The mid-April wind swept his hair in gentle chaos as it swirled into the car from the open sunroof. Being a man who doesn't appreciate winter as some New Yorkers do, Tony has always took to rolling down the car windows at the first hint of heat on the spring breeze. It's not enough for short sleeves, Peter's bundled form next to him is testament enough for that, but his impatience for summer makes the chill bearable.

He chances a side-eye peek at his charge huddled into the traditional teenage wardrobe of a thin hoodie and skinny jeans while one-handing the wheel down sixth avenue. Things have been awkward between them as of late. Allison picking up on that from the moment they both walked into her office an hour and some odd minutes ago.

Tony hadn't necessarily expected her to change the status quo of things, the last four months of transition had proved that, but he would have appreciated leaving there feeling like he knew how to do so himself. Instead, he's white knuckling the steering wheel while trying to figure out how to start a conversation with a "moody teenager who is dealing with a lot".

"I'm sorry," Peter says, head turned so that he's looking at the city crawling by.

The older man wants to rush and agree, apologize for whatever the hell he's done to make dinners awkward and lab time near nonexistent, but he remembers what Allison said about having to understand that he's not always responsible for Peter's attitude and to make the kid explain himself before taking the blame for something.

"What for?" Pushing his glasses up his nose with a knuckle, he double checks that the intersecting traffic has stopped from both directions more times than he normally would. He eases the car along with an impatient foot.

"For…just being….weird, I guess," Peter folds the ends of his sleeves over his hands and looks at Tony the way the older man checked for red light runners mere seconds ago.

Tony snorts while leaning his head against the rest at his neck. "Don't ever apologize for being you, kid."

In his peripheral vision, he catches the sunlight bounce on the upturned ends of Peter's hair as it shakes with a negative connotation. "I mean, things have been ….weird."

A bike messenger darts out into the street between parked cars and Tony ends up catching the next light. He sighs as he rolls to a stop and chances eye contact with his kid for what feels like the first time in weeks. The headrest still holds his weight, but he offers a heavy smile at the way Peter looks at him through his lashes by not quite raising his head far enough to look him straight in the eye.

"Hey." He says it with just enough ease that Peter knows its implication is a peace offering.

"H-hey."

"You know who can help us get our shit together?"

Peter's brow furrows in the way it does when Tony tries to bait him with trick questions in the lab.

"Margie."

Peter laughs, and Tony would have missed when the light turned green by trying to remember the sound of it in case he has to go a long time without hearing it again, but the jackass behind him honks his horn.

"You know she hates it when you call her that."

"Oh, I know she does, Peter Rabbit."

"Stop," Peter groans at the name.

—

The aglets of Peter's shoelaces play an annoying cadence against the metal foot rim of the barstool from where his knees bob up and down to nonexistent music. He twists his nervous energy by turning side to side on the swivel seat, opting to bend his straw several times over rather than tear its casing to shreds as he usually does.

The midday sunlight squeezes through the high rises across the street and pours into the diner the way fountained Coke pours from the soda machine near the grill, filling it up and overflowing enough that it escapes out the sides in small streams. It dulls the details of the diner, making them grainy in a way that still feels like morning. The cigarette burn splotches on the bar top that Tony took to memorizing the shape of turn into one circle of mud sloshing in a cream colored mug. Despite its horrid taste, the hot coffee feels good sliding down to his stomach as the sun warms his back.

They've never sat at the bar before, never been there with the sun still hanging either so it had shooed them away from their usual table with a harsh glare pelting their eyes. Peter hadn't seemed to mind, hopping up onto the barstool Marge patted on her way back behind the counter to fill up a translucent red cup with fizzing caffeine. Tony slumped next to him, bracing himself with his elbows before realizing he'd actually have to turn his head to look at his kid if he wanted to see him. Peter hadn't minded at all.

Marge sets Peter's drink in front of him, watches him let his straw unfold before pushing it down into the hissing liquid, then takes out a perfectly linear one and plops it in there for good measure. Peter grins at her around the wonky one between his lips, before remembering his manners and sitting up straight to offer a more polite one. She rolls her eyes and turns to slap the ticket over the grill for the cook, saying, " Their usual." She turns back to them while letting the counter take her weight at the hip. "But, I guess you boys won't be having the milkshakes though."

Tony pretends the coffee burns his tongue on his fourth sip to cover up the choking. He may have suggested that Marge could help them get their shit together, but he didn't think it was so askew that'd she'd know without them telling her. Sure, they weren't here at the usual time or in their usual seat, and Peter may have made more eye contact with the fly swarming the place than Tony, but it wasn't that noticeable that they were in a weird phase.

Marge points a thumb over her shoulder towards the ice cream machine and explains, "It's broken. Can't get the replacement part for another couple of weeks or so. She's an old timer, been here since the place opened."

"Oh," Tony says, relieved, "my condolences. I'm sure you two share many memories together." He's not sure of many things these days, but teasing Marge knowing she'll take it as good as she gives is one of them.

"Oh, can it, Stark. At least some of us can still remember our youth."

Another patron makes the chime above the door give a ding, and he watches Marge takes off at an overworked waddle to seat the man at a table at the far end of the establishment. On his way back to turn front, he catches Peter's shoulders shaking in silent mirth at his expense.

"Laugh it up, Buttercup. Marge and I both will remember yours," he assures, before leaning close enough so that their shoulders brush. "Every embarrassing detail."

Some of the amusement fades out of Peter's shoulders as he turns to Tony, but he still raises the corners of his mouth. "You know, we could probably fix the ice cream machine," he says, like Tony hadn't said anything at all.

Tony blinks at him, having not expected that response. He's not sure if it's Peter's genuine kindness that wants to fix it, or he's that desperate to talk about things they keep close to the chest unless milkshakes are involved. Either way, he feels he can't go wrong encouraging either one.

"I guess we could, but I don't work on an empty stomach."

"Yes you do! All the time!"

"That is not work, Underoos. That is fun. This. This would be considered work."

A shadow breaks up the heat at Tony's back, then casts a shadow over Peter, before melting away and materializing in the shape of Marge in front of them. "I wondered when you two would get to bickering."

"Uh, not bickering," Tony clarified. "We're working out a business proposal."

"Business proposal? For what? Kid's twelve. Only business he should be interested in is girls."

"I'm fifteen, Marge," Peter says, voice cracking at the right time to shade the tips of his ears a brilliant red.

"And he's not allowed to date until he's thirty. Besides, you'll be interested in this venture, I'm sure. Go on, Peter Rabbit, tell her."

Peter rolls his eyes, but tells the waitress his offer of fixing the ice cream machine after Tony eats like the man child he is. Marge's whole body shakes as she laughs at Tony's insulted expression.

—

The pickles burn in his chest as he bends over to look at the back of the ice cream machine. He reminds himself to stop ordering them while taking the cover off the metal box. "Alright, let's see what we're working with here. Oh, look Pete, I found your bunny siblings," Tony says while wiping away the dust bunnies from the insides.

"You're hilarious." Peter deadpans while swinging his legs side to side from where he sits on the counter next to the ice cream machine. "Can you see how to fix it?"

There's a couple of tubes hung loose and a metal bracket bent to hell. He asks Peter to look through the parts they managed to scrounge up from the back to see if there's something they could use in place of the bracket.

He fiddles with the tubing to give his hands something to do while watching Peter sift through their materials. If Tony wasn't annoyed by the constant door chime singing over the classic rock coming from the jukebox, he could almost pretend they were just back at the lab and hanging out. Only if they were there, Tony would have this fixed to less than a minute and he wouldn't need a million buffers between him and his kid.

"Make him explain himself," Allison had said in their meeting that morning. "Sometimes kids just don't know how. You have to lead the way."

He agreed with her, because he remembered what it was like to feel everything at once and nothing at all and have no explanation for it. To snap at everything, but need everyone. The problem was, in order to get Peter talking Tony was going to have to start and they both knew where that line began. Maybe if he could start just a little before it, they could ease their way across it together.

"You know how May wasn't my biggest fan at first?" He asks, and it's such a cheap shot that he feels his hands start to shake, but he knows it's the only way he can do this. Peter stills in his search, but gives a reluctant nod all the same.

"It's because….she didn't trust me with you. She was right not to in the beginning," Tony says, because he may be playing a little below the belt but he'll never down right cheat when it comes to Peter. "I had no idea what I was setting myself up for, you for, us for…whatever. She knew better than to let you around me, because…..you were everything to her, not me."

Peter picks up a piece that he found minutes ago that would work just fine and turns it between his fingers. "And now?"

Tony pushes air through his nose, but takes the piece from Peter with a gentle tug. He puts it in place in the machine with a few tweaks and a couple of hits and attaches the hoses. "And now, I think this piece, although not made for it, fits just fine. It'll give a groan or two, maybe a couple of mishaps, but should work just smoothly after a while." He plugs in the machine and it grumbles to life.

Tony wipes his hands on a dishrag laying nearby and stands so that he's in front of Peter, just out of the circumference of the boy's swinging legs. He swats at the young vigilante's knees with the rag and says, "Much like you and I, kid."

Peter scoops up the parts they didn't use and puts them in a small cardboard box with stained edges. "You…really think so?"

Tony drops the rag on top of the box and slides it down the counter before leaning his hip against the bar at Peter's left. "I know so. But back to my main point here, can you really blame me if I don't trust the others with you?"

Peter latches onto his gaze with a renewed sense of purpose. "But they're the Avengers! They're….they're you're friends!"

Tony nods his head along even though he doesn't agree. "And you're….my kid. And like May, I'm not just going to trust just anybody with you just because they're superheroes. You don't know them, Peter. Not really."

"I'm a superhero, do you not trust me?"

Sure, he was pressing for a heart-to-heart talk and probably going the long way around to get there, but he's not so sure why the kid is getting heated about it.

"You're really missing the point here kid."

Peter slides off the counter and into Tony's personal space, but instead of making residence with barely concealed anger that so many other do, Peter steps out around him and heads towards the door without so much as a look in either his or Marge's direction. As he nears the door he asks, "Can we just go? Please?" but doesn't wait for permission to throw open the door.

—

By the time he gets his brain wrapped around the idea of chasing after him, he catches up to Peter back at the compound. They storm through opposite doors on either side of the back entrance and come to a startled stand off until Peter darts down the hall towards his room.

"Peter, what the hell?" He demands, barely stopping the kid's bedroom door with his arm and the tip of his shoe before the boy could slam it. Peter comes to a stop at the window on the other side of his bed, shoulders heaving with something Tony doesn't understand.

"What is happening here, kid? I-"

"Why can't you just forgive them?" It's spoken so softly, Tony double checks to make sure the TV is turned off and it's not someone's voice coming from there. He only sees his haggard reflection staring back at him in the black screen.

"Forgive who?"

"Cap. The others," Peter questions, but then turns with pleading eyes lined with tears of unknown origin. "Bucky?"

It hits Tony right underneath the scar of the arc reactor, pulling at the raised skin in a way that only wormholes and infinity stones do.

"Peter."

"No!" Peter shakes his head, his everything, with fingers curled into his palms keeping his strength at bay. "Just tell me why?"

"It doesn't matter. It has nothing to do with us, okay?"

"Yes, it does!"

Tony takes a step back, but only one given the kid seems to shrivel with the idea of him walking out and he'll never do that. He won't ever do that.

"Okay, Pete," he relents in almost a whisper. "Okay, just….tell me why. Tell me what the hell is going on here, because I…I got nothing."

Peter swallows, Adam's apple bobbing the way his knees shake behind the other side of the bed. "You….you have to forgive them. You have to be able to forgive Bucky."

His scarred skin feels inflamed, red and blistered with something he doesn't want to identify. He kneads at it, tips of his fingers rubbing up and down the line. "And you gotta tell me why ." Because he doesn't understand. He doesn't fucking understand how this kid who he's tried to do right by for five long months can stand here and choose them. How another damn person can choose them.

Peter nearly wilts in front of him, but shakes his head with what little he has left. Tears rush down his red cheeks, stream down his neck and soak at the collar of his hoodie. "Because…because if you can't…."

Tony grabs the edge of Peter's desk, braces himself for the last ultimatum he's sure he'll ever live through. Papers crumple under his hand, sloppy diagrams buckling under his ministrations even though he helped the kid put them there in the first place. It hurts, and his breath catches at the thought of all the nights he stopped working on the Iron Man suit to eat Chinese take out at the kitchen table over high school textbooks. Of all the school functions he silently promised to make it to. Of all the things he's done so far to try and prevent another person from leaving him.

"Then…then you won't ever forgive me."

Numbness spreads from underneath his fingers still on his scar.

"Wha- what do you mean, Peter? Forgive you for what?"

When Peter looks up, eyes full of a sadness Tony has put five months of his life into curing, he bites his lip trying to keep it from spilling out between them, but he gags with it, coughs in a way that if Tony didn't need the desk to hold himself up he'd be running for the trashcan in the bathroom to hold under the kid's mouth. He wouldn't have been quick enough though because it all comes out at once and too quick to prepare for.

"For…for killing Aunt May."

Peter presses the backs of his knuckles into his eyes and drops to the floor, wall catching his back to keep him upright. "I killed her. It was me. My fault!"

Tony feels the air leave him, and stumbles to kneel down in front of Peter, knees practically soaking up the vomit of guilt spilling out into the room. "No, buddy, that's not-"

But Peter keeps going, keeps forcing words out between giant gasps of air. "Just…just like Ben!Just like it! And I..I didn't mean to..I didn't think…..but it was me."

Tony grabs the sides of his head, forces him to look at him with gentle thumbs massaging at the damp skin of the boy's cheeks. He knows it won't do any good to argue, to tell him there's no way in hell it was his fault because Peter just keeps saying, "It was. It was. It was me ."

So he nods, just so he can catch Peter's gaze enough to get him to listen. "Then tell me, Pete. Explain it to me, alright? Like the diagrams from your homework, walk me through it."

Peter's fingers wrap around his wrists but he doesn't push him away. Instead he clings to him, like he'll bolt the minute he starts his reasoning. "I was…I was supposed to pick up the milk. I was supposed to get it on my way home from school. And I was ! I swear, Mr. Stark, I was on my way to get it, but I heard this woman yelling a couple of blocks away."

He knows he should be more upset with what is overall occurring but the way Peter calls him Mr. Stark nearly topples him over, but he bounces on the balls of his feet in his crouch to give his legs encouragement to keep holding him up.

"I didn't think….I just….I thought that I could stop whatever it was and then go back and get the milk, you know?"

"I know," Tony offers, near a whisper and he doesn't think Peter hears it.

"But the guy ran and I chased him. I couldn't let him get away, he…he tried to…rob her and…he had a gun and she had a baby with her! He couldn't get away and he didn't! I caught him and gave him to the police. So I, went back to check on her and she…she was so scared, so scared, Mr. Stark. So I offered to walk her home which was just a couple of blocks away."

Tony's legs ache something fierce, and Peter's starting to gulp air again so he urges, "How does this get back to May?"

"Because I forgot the milk! I walked the lady home and then I…I just forgot! So when I got home and May asked where it was …she…she was so mad! She kept shouting that she asked me to do one thing for her! One thing! And I couldn't remember it. I - I told her I would just go back and get it, but she….but she said no! She insisted that she go get it."

Tony relieves his legs and sits down next to Peter and pulls him into his side, arms wrapping around him to shield him from the confession floating around the room, because he knows what happens next. Knows that it's what prompted the phone call that changed his life forever.

Tony shushes him, something he's never done for anybody, but presses his nose into Peter's curls desperately trying to get his words to sink in. "It's okay, Peter. It's okay. You can't blame yourself for what happened after she left. You can't."

Peter shakes in his hold, "No, no. It is my fault. Just like I didn't do anything and Uncle Ben got killed. It's the same! And they're both gone, and it's all my fault!"

Tony doesn't know what more he can say, so he holds on to his kid as tightly as the kid clings to him and shushes him until he's reduced to sniffling into the older man's shirt.

"Pete?" He asks, squeezes him when he does so he knows that there isn't an answer that will make him let go. "What does any of this have to do with….with the others? With…Barnes?"

Peter untucks himself from Tony's hold just enough to look up at him and clarifies, "Because Bucky…didn't know what he was doing when he did it. He didn't mean to do all those things. And neither …neither did I! I swear, I didn't. So if you can't forgive Bucky for what he did when people…people brainwashed him to do it…then…then how could you ever forgive me for…for what I did just on my own?!"

"Okay," Tony gasps, pulling Peter back to him and slouching into the wall at his back. "Alright, you've drawn some really, and I mean really big parallels between the two of you. Gosh kid, we have to get you some more hobbies if you have enough free time to think of all this."

He feels Peter tense in his arms, feels him building up a wall after letting everything loose.

"But I need you to listen to me. Really listen to me, because I'm only going to say this once. I have nothing to forgive you for, you hear me? Absolutely nothing. I don't blame you for what happened to your Aunt or your Uncle. You shouldn't either, but we will work through that. Together , because I can tell that's not going to go away overnight."

He runs his hands through the boy's curls under his chin and sighs.

"Just like I can't let go of…of what happened to my parents overnight. I know…the Barnes that Cap knew, the one laying down in our medbay, didn't mean to do it. But it…it's hard to differentiate between him and the guy I ….I watched on the tape."

He feels Peter shudder underneath him and starts running his hand up and down his back. Closing his eyes, he remembers his mother sitting the exact same way with him out on the back lawn, underneath the big Ash tree, with a book in her hand. He remembers the way she read to him when he was five and too smart for The Tales of Peter Rabbit, but rocking him as she read it out loud anyway. He remembers her understanding demeanor, her soft voice and kind eyes. Remembers how Bucky took all of that from her in her last moments.

He tries to quell the jolt of nerves he gets from that final thought, tries to remember back to a few months ago when he first sat in the diner with Peter and wanted nothing more than his mother to meet his kid. He wants to know that she is proud of him and …loves him the way he loves Peter.

He hugs the boy closer, wishing he could have had his mother do the same for him one last time. He won't ever get it, so he adds, "But if it means this much to you, I'll work on forgiving them."

"R-really?"

"Really. As long as you work on forgiving yourself."

Peter nods and swears, "I will, Tony. I promise, I will. Together, right?"

He thinks of the way his mother use to hold his hand when he was little, of the way she squeezed it when Howard walked in with an angry, demanding air. The way she would whisper, "Be a brave boy, my little rabbit."

He squeezes Peter a little bit tighter and promises, "Together, Peter Rabbit. Always."

—

Soft shades of graphite warm underneath the afternoon sunlight sinking down behind the treelined perimeter of the Avengers Compound. At the base of one of the natural posts sits Steve Rogers, roots growing wide and deep on either side of him as he holds a sketchbook on the bends of his drawn knees. The late-April wind blows at the corners of the pages, curling them around his hand running in a repetitive motion across the paper.

"Who are they?"

The tentative question barely carries over the intentional cracking of twigs beneath sneakered feet so Steve smoothes the paper flat in an open invitation for the boy to look more closely.

"Some neighborhood kids Bucky and I used to play with." He tilts his head to watch Peter sit down on the other side of the tree root jutting up out of the ground as if even nature is working to keep them at a distance. He looks so much younger, but somehow older, all the same since he saw in Germany. It's been four weeks since they'd shown up unannounced at Tony's door begging for help with a severely injured Bucky bleeding on Stark's pristine white couch. He's not sure why they've been allowed to stay this long, not sure why they were allowed to stay at all given their welcome.

"What ever happened to them?" Peter keeps his gaze fixed on the faces frozen in time on the page.

"Honestly, I don't know. I learned pretty quick not to go digging into the past after the ice. Just made things harder to deal with and kept me from moving forward."

"Is that …is that why you …d-didn't want to tell Tony about what really happened to his parents?"

It's a punch in the gut, but Steve's experienced enough to take it and slowly release it back in a controlled exhale of air. Peter may be a bit timid and apprehensive, but he'll still say what he thinks and Steve has to admire that.

"Sorry…I shouldn't….I just…"

"It's fine, Peter," he assures, even though the trunk of the tree is digging painfully into his back from where he sinks a bit more of his weight onto it and a fifteen year old kid is calling him on his bullshit. "It's….complicated."

"That's what Tony says, but…"

Steve dates his drawing, and turns to a new sheet in his sketchbook.

"But what?"

"I just….I wish it wasn't."

Despite having sketchbooks filled with them, Steve learned at a young age not to put stock in wishes. "That's the way it is, son."

He knows Peter is watching his pencil drag grey lines across a blank page, morphing into shapes, changing into pictures. He's never drawn himself as he once was, pre-serum and sure of all the choices he made. He draws Spider-Man instead, pressing harder into the paper while shading the figure on the chest until slender fingers still his hand. He allows the pencil to be taken, he feels like he doesn't have a choice but to watch Peter erase the spider emblem.

Peter tucks the pencil back into the older man's hand. He's not sure why Peter hasn't been able to don the Spider-Man suit, but he thinks that if Tony would allow it, he'd like to help him get back in it. "I'd think you of all people would know that things never stay as they are."

He can't help but laugh, can't help but admit to himself it feels good too, either.

"Is this you trying to get Tony and I in the same room again? We're trying, Peter, I promise."

"I know," Peter exhales and shuffles around until his legs are criss crossed and he sitting facing the older hero but at his side. "I mean, he didn't punch you like when we got back from our trip so that's progress, yeah?"

Steve chuckles again and brushes the backs of his fingers where he'd felt that bruise for a couple of days despite his advanced healing. "Right. And we're still here so…he hasn't kicked us out."

"He wouldn't." Peter says so sure of it that Steve can't bother to think he's wrong. "Not when Bucky is still healing."

"I think we owe you a special thanks for that."

"No. It's nothing."

"Still. Thank you. Whatever you said to him, he's more willing to….listen, at least."

Peter nods and fiddles with the ends of his sleeves the way he does when he's waging a full on battle inside his head.

"What is it, son?"

The boy's head pops up, a bit of a surprised manner painting his face underneath the embarrassment of being called out. "Can you…will you…help me to get back in the suit?"

"Uh….Peter," the Captain scratches the back of his head despite having the thought himself mere moments ago. "Tony didn't really approve of that when we first got here, when he found out you'd been visiting. I don't want to do anything that-"

"He won't care, I swear."

"Pete-"

"Look, we talked about it…and he knows that we're…that we're all…."

Steve closes his sketchbook and tucks it into his bag that he'd brought outside, but pauses to look at the boy beside him. "That we're what?"

"That we're all family. Or trying to be. Even Bucky. Please, Cap?"

Steve pushes air through his nose while considering and then raises a finger at Peter,

"Fine, but I have to know tony is okay with it, first."

Peter jumps up at that and starts running towards the compound. Steve can't help but feel like he should run away from it.