t you? Though I haven’t seen any Spiderman merchandise, clearance or otherwise. ”

With a quick look around the place, Mr. Stark took a seat on Peter’s bed, patting the spot beside him in invitation like it was his own room and not the teenager’s. Fumbling a bit, Peter sat down, running his hands over the tops of his legs in a restless motion.

“So…?”

With an expressive breath, Mr. Stark took out his phone and snapped it forward slightly, producing a holographic image of a file with the Stark logo and a name.

  Dr. Stephen Strange.

“Turns out Shield was good for something. I was able to access their archived security footage from around the globe for Friday to analyze, plus I had her scour social media, looking for a facial match or mention of his name.”

Heart pounding in his chest, the hairs on his arms standing on end, Peter leaned forward expectantly. “And?”

“And...well, see for yourself.”

The holographic folder flipped open, revealing several photos.

In the last few days, when Peter couldn’t help himself from fretting about what Friday would find, he’d considered several possibilities ranging from awful (it was a fake, his dad was dead, his dad had a new family that he’d abandoned Peter for) to simply nothing. Somehow, considering anything positive that would suitably explain his absence had given him the sensation of having a rock tucked under his ribs.

After all that theorizing and thought, the Instagram post Tony brought up on the holographic display was not exactly what he’d expected. Still, looking at the man who was clearly his dad...it took one weight off his shoulders and put another one on them. Hot and cold rolled down his body like waves, the contradictory sensations leaving him floundering.

“He’s...”

“Alive, if this and the rest of the footage Friday tracked down is to be believed.”

Peter’s stupor was momentarily distracted as he took in the content of the picture, his brow pinching as he recognized…

“Does that t-shirt say-”

“Yup. Your dad’s a One Directioner. Congratulations, kid.”

Indeed, his dad was wearing a rather loud, pink shirt with “Just Call Me the Future Mrs. Harry Styles” written in a garish cursive. He did not appear to be particularly pleased with his attire, though, a severe frown marring his features that spoke of a man at the end of his exhaustive rope. Beside him sat an incredibly smug looking East Asian man in Eastern style robes with a shaved head and a huge smile, one hand clearly holding the phone up for the selfie, the other pointed at Stephen. The caption beneath the image read “Today, Stephen learned the hard way that betting against me is the ‘Wong’ choice! ;D #Onedirection #harrystylesforever”

“Or rather, Mr…..” Mr. Stark leaned forward, squinting at the hologram. “So-wong-its-right is if you want to go by his Instagram handle. Which is a good thing, because otherwise we probably wouldn’t have been able to prove anything about your dad’s existence.”

Waving across the image, the page turned once again to show what looked like security footage taken from a camera. Not in the United States, though.

“Is that China?”

“Hong Kong, to be more precise. About six years ago. Facial recognition didn’t have any luck finding matches to your dad by himself, but when we found his buddy there, that was a whole new story.” Zooming in, the image focused on his father’s friend, strolling down a crowded street that was so atmospheric you could nearly smell it, some sort of club in his hand. Beside him, his face partly obscured by the tall collar of a bright red cloak, was a man that looked suspiciously like Stephen.

“See those pants and boots?” Mr. Stark zoomed in closer on said articles, the blue robes a similar Eastern style to the other man’s, with the addition of the cloak, the pattern on which looked oddly familiar. Turning back to the Instagram photo, Mr. Stark tapped on what could be seen of Stephen’s pants, the bright blue visible under the pink shirt.

“Based on his horrible taste in clothing and general appearance, we can be pretty damn sure that is also your dad there with this Wong character.”

“From six years ago…”

“Meaning that with these two images, we can already determine that he has been cropping up in places not only unrelated to you, but also since before your little run-in with the genetically modified arachnid.”

Okay, so that was...that was…“Shit...” Peter breathed, running a hand through his hair.

Mr. Stark leaned back, looking at Peter with raised brows and twitching lips. “Such language, Mister Parker.” Though his words were teasing, his tone was mild. “Though, to be fair to you, I think I’d have gone with something a lot less PG-rated after that bombshell.”

Peter mostly ignored him, reaching out to flick through the pages of the file. More images from security footage sped past him, showing similar levels of mysterious circumstances, with Wong and Stephen often appearing in areas that looked like they had recently experienced some kind of attack. And in each one, Stephen’s face was somehow blocked from view, either by the twisting of his body, something in his hands, or his cloak catching an unnatural looking wind.

“There is some weirdness here for sure. According to the archives, all of these locations received a sudden flux in activity-- alert messages, panic response, emergency personnel called to the scene-- and then whatever the trouble was just...vanished, right about the same time these two showed up. All of it. Like nothing had ever happened.”

Crossing his arms, Peter looked over the images carefully, seeking....something. The kind of something you knew was something only once you saw it. “What could cause that, though? And what does it have to do with my dad?”

Mr. Stark exhaled sharply through his nose. Resting his cheek in his hand, Mr. Stark inclined his head to the teenager. “Honestly, I don’t know, Pete. I haven’t seen anything like this. Shield never told the Avengers about it, because according to their records they determined it to be a low-level threat and just kept it monitored. At this point, your guess is as good as mine.”

“But do you have any kind of, like...intuition about it?”

“Nothing good.”

Chills instantly invaded Peter’s spine at his mentor's words. The feeling was close enough to his Spider-sense that it unnerved him some, fearing this was more premonition than normal human response. Either way, Peter’s own instincts mirrored his mentor’s: This was nothing good.

“There’s one last thing you should know.”

Blinking, Peter looked at Mr. Stark, whose face rapidly twitched with different emotions as he looked off into space. “Is this going to be one of those clichés like in movies where I’m going to hate what you say next because it suddenly makes everything a whole lot worse?”

“Oh, no, I know you’re going to love it. That’s why I’m so hesitant to tell you.” Flipping through several more pages, Mr. Stark landed on a close-cropped shot of Wong standing on a familiar looking street.

“That’s the street where I fought the Eldritch Horror! Bleecker Street, right?”

At Mr. Stark’s impressed glance, Peter shrugged one shoulder. “I have an eidetic memory.”

“Impressive, though I was marveling more over the Lovecraft reference. Didn’t know you were a fan of horror.”

“I’m not really, but MJ convinced me and Ned to help her start a group for Contemporary Cthulhu Worship at our middle school.”

“Cthulhu worship? Should I be worried that you three accidentally summoned the something on Bleecker Street?”

“No! We never did anything; MJ just wanted to protest the preferential treatment the Christian Group got.”

Tony raised an eyebrow.

“It’s a long story,” Peter demurred.

“Be that as it may…” Mr. Stark trailed off, motioning back to the hologram. “Friday tracked down several instances of this guy-- Wong apparently-- exiting and entering the same building on Bleecker from some more recent security cameras we…‘accessed’. She found some of your dad, too, albeit shielding his face as he seems to have a habit of doing. Including one just a few days ago.”

On the images dated for that past Friday, Stephen appeared strolling down the block, hands in his pockets and face turned down, dressed as he had been in the footage Karen recorded. The thick red scarf-- which closely resembled the pattern of the cloak in other photos, Peter realized-- wrapped snugly around his neck and concealing the lower half of his face. On the last slide, Stephen entered a peculiar looking brownstone.

“The address is 177A Bleecker Street.”

“You...you found where he lives? ”

“Friday did,” Mr. Stark corrected. “Or we think we did. We can’t be quite sure.”

It eclipsed every expectation Peter had imagined, and he had imagined a lot, especially considering he was supposed to avoid all speculation. His father was alive. Living in Greenwich Village. Living in the same city. Had been for who knows long, and yet…

Suddenly lightheaded, Peter released a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding and braced himself on his knees. A calloused hand rubbed at his back, Mr. Stark uttering a quiet “You’re alright” that barely registered in Peter’s shocked mind.

In. Out. In. Out... It might have worked better if he couldn’t still hear that order in his father’s voice.

When he did regain some semblance of control, Peter quietly muttered, “Why would you tell me that he lives here?”

“I promised you all the data I could find, didn’t I?”

“Yeah, but….you know me. I can’t...I can’t just ignore that. I need to try to talk to him.”

Mr. Stark said nothing, continuing to rub Peter’s back. It was a grounding gesture and Peter focused on it as his mind began to stray towards the rocky shores of fear and self-loathing, left by his father’s apparent abandonment.

“You’re right. I know that about you. But, I also know what it’s like to have vital, life-altering facts withheld from you by someone you trust. Intimately. It’s not a fun feeling.”

“I don’t like telling you,” Mr. Stark continued, moving his hand to grip Peter’s shoulder. “But as I see it, I don’t have a choice, not if I want to be able to live with myself. I’m just gonna have to trust you. And offer to go with you if you do want to meet your dad again.”

“You’d...do that?”

“Better believe it, underoos. You’re my only mentee, and I’m pretty partial to you at this point. Plus, it’d be hell training up someone new.” Mr. Stark ruffled Peter’s hair, continuing, “Not that I really have you trained all that well. Maybe I should start fresh with something easier to train than a teenager. Maybe a goldfish.”

“Mr. Stark…”

“Yeah, I know. No ethical pet store would sell me a goldfish. Guess I’m stuck with you.”

To his shame, Peter felt tears stinging his eye, and he wiped them away surreptitiously on the back of one hand. He suspected Mr. Stark pretended not to notice. “So that means I should probably keep you safe.”

Standing, Mr. Stark moved for the door, grousing as something in his left shoulder popped as he stretched. Peter watched numbly as he did something on his phone, swiping away the hologram and typing into its surface. “I’m sending the file to your computer so you can look through it. If you’ve got any questions, contact me. Day or night. I’m usually up both.”

The older man paused as he grasped the doorknob, looking back at Peter. His eyes held an unusually tender quality as he said, “I really hope you’ll take me up on my offer to go with you. I know he’s your dad, but we don’t have any clue what the hell is going on. It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before, and I’ve seen most of what there is to phone home about.” As Mr. Stark pushed the door closed, he added, “Think about it.”

After he left, Peter sat in brooding contemplation, the image of his father’s brownstone etched into his mind.

***

When he was nine, Aunt May and Uncle Ben formally adopted him. Along with getting full custody of him now that his father was “dead,” the legal proceedings opened up a new possibility.

Changing Peter’s surname.

On some level, he’d wanted to stay Peter Strange. At the time he hadn’t been totally cognizant of it, but now Peter believed his desire stemmed from his need to keep even that small, tenuous connection to his father. Everything back then had been about that.

But Ben and May had looked so hopeful when they suggested it, and the kids at school had taken to taunting him for being the Strange Orphan; the parentless freak.

So he’d accepted, and, mostly, he hadn’t looked back.

There were times since, though, when he wondered if he was denying a part of himself. Or hiding from it. Trying to cut off the part of himself that was a constant reminder of what he was missing, like a phantom limb, there and not there, forever itching but unable to be scratched.

The name had little influence in that regard, really. Significance is in the eye of the beholder, and something like a name can only hold so much power over you if you let it. It wasn’t the name, it was the origin.

It wasn’t Strange, it was his Dad.

Now, if Peter really wanted to be free of that drag, then as far as he could see he had two options. Cut it off the rest of the way, or reattach it.

And there was only one way for Peter to decide which course he wanted to take.

“Hey, Karen,” Petter said with forced cheer as he slipped on the mask. “I, uh, I really need you to do something for me.”

“Yes, Peter?”

“I need you to swear, I mean, swear up and down, invoke any protocols necessary to do it, that you won’t tell Mr. Stark what I am about to do.”

“That doesn’t sound very wise,” she intoned. “It is my function to ensure your safety, and if calling Mr. Stark -”

“Karen, please. I am literally begging you right now, okay? I just...I really need to do this on my own. If I get knocked out, or...or something, then fine. But please, please give me a chance? I need this.”

There was brief silence on the line, during which Peter’s heart beat so furiously in his ears he wasn’t sure if he could have heard the AI’s reply if she made one. Finally, though, she spoke up.

“Direct alarms to Friday offline.”

Brushing at his eyes through his mask (for all the good it would do him), Peter let his body relax just slightly. “Thank you.”

“Please be careful, Peter. Mr. Stark had a point.”

“I know. He always does. And he’s probably right, logically. But this isn’t...”

It wasn’t about logic.

It was about closure.

When Peter heard no more from the AI, he took that as his cue to do this before he chickened out.

Glancing down from the roof of 177A Bleecker Street into the large, open window he’d spotted before, Peter leaped down, swinging into his father’s brownstone.

----------------

Before you all kill me for another cliffhanger, I swear chapter 5 is flowing well and should be out next week. ;)

Speaking of the next chapter...the next chapter is called "Coming Back to Life."