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The Living, The Dead, And The Ones In-Between

Summary:

When Peter wakes up and finds himself looking at his own body, he’s pretty sure he knows what comes next: walking into a bright light or descending into a fiery pit. That doesn’t happen. Instead, he stays right there, invisible to everyone around him and unable to touch anything or anyone, condemned to watch his own body lay motionless in the bed and hear his aunt and uncle begging him to wake up.

But then the genius inventor and Peter’s lifelong idol Tony Stark appears at the hospital, and it turns out that Peter isn’t as invisible as he thought. Together, they try to get Peter back into his body.

A Just Like Heaven AU

Notes:

Hi everyone!

This is my entry for the 2021 Irondad Big Bang and I'm so excited for it! I've been paired with lantaniel who made such adorable art pieces as well as an amazing banner. You should all definitely check her stuff out and leave her some love!

The entire story has been beta-read by ghostly-blues, thank you so much for that!

Enjoy! :)

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Chapter Text

Peter is dead.

That’s Peter’s first thought, at least, when he sees himself lying in the hospital bed, eyes closed, unconscious, hooked up to several beeping machines. May and Ben are sitting by his side; May is crying and Ben has his arms wrapped around her, his own eyes red. If Peter is dead, the next step would be to move on to the afterlife, right? Despite not being a religious person, he kind of expects a shining bright light with an angel’s choir to show up – or a burning hole with evil laughter.

But neither happens. Peter stays there in the room, looking at his aunt and uncle and his own body.

“May? Ben?” he asks, taking a few hesitant steps towards them. “What is- What’s happening?”

They don’t answer him. In fact, they look like they haven’t even heard him.

An invisible fist clenches around Peter’s stomach, squeezing his organs tight and making him nauseous. “Can you hear me?” Peter asks, his voice frail as his eyes begin to water. “Please? May, Ben, please say something.”

They stay silent, but May reaches out to take Peter’s hand – the Peter lying in the hospital bed. She grasps his hand that lays on top of his blanket and squeezes it.

Peter – the Peter standing in the room and witnessing everything – can’t feel it.

Something is wrong.

As the panic starts to rise up in his chest, Peter stumbles towards his guardians. “Guys, I-” He reaches out to touch Ben’s shoulder, but his hand falls through his uncle’s body as if it’s not there at all. It looks like a bad effect in a mediocre horror movie, Peter’s arm sharply cut off where it meets Ben’s body.

In shock, Peter stumbles backwards, staring at his hand – and suddenly, he stumbles through the wall. Not through an open door, but through the actual wall, like he doesn’t have a real body. He finds himself standing in a busy hallway of the hospital. Nobody even looks at him, obviously finding nothing unusual about a boy suddenly jumping through a wall.

With the panic already building up inside him, climbing up his chest and slowly gripping his throat with long, cold, boney fingers, ready to choke him any second, Peter takes a deep breath and turns towards the first doctor he sees. “Excuse me?”

The young woman in the white coat doesn’t react at all, simply reading whatever is written on the paper in front of her, scribbling down a few notes that Peter doesn’t bother to read.

“Excuse me, Ma’am, can you help-”

She turns around, looking straight at Peter – no. That’s not right. She’s looking straight through him. And while he’s still busy processing that very telling piece of information, she starts to walk towards him and walks and walks and … walks right through him. While she looks completely unbothered by it, Peter feels weird, like someone knocked every last breath of air out of him.

No.

No, this isn’t happening. Something like this only happens in bad rom-coms, not in real life.

Not giving up just yet, he storms towards a nurse sitting behind a computer. “You have to help me!” he says, too panicky to really bother with niceties. “Please, you-” He doesn’t even get a chance to finish that sentence, because the nurse turns around, grabs the phone, and starts to call someone, already chatting away excitingly.

A cold and deeply painful feeling settles in his stomach.

Peter wants to scream. He wants to cry. But not a single sound leaves his mouth as the realization sinks in.

He doesn’t have a body (well, no, he does have a body, but it’s uselessly lying in a hospital bed while he has an existential crisis – wait, can he even call it an existential crisis if his existence is questionable right now? – in the middle of a busy hallway) and nobody can see or hear him.

Peter is all alone.


His existential crisis (he decides that he can still call it that. Besides, it’s not like anybody can hear him use an unfitting word) lasts three days. Three days that are filled with a lot of tears and heartbroken pleas to his family to hear him and begging the doctors walking around to fix whatever is going on.

Nobody hears him. Nobody reacts.

So after three days, Peter decides to pick himself up. Ben always told him that an optimistic mind can do more than a pessimistic one, and the boy decides to follow the advice. First, he tries getting back in his body by literally lying on top of it.

It doesn’t work.

Then, he tries to concentrate and move objects around to bring some attention to himself.

That also doesn’t work.

When he hears that a psychic is visiting a patient a few rooms down, Peter hurries over there, hoping that maybe the woman can hear him. After about ten minutes, Peter is pretty sure the psychic is a fraud. He’s been screaming into her ear the entire time and she’s only spoken about some dude named Frank, not even blinking into his direction.

The thought is so depressing, it almost sends him into another existential crisis, and it’s solely his stubbornness that keeps him moving around and working on fixing his problem.

The next step should be easy: if he can’t tell anyone what’s going on, he has to figure out a solution himself.

Which starts with finding out why he’s in the hospital in the first place, because Peter has absolutely no idea what happened to him. The last thing he remembers is storming out of their apartment, angry because of the argument they’d had. Peter can’t even remember what they’d been arguing about – probably something stupid. He’d been hurrying down the streets of Queens, a hood pulled deep into his face to protect him from the rain.

And then…

Then he woke up in the hospital, standing next to a bed his own body was lying in, his aunt and uncle next to him, crying and begging him to wake up.

He’s clearly missing a few things.

Seeing as Peter can’t touch anything, he has to wait until one of the nurses or doctors comes in and opens his file before he can see it. It doesn’t take too long, and Peter almost can’t believe his own eyes.

He’s been shot in the chest.

If he had a body, Peter is pretty sure he would faint. But as he’s fairly body-less, all he can do is stand there and stare. Stare at the words on the page, and when the doctor closes his file and leaves, Peter stays standing there, staring at the exact same spot.

Someone shot him.

Why? What happened? What could he have done that would make someone angry enough to shoot him? Eventually, his eyes wander towards his body, looking at his own chest, almost like he’s waiting to get x-ray vision and see through the ugly hospital gown and the bandage.

Peter would never admit it to anyone, but it scares him a lot more than he wants to admit. And a teeny, tiny part is glad to be stuck in this form – at least, nobody can shoot him again.

However, now that he’s figured out step one, he has to move on.

The only problem is that Peter has absolutely no idea what comes next.

There’s no guidebook or protocol that magically appears in his hand. They never covered what to do in case of accidentally astral projecting in school. Even when May taught him some first aid stuff for emergencies, she never gave him any hints that he would end up in this situation.

Which leaves Peter with only one choice: he has to wait.

And he hates waiting.

He’s never been good at waiting.

Like, he’s absolutely the worst at waiting.

In Peter’s eyes, waiting is just such a waste of time, which he lets everyone in a ten feet radius of him know. Waiting for his food to heat up in the microwave? It feels like forever. Waiting for the rest of his classmates to finish the test? Torture. Peter just can’t sit still, always bouncing one of his legs or spinning a pen between his fingers or playing one of the countless games he downloaded on his phone.

And now?

Now he has to wait without being able to do anything at all.

Well, no, that’s not exactly right. There’s one thing to do: he can wander around the hospital.

So, that’s what he does.

Peter starts with the floor he’s on. Seeing as he’s not an adult, he’s in the pediatric wing of the hospital, and that’s at least a little bit more fun. He’s a silent watcher when a clown is visiting, surprising all the small kids with his jokes and balloon animals (he’s a bit jealous that he can’t get a balloon dog). When one of the kids around his age watches one of his favorite shows, he joins them, giving non-stop commentary nobody can hear. Peter watches some intense games of Uno and Monopoly, tries his best to grab a pencil so he can help a little girl with her drawing, and wishes he could somehow make his existence known so badly.

Eventually, Peter moves on.

He visits all of the floors – even though they’re decidingly less fun with pretty much no clowns at all –, never passing up on the chance to communicate with someone, but always failing. After a while, Peter stops wandering into other patient’s rooms. Turns out a hospital isn’t the most fun place to be. He sees people vomiting or not recognizing their loved ones, he hears how doctors tell patients they can’t help them anymore, he sees patients and families alike crying over the bill they have to pay, worrying how they could ever afford it. He sees someone die despite everyone around them doing their best to keep their heart beating.

After that encounter, Peter hides in his room for two days, watching his still body, finding some kind of comfort in May and Ben’s presence.

He starts hanging out with the doctors and nurses (if you can really call it hanging out, seeing as they don’t even know he’s there), listening to the stories they tell their colleagues, gossiping about other colleagues, and complaining about their boss. It is a very one-sided conversation (Peter, who’s been a talker since the first second he was able to make noises, still talks and takes part in the conversation, but of course no one is ever answering him), but it’s still better than seeing the misery in some of the rooms.

A part of Peter accepts that this is what it’s going to be like for… well, maybe not all of his life, but a very long time. As long as they can afford keeping him in that coma and alive (He really doesn’t want to think about what’s going to happen if they can’t afford it anymore).

For almost three weeks (three weeks that are the loneliest of his life), this is all Peter does.

But then, everything changes.

Peter’s sitting with two nurses (Julie and Ann), listening to them complaining about their husbands and their apparent inability to do the laundry properly, when another nurse (Dominic) stops by, a grin spread across his face, interrupting their little rent. “You never guess what just happened.”

“If it’s about the patient from room 417 again, I don’t wanna hear it,” Ann says, scrunching up her face. Peter nods in agreement. While he himself has never been to room 417, he heard a lot of stories about the patient in there.

Dominic’s smile grows. “They just started an emergency surgery for a ruptured appendix.”

“How’s that in any way exciting?” Julie asks, sounding absolutely bored. For some reason, Julie really doesn’t like Dominic, but Peter hasn’t figured out why yet, and it’s not like someone can explain it to him.

“Because that patient is Tony Stark’s bodyguard.”

Peter immediately sits up, head shooting up like a dog that just heard a sudden noise. “Tony Stark?” he echoes with Julie and Ann.

“As in the Tony Stark?” Ann asks. “Greatest mind of our generation?”

“Merchant of Death?” Julie throws in and now it’s Peter who can’t help but scrunch up his face.

“He stopped making weapons years ago,” he says, unable to keep his mouth shut. “Right after he got back from being held hostage in Afghanistan when he realized that his weapons were being misused and sold to the wrong people. Since then, he’s not only revolutionized everything we know about clean energy with the arc reactor and funds several big projects to make education more accessible, but he’s also an advocate for world peace. But, sure, go ahead and forget all of that.”

Sadly, no one hears Peter’s little speech, which is predictable but still quite disappointing.

Yeah, okay, Peter is a fan of Tony Stark.

A big fan.

But as someone who likes to tinker around with old tech and build stuff and who reads college-level science books in his spare time, how can he not be a fan of Tony Stark? That man is a genius, making the impossible possible and turning everyone’s wildest ideas into reality.

Dominic’s smile is still growing. “You haven’t even heard the best part yet.”

“Which would be?”

“Tony Stark is here right now.”

Even Julie is unable to make a snarky comment, and Peter’s mouth falls open.

Tony Stark is here? In this hospital?

“What do you mean?” Ann asks again, her voice now an urgent whisper as a patient with their visiting family passes them. “Has he been hurt or something?”

Julie finds her snark again. “How would he get hurt when it’s his bodyguard in surgery?”

“Well, the bodyguard is also his driver, isn’t he? Maybe they were driving and got into an accident or something?”

“Stark isn’t hurt,” Dominic says, shaking his head and waving a hand dismissively. “He’s here waiting until the surgery is over.”

“Why would he wait for him? Do you think those articles from TMZ have been true about them?”

“Who cares about those articles?” Ann snaps. “Now we’re gonna have to deal with paparazzi potentially bothering other patients because they want to get to Stark. Not to mention everyone else in this hospital trying to get a picture of the man.”

“Oh, he’s not waiting with the others,” Dominic explains. “The director closed off an entire waiting room just for Stark.”

“What? Why? He wouldn’t do that for that poor family two months ago, he said we didn’t have the capacity.”

Dominic shrugs. “The dude has lots of money. Probably offered to write him a big check or something.”

“So, Stark is here, but no one can go and see him?” Julie asks, and Dominic nods.

Well… not no one.

Peter immediately jumps to his feet, racing towards the staircase, not bothering with opening the door, seeing as he can run right through it. He’s been dreaming about meeting Tony Stark since he first heard about the man! Maybe he can’t get a picture with him or talk to him, but he can at least get a look at him. And seeing how no one even notices Peter, it’s not like he’ll be bothering him.

Finding the waiting room isn’t difficult. It’s a small one, at the very end of one corridor, hidden behind a corner. All the blinds are down and the door looks like it might be locked – not that it’s stopping Peter, of course. Without any hesitation, he walks right through the door.

Tony Stark sits in the chai against a wall, positioned in a way that would make it quite difficult for anyone to see him if they happen to peek through the blinds. He has his arms crossed over his chest, head leaned against the wall behind him, and his eyes are closed, looking like he’s asleep.

With a confidence Peter only possesses because he knows he’s invisible to the rest of the world and that his actions have no consequences, he steps closer – like, almost uncomfortably close, stopping only about a foot in front of the man.

Somehow, he does and doesn’t look exactly as Peter expected. He’s unmistakably Tony Stark, easily recognizable because of the iconic beard and the general features of his face. And yet, from this close, Peter sees stuff that makes the celebrity Tony Stark look a lot more like… a normal human being. The crow’s feet around his eyes, barely visible on his relaxed face right now; the lines around his mouth that Peter imagines are from laughing; the barely-there wrinkles on his forehead; the individual gray hairs on his head and in his beard.

He looks human.

He looks tired.

Until Tony suddenly opens his eyes, staring at him with eyes that almost seem all-knowing, sharp and alive and inquisitive. Well, not staring at him, Peter knows that it’s impossible, but it surprises him enough that he actually leans back.

Tony Stark is still staring in his general direction, pretty much exactly like he can see him. Peter is so weirded out by it that he almost turns around to check if someone is behind him.

“Can I help you?” the billionaire suddenly asks, his voice a bit rough and not that friendly, to be honest.

Peter blinks at him.

Tony continues to stare at him, slightly raising an eyebrow.

Peter blinks again. Did he… did he just- No. No, that can’t be... No one has as much as looked into his general direction for the last three weeks. This is just a coincidence. Or wishful thinking. Or maybe a hallucination. Do coma patients get hallucinations? However, Peter can’t help himself – he actually turns around to check if anyone else is in the room.

“Hey, you, kid who’s invading my personal bubble,” Tony says, sounding quite annoyed. “I’m talking to you.”

A shiver runs down Peter’s spine, like lightning stricking his entire body, waking up every cell in his body, making them pay attention because something big is happening.

“You-,” Peter whispers, almost too afraid to say anything at all, fearing that this will turn out to be a big hoax if he’s too loud. “You can’t see me.”

“Uh, I’m pretty sure I can see you,” Tony answers, looking less and less amused with every second that passes.

The shiver turns into a full-on vibration as a small sliver of hope starts to take a hold of Peter. His heart starts beating faster and faster, and he’s half-convinced one of the monitors that’s hooked up to his actual body is going crazy right now. “You can see me,” he says, still in awe, “and you can hear me.”

“’Course I can. Now, what-”

“But nobody else can.”

Tony looks like he’s about to say something but stops, slightly tilting his head to the side. “Is that some kind of metaphor that you’re being neglected at home or something? Because I really don’t-”

“No! No, I really mean it. Nobody sees or hears me.”

“Hate to break it to you, kiddo, but they’re all just ignoring you.”

“No, it’s because I don’t have a body right now.” Tony raises both eyebrows, clearly not following Peter’s line of thought. “I mean, I do have a body, but not here with me, and-”

The teenager can literally see his life-long idol in front of him getting more and more annoyed with each rambling word that leaves his mouth.

An idea pops up in his head, and before he can think twice about it, Peter is already talking again. “Here, let me show you.” Without any hesitation, he reaches out for Tony’s shoulder, and just like with anything else Peter tries to touch, his hand falls through his body, still looking as ridiculous and unnatural as it did the first time.

Tony curses, jumping into the air, instinctively trying to get as much space between himself and Peter’s ghost hand as possible, staring at the place where Peter’s arm is seemingly stuck in his shoulder with wide eyes. “What is-” He doesn’t finish the sentence. Instead, he raises his own hand, trying to grab Peter’s arm. It’s fruitless. His hand falls through the arm as if nothing is there. Well, technically, there really is nothing there. “How is this happening?”

Peter pulls his arm back, watching Tony flinch as he sees how the arm leaves his body, and shrugs. “I don’t know. I mean, I think it’s like astral projecting or something.”

“Astral projecting?”

“Yeah, like when people are almost dying and are having an out-of-body-experience? Something like that.”

“And you’re-” Tony stops himself, his eyes flying over Peter’s form again. The annoyance from before is gone, replaced with a kind of curiosity Peter knows from watching Ned figuring out a new programming trick or trying to complete the next level in a new video game. (If May were here, she would tell him that he has that exact same look whenever he’s in the process of figuring out a problem.) “You’re… dying?”

Peter shrugs again, but this time, it’s more out of embarrassment. “I mean… yes and no?”

“That was a simple yes or no question.”

“I mean, philosophically speaking, it’s not a simple question at all. Aren’t we all dying from the moment we’re born? And-”

“Kid,” Tony interrupts him, but if Peter isn’t completely out of his mind, he thinks he sees a spark of amusement in the billionaire’s eyes, “I only stray into those philosophical questions when I’m drunk, and since I haven’t touched a drink in several months now, I’m not ready for that.”

“I’m in a coma,” Peter explains. “So, I guess that’s close enough that I qualify for this exclusive experience. Yay me.”

To his surprise, Tony actually snorts at his lame joke, the lines around his eyes and mouth becoming more prominent. For a moment, he watches Peter, who grows more and more fidgety. He hasn’t spoken with anyone for three weeks, and he’s probably terribly out of practice. And on top of all of that, Tony Stark is the first person he’s talking to – it’s no wonder he’s acting like an idiot!

“What’s your name, kid?”

“What?” Peter asks, ripped out of his thoughts.

“Your name. What everyone else calls you. When they see and hear you, of course.”

“Uh, Peter. Peter Parker.”

Tony smiles. “I’m guessing you already know who I am.”

“Well, duh, yeah, of course.”

His smile grows. “Well, it’s nice to meet you.” Then, to Peter’s baffled surprise, he motions to the seat next to him, an invitation to join him. “Mind keeping me company?”

For a second, Peter’s brain can’t function. Is this really happening? Or is this some kind of weird coma-hallucination? Like a dream or something? Is that something that can happen when you’re in a coma? However, deciding to take the chance (even if this really turns out to be a dream), Peter basically jumps onto the chair. “I don’t mind. I mean, you’re the first person that I’ve been able to talk to in three weeks.” At the last second, he manages to swallow down the I’ve felt so lonely, fearing it’ll make him sound like a child.

“Three weeks? Is that how long you’ve been like…” He waves his hand around the air, “this?”

“Pretty much, yeah.”

Tony nods and pauses, seemingly thinking about his next words. “If you don’t mind me asking, why are you in a coma?”

“I got shot.”

“What?” Tony’s eyes grow almost as big as they had when Peter reached through him. “You got shot?”

“That’s what’s written in my file.” Peter taps on his chest, the place where his physical body has a big, fancy band-aid slapped on, a couple of inches below his heart. “Right here.”

Tony follows Peter’s finger, resting on the spot on his chest, taking a second to read the science pun on his shirt (right now, Peter is incredibly grateful that his spirit-form is wearing the same clothes he had on when he got shot, and not the ugly hospital gown his physical body has to wear). There’s a small frown on his face. “Why did you get shot?”

“I, uh, can’t really remember.” Tony raises an eyebrow again in a way that prompts Peter to elaborate. “I remember that I stormed out of our apartment because I had an argument with my aunt and uncle. I remember that it was raining. But everything after that…” Peter shrugs, not knowing how to end the sentence. He kind of feels like he’s back in school, like a teacher called on him for a question and he doesn’t know the answer.

The genius next to him huffs out a breath, still looking at the spot on Peter’s chest for a few seconds before moving up to his face again. “And after that you were suddenly standing next to your own body?”

“Yeah. I tried to talk to someone, but nobody listens. And I can fly through walls and stuff.” Throwing his thumb over his shoulder, Peter points to the door. “That’s how I got in here.”

“Which would explain why I didn’t hear you come in.”

“What happened to your bodyguard?” Peter asks, now unable to keep in all the questions that had filled his head the second he found out Tony Stark was in the building.

Tony blinks, looking like he’d forgotten why he’s here in the first place. “His appendix ruptured.” Then, he rolls his eyes, pulling his face into a bit of a grimace. “He’s been feeling sick for weeks, and I told him again and again to go see a doctor. But that stubborn man wouldn’t listen. Now look at what good it did him. He puked in the middle of SI’s lobby and couldn’t even properly stand up.” He shakes his head, mumbling. “And he tells me I’m the reckless one.”

“Are you two close?” Peter continues.

“Why do you ask?”

“You’re sitting here waiting for him.”

The corner of Tony’s mouth jumps up. “He’s been my bodyguard for years now. Probably since before you were born, kid. Plus, I can’t wait for him to wake up and say I told you so. That’s what he gets for not listening to me. By now, he should really know to always listen to my advice.”

Peter chuckles, feeling almost drunk on the fact that he’s talking to someone and that said someone is Tony Stark! After being ignored for so long, this feels like a soothing balm, making him feel less lonely, and almost like everything will be okay. “So, will you be coming here often, then?”

“No, probably not.”

With those three words, the happy, giddy feeling inside Peter completely vanishes. “What?”

Tony raises an eyebrow. “This is still a public hospital. People will notice if I come here. And when they do, paparazzi will follow, not only harassing me but everyone else in here, too. Besides, Happy isn’t-”

“Happy?”

“That’s his name. Well, not his legal name. At least not yet, but I’m working on it. Anyway, Happy likes his privacy. If I stop by to drop off his Downton Abbey DVD box, he’s more than happy to be by himself.”

But I’m not, Peter wants to say. He wants to beg and plead for Tony to stay or to promise to come back. Not necessarily because Peter’s his fan, but because he’s the only one who can see and hear him. Peter can’t go back to being invisible.

Something must show on Peter’s face, because Tony’s expression changes, almost looking guilty – looking like pity. (A part of Peter wants to be angry, he’s never liked being pitied, but a different part wants Tony to feel guilty, if it means he will stay with him and Peter doesn’t have to go back to being alone.) “Kid, I’m not-”

In the end, Peter’s manners and his deep-seated desire to not be a bother to anyone win. “No, I get it. You’re Tony Stark, you don’t have time to hang out at a hospital. I mean, you have to invent greener engines and amazing phones and… and other stuff. Probably go to a lot of fancy galas or, like, charity events or something.” Peter suddenly realizes that he has no idea what the normal day of a genius billionaire looks like, and it makes him feel stupid.

Tony grimaces. “Okay, now I’m starting to feel like an asshole.”

“No, please don’t! I totally get it!” Despite getting it, Peter still feels himself choking up, the reality of spending an indefinite time completely invisible burning through him, tearing open the wounds that had just started to heal when he noticed that at least someone could see him. Already feeling the tears prickle behind his eyes, he jumps to his feet – he’s not going to cry in front of Tony Stark. No way. “Besides, you’re right, of course, the patients and their family would probably get bothered a lot.”

Tony catches on to Peter’s not-really-subtle attempt to leave, furrowing his brows in a way that makes him look unhappy. “Kid, you don’t have to leave-”

“No, it’s fine, really. I have, uh, homework to do, and-”

“I’m still here, we can still talk-”

As if someone was listening to their conversation, the door opens and Dr. Smithers steps in. “Mr. Stark, I just want to inform you that the Mr. Hogan’s surgery went without any complications and-”

Peter isn’t staying to listen. He sees his chance while Tony is focusing on a real human being who is physically there and he runs straight through the wall into the hallway. Out of the corner of his eye, Peter thinks he sees Tony looking after him – he thinks he’s probably imagining the hurt look on the man’s face.


Peter stares at the screen of the TV, watching the people dressed in old-timey clothes having tea and writing letters in their castle. “There’s nothing happening,” he complains, sitting on the chair by the bed, his head propped up by his hand, half-leaning over the mattress. “All they do is talk. And drink tea. And eat. Who dresses up for dinner, anyway? Do people really do that?”

There’s no answer.

“Those upstairs people are so weird. I mean, everyone works their butts off, pretty much every single day, and they barely get anything for it. Isn’t there, like, a union or something that could help them?”

Still no answer.

“Or maybe they could strike. That would be hilarious. Can you imagine Lord Grantham making his own dinner? It would be a disaster.” Peter turns around to look at his companion, a part of him expecting the man to laugh or agree.

Instead, the man in the bed doesn’t say anything, ignoring Peter like he isn’t even in the room.

Which is true.

Peter hadn’t meant to hang out with Tony Stark’s bodyguard. In fact, he kind of swore that he’d stay as far away from the room as he possibly could because he doesn’t want to risk running into the billionaire again. The realization that Tony wouldn’t be his metaphorical knight in shining armor who would help him through this hurt – not only because the first person to actually see and talk to him in three weeks rejected him, but also because it had been his idol.

It’s not like Peter can’t understand his reasons. As a celebrity, Tony draws a crowd wherever he goes, and the man himself isn’t exactly what you would describe as subtle. Plus, in his eyes, Peter is just some kid he talked to for less than ten minutes. He’s just like any other fan he has ever met. Why should someone as Tony Stark go out of his way to help him? Especially when his problem is so weird.

Despite Tony’s claims from two days ago that he wouldn’t stop by the hospital again, he did visit Happy the day before, dropping off the entire DVD collection of Downton Abbey. Peter himself hadn’t seen him, but Dominic gladly gossiped about him stopping by once more.  And okay, yes, a part of Peter wanted to go and see him again, simply to find out if their conversation had been real and not a product of his imagination, fueled by his loneliness and isolation.

Peter didn’t go to see if the rumors were true. Instead, hours later, he looked for Happy’s room, slipping into it as unnoticed as ever. The first thing Peter had noticed was that it’s a really nice room. The second was that the man probably hadn’t gotten get his nickname from his cheery personality. And the third thing had been the DVD box sitting on the table next to him.

Since then, Peter hasn’t left the room. Binge-watching a show is better than wandering the halls of a hospital, never knowing if you’ll walk into someone throwing up or dying – even if said show is something as boring as Downton Abbey. And Happy doesn’t mind him. At least he isn’t telling him to go away.

Which, yes, Peter knows is because Happy has no idea he’s here in the first place. But if he keeps thinking about it, he only gets more depressed.

“I think we would be friends,” Peter says, turning back to the TV to watch even more people dressed in fancy clothes drinking tea. “Like, if you could actually see me. Don’t you?” Peter interprets his silence as a yes. “And then I could show you what good TV is supposed to be. Starting with Star Wars and-”

There’s a sudden knock on the door.

“Yes?” Happy grumbles, obviously displeased that he has to pause his show.

The door opens and Tony Stark walks in, a baseball hat pulled deep over his face, the hood of his jacket pulled over it, and wearing very un-Tony-Stark-like shades that he takes off as he enters the room.

Peter kind of wants to turn invisible.

Then, he remembers that he’s already invisible and wishes he could be even more invisible.

Which apparently isn’t a wish that’s coming true, because Tony’s eyes immediately fly to him, almost like a moth to a flame. Peter has to fight the urge to slip from his chair and hide underneath the bed, fleeing from the almost intense stare.

Happy is oblivious to his dilemma. “What are you doing here?”

“Wow,” Tony says, putting on a fake pout, “that almost sounds like you don’t wanna see me. I’m hurt, Hap. Here I am, making some time in my very busy and very important schedule to visit my dear, dear friend who is stuck in the hospital, and all I get are snarky remarks?”

“C’mon, why are you really here?”

For a second, Tony’s eyes fly back to Peter, who can’t even process what is happening right now. “I just told you.”

“Is there some board meeting that you don’t wanna go to today?”

“Maybe.” Happy snorts, seemingly satisfied with the answer. Tony doesn’t offer any more explanation (or excuses), just leaning against the other end of the bed. “How’re you doing? They treating you okay?”

“Considering that you bribed them into giving me one of the fanciest rooms they have-”

“I didn’t bribe them, I’m paying for it fair and square. It’s not my fault they decided to give you an upgrade. Besides-”

“I’m fine, Tony,” Happy interrupts him with a roll of his eyes, but it doesn’t look as annoyed as he’s trying to sound. “Thank you.”

“I just wanna make sure they’re treating you right. You’re a valuable member of the Stark Industries family. Who else would make sure that everyone is wearing their badges?”

Happy snorts, causing Tony to grin. Peter, who hasn’t moved a single muscle during the entire exchange, thinks that maybe, maybe, he might be able to slip out of the room without being noticed, but his plan quickly turns into a small pile of ashes as Tony’s eyes dart to him once more – and Peter suddenly starts to suspect that the man isn’t just here to check in on his friend.

Tony sniffs once.

Then, he pulls out his phone, looking at it for a second. “Sorry, I have to take this call. Work-related.”

“Since when are you taking work calls?”

“Are you implying I don’t take my job seriously? I’m offended.” Happy snorts again at Tony’s mock-hurt expression, but the billionaire is already accepting the call, lifting the phone to his ear. “Hey, Peter.” Without meaning to, Peter sits up straight. “No, it’s fine. I can talk to you.” Tony nods towards the door, the universal sign that he’s going to step outside for a moment, and Happy just ushers him away, already resuming Downton Abbey. Before the door closes all the way, Tony shoots Peter a very telling look.

For a second, Peter just sits there, thinking about his options, heart beating in his throat. He could just sit here and continue to watch stuck-up people dress up to have dinner while their servants work their butts off. He could run away and find a new place to hide.

Or… Or he could go outside and see what Tony wants. Tony, who said he wouldn’t come back here, and yet he has two times, this time under the pretense of very questionable excuses.

The question is: why is Tony doing all of this?

There are a million answers to that question running through Peter’s head, from him wanting to rip Peter’s hope into tiny pieces again to telling him he found a sudden cure for his misery – all of them equally unlikely. May always tells him he has way too much imagination.

His eyes fly to the door. Peter isn’t sure what he’d do if Tony tells him he can’t help him again. But why would he come here to tell him something Peter already knows? Something they already discussed?

Besides, he’s really not enjoying Downton Abbey all that much.

Taking a deep breath and telling himself that he got this, Peter stands up and walks through the door, making Tony, who had been leaning against the opposite wall and mumbling nonsense into his phone, jump a little. As soon as he sees Peter, his attention moves from making sure he’s not suspicious to him.

Peter nervously shifts his weight. “You’re, uh… not really on the phone, are you?”

“Obviously not,” Tony says, taking a second to show him his dark phone screen. “But talking to yourself is seen as a sign of madness, and I really don’t need a rumor that I’m going insane.”

Peter doesn’t know what to say to that, so he says nothing.

Tony clears his throat again. “So… how are you doing?”

Peter blinks once, twice, and then he finally realizes that Tony Stark actually asked him that question. “Uh, good. I think. Still in a coma. Still astral projecting. Still invisible to everyone except you.” And then because May made sure to drill some manners in him, he added: “How are you?”

“Splendid.” That sounds kind of fake, but okay.

A pregnant silence stretches between them. Peter feels like he should say something, anything really, but Tony had been the one who called him out here. Who – possibly or maybe even probably – stopped by to talk to him again. Why? What does he want?

Just as he’s about to scrape together every little bit of courage he has, Tony sniffs once, standing up straight. “I’ve been thinking. About you and your… let’s call it unusual situation.”

Yeah, unusual is pretty fitting.

“And you found a solution for it?” Peter asks, trying to keep the tone light, but feeling anything but. He wants to beg Tony for a cure, for anything to end this. It’s almost enough to choke him, forcing tears into his eyes.

Knowing that he won’t get his wish makes it even worse.

At least, that’s what Peter thinks.

“No,” Tony says, and then he makes a point of holding eye contact, staring right at him with a determination that Peter hasn’t seen in anyone else yet, “but I will.”

A million thoughts race through Peter’s mind. Is this some sort of astral projecting-related hallucination or did he really say that? Is he joking? He has to be joking. How is he going to help him? Does he already have an idea? What is it? Does it involve the arc reactor? Why isn’t he answering any of his questions?

Turns out, Tony isn’t answering any of the questions because Peter didn’t ask them, too dumbstruck to get any halfway intelligent sound out of his mouth.

Eventually, he manages to gargle out a choked: “What?”

“I’ll help,” Tony repeats, shrugging as if this is no big deal. “Call it scientific curiosity, if you will. I did a bit of research and something like this has never happened before. At least no one’s written about it. And I like defying the odds.” Peter blinks. Does this mean he’s some kind of experiment or project? But does that really matter, if Tony can help him? “Medicine isn’t exactly my field of expertise, but once I became an expert in thermonuclear astrophysics overnight because of a dare, so this should be a piece of cake.”

The more words come out of Tony’s mouth, the more questions Peter has, but he’s still too hung up on his first statement to bother with the rest of them. “I… don’t know what to say.”

“How about whether or not you’re okay with this? Because we actually need to communicate on this and you need to let me know when something-”

“Yes! Yes, of course I’m okay with this! Are you really- Do you really think it might work?”

A smirk appears on Tony’s face. “Hey, I said I’ll find a solution, didn’t I? It’ll work.”

“Holy cow! I can’t- Thank you so, so much, Mr. Stark!” Peter is ready to leap forward and crush him in a hug, but then he remembers that he would fall straight through the man.

It feels like a weight has been lifted off his shoulders, like he can breathe easier, like the world around him is suddenly more cheerful and vibrant. He doesn’t have to spend the rest of his life (or whatever you want to call this) as a ghost, as a mere observer instead of a participant. Tears spring into his eyes, but Peter can’t tell if it’s from the burning feeling in his chest or because his enormous smile is starting to hurt.

Tony grins at Peter before sniffing again and clearing his throat. “Don’t mention it, kid. See it as some kind of compensation for me being an asshole the other day.”

“You weren’t-”

“No, I was. The very least I could’ve done was not tell you to your face that I wasn’t coming back.”

There’s this urge in Peter to point out that Tony came back twice, but he has the feeling it wouldn’t be helping their little project. “So, how do we do this? Where do we start? Do you have some kind of machine or something? Oh, do you-”

“First,” Tony says, raising a hand and looking a bit like he wants to place it against Peter’s mouth to physically stop him from continuing, “I’ll say goodbye to Happy. Then, I’ll have to take a look at your body.” Tony grimaces. “Okay, that sounded really wrong on so many levels. But you know what I mean, right?” Peter nods enthusiastically, almost bouncing from all the excitement in his body.

Tony doesn’t talk to Happy - who is completely fine with him leaving because that means he can watch Downton Abbey in peace (Is a teeny-tiny part of Peter grumpy that he’s going to miss a few episodes now? Yes. He started that show, there’s this urge to find out how it will end) – for too long, and then Peter leads him to his room. While Tony is still pressing his phone against one side of his face, partly to look like he isn’t talking to himself and partly to cover his face, Peter can barely contain his excitement.

He’s so excited that for a moment he forgets that normal people have to open doors to walk through them, like Tony having to open the door to the staircase. “It’s weird to see you disappear like that,” Tony comments. Peter gives him a bit of an awkward shrug. “What are the rules for that… ability, anyway? You didn’t fall through the chair you were sitting on.”

“I don’t know,” he answers honestly, hyper-aware of the feeling of the steps underneath his feet as he climbs up the stairs. “I don’t fall through the ground, either. It’s mostly, like, walls and doors. Maybe it just works on the horizontal axis.” Tony hums in a way that could mean anything, but doesn’t ask any more questions as a few other visitors suddenly appear in the staircase, walking a bit behind them.

When they reach his room, Peter quickly checks to see if the room is empty before Tony enters. Just like always, the room feels unbelievable stuffy, like he can’t properly breathe, and seeing himself lying in that bed, hooked up to all of the machines, is more than weird. Based on the billionaire’s look on his face, Peter isn’t the only one who thinks so. Tony’s eyes jump from the Peter in the bed to the one standing next to it. A wrinkle appears between his eyebrows.

“Okay,” he says, slowly stepping closer. “Okay. So, you’re not actually pranking me.”

“I literally walked through a door, like, two seconds ago. How could I fake that?”

“You would be surprised to find out what technology can do.” Actually, Peter wouldn’t be surprised – he’s a big technology nerd, trying to get his hands on every kind of paper or article about a new breakthrough he can, but before he gets the chance to defend himself, Tony points to the body in the bed. “Can I?”

Peter blinks. “Can you what?”

“Touch you.” Still a bit baffled, Peter nods. For a second, Tony hesitates before pressing one finger against his forearm.

Peter had hoped something would happen, that he would suddenly feel Tony’s touch, that he would feel the pressure against his skin. After all, Tony is the only one who can see him – that has to mean something. But just like all the other times – the doctors and nurses who touch his face or arms for an examination, Ben who grabs and squeezes his hand, May who drops a kiss against his forehead – he doesn’t feel the slightest thing.

“Judging by that frown, you can’t feel that,” Tony says.

“No. I never feel it.” After a pause, he adds: “I thought… well, I thought that because you could see me it might-”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought, too,” he mumbles, taking his finger away. “Guess I was wrong.” Hearing the one and only Tony Stark say he was wrong is a bit concerning for Peter, but he keeps his mouth shut.

Tony keeps looking at him for a moment, an intense look in his eyes, the wrinkle between his eyebrows still present. To be honest, Peter kind of expects him to clap his hands, say he has the solution for everything, throw up one of his iconic peace signs and, boom, Peter is back in his body.

That’s not happening, though.

Silence stretches between them. Peter has to suppress the urge to fidget, afraid that he might disrupt Tony in his thinking-process.

Even more silence follows.

Tony continues staring at the body in the bed.

A bad, heavy feeling settles in Peter’s chest. “You have no idea what to do, do you?”

“What?” Tony asks, his head snapping back to him.

Peter nods towards the bed. “You don’t know what to do next.”

“Of course I do,” he says defensively, clearing his throat.

“Then what’s the next step?”

The genius hesitates and, while a big part of Peter is disappointed, it’s not really unexpected. His situation is very unusual. Tony is a mechanic, an inventor, not a… who do you need in a situation like this? A biologist? A guru? Some other kind of spiritual leader? Another bang of disappointment runs through Peter’s body. He doesn’t even know who he should ask for help – assumin he could communicate with them.

Something must show on Peter’s face because Tony walks over to him, snapping his fingers in front of his face to get his attention. “Hey, no sad puppy dog eyes.”

“I wasn’t-”

“Yes, you were. I said I would find a solution for this, didn’t I?” The boy nods. “So, I will find a solution. Okay, yeah, it might take me longer than the minute you’ve granted me, but I will find it. Okay?”

Peter looks at Tony, at his idol since childhood, at the determined look written all over his face, almost daring him to disagree with him. Tony is right. Of course he is, he’s one of the smartest people on earth. If he says that he’ll find a way to make this stop, then hell find one. All Peter has to do is trust him and be patient.

With a small smile, he nods. “Yeah. Okay.”

“That’s more like it,” Tony says, mirroring his smile with a smirk. “Trust me with this. I know what I’m doing.”


Tony has no idea what he’s doing.

The one and only reason he lied to the kid – Peter – was because he looked like he would break out in tears any second, and if there’s one thing Tony is worse at than comforting crying kids, it’s comforting crying kids who don’t have a body.

Damned be his curiosity. That and his Impossibility?-Never-heard-of-her-attitude.

To be fair, the combination had worked in his favor for a very long time. It’s what made him build a fully functioning circuit board at the age of four (his curiosity and his father’s stern gaze, the one that always made him feel not smart or good enough), what made him pull countless all-nighters to finish the first AI in the world, what made him perfect all his creations, what made him find a solution for when the arc reactor’s palladium was poisoning everyone who worked on it (meaning him. Back then, he’d been the only one who worked close and long enough to be affected by it).

So, when he found a kid at a hospital who could walk through walls and whose arm went straight through his shoulder, his curiosity wouldn’t let him ignore it. In fact, his curiosity wouldn’t even let him sleep. For hours, Tony searched the internet for near-death experiences, reading countless statements from people who claimed to have seen their own bodies or even been to Heaven – but none of them were what he was looking for.

And a couple of hours later, Tony was absolutely certain that something like this had never happened before.

Which, of course, had made him want to solve it so badly. Not because of the fame or to get some recognition or even to be the first one to figure something out. It’s the almost primal need to find the source behind it, to know how it works. That’s how pretty much all of his obsessions start.

However, this particular obsession comes with a big side effect.

A kid. And Tony doesn’t know how to handle that.

Yes, Peter’s enthusiasm is heartwarming and he definitely isn’t the kind of person who deserves something like this. When he told Tony how long he’d been living like this, Tony felt his loneliness, how he clearly missed talking to people or being seen. Growing up around Howard Stark, Tony knows how it feels to be at least partly invisible. So, yeah, a part of him is doing it to help the kid out.

But the problem is that sometimes, figuring stuff out takes time. It took Tony decades and then three months in a cave in Afghanistan to work out the arc reactor. Combined with his father’s efforts, it took him even longer to create an element to replace the palladium in it. Considering that this entire astral projecting stuff isn’t what Tony usually does at all, it could take a very long time until he finds a solution for it.

Tony can’t do that to the kid. First of all, nobody knows how long Peter’s body will actually allow it. Something could happen that worsens his condition dramatically – or his body could just give up entirely. Then there’s the question about how long the hospital will keep him in this state. And don’t even get him started on the entire mental and emotional aspect of it. So, in conclusion, with Peter being there, looking at him with those big eyes full of hope (the same eyes that made Tony feel like an asshole when he said he wouldn’t come back to the hospital anymore), there’s quite some pressure on his shoulders that Tony really doesn’t need to figure this out.

However, he does need Peter’s help. There’s absolutely no way Tony can do it without him.

His curiosity trumps his uneasiness of being responsible for this young person’s life, which is why he tries to push away the question of what would happen to Peter if Tony doesn’t find a solution for this and instead tries to come up with more disguises, so no one will get suspicious about Tony Stark just hanging around a hospital in Queens.

“I’ve been thinking,” Tony says, leaning back against the bench, phone once again pressed against his ear. It’s been a week since they first met, and Tony’s done his best to stop by every other day (partly to work on this mystery, and partly because he feels a tiny bit guilty whenever he leaves the kid alone, knowing that he has no one else to talk to). They sit in a little park area by the hospital, shielded from pedestrians and a bit further away from the hospital staff and the visitors.

Peter looks at him, eyes so big and once again full of hope. Whenever he has that particular look, Tony has to fight the urge to physically turn away, because he knows that look will change soon enough into one full of hurt and disappointment when Tony messes up (and based on all of his past experiences, it’s when, not if). “And?”

“There’s nothing more I can do here.” Tony immediately notices that he used the wrong words as the hope in the kid’s eyes melts away. “As in here in the hospital, I mean. Not in general.”

At once, Peter relaxes again, letting go of a breath he’d been holding. “So, what’s the plan then?”

“You need to come to my lab with me.”

A string of emotions passes over Peter’s face, so many and so fast that Tony can’t recognize them all. He thinks he sees something like wonder and excitement but far too quickly they’re replaced with the by now familiar look of worry. “To your lab?”

“Yeah. There are a couple of tests I would like to do, and it would be pretty much the opposite of subtle if I brought all the machines here for them. It’s way easier to do them there. Plus, we don’t have to keep the entire I’m-just-talking-on-the-phone-charade up. And Happy got discharged yesterday. People will start asking questions if they recognize me.”

Nervously, Peter pulls his brows together and his sleeves down over his fingers, planting his feet on the ground to keep them from bouncing. By now, Tony knows he does this because he thinks he’s annoying Tony with his fidgeting – there are a few other things Tony noticed, too. Like Peter is clearly trying not to be clingy.

And the worst part?

Tony is grateful for that.

He’s not used to clingy. There’s a reason why he let Pepper handle his one-night-stands, and even now neither Pepper, Rhodey, or Happy are clingy – if anything, Tony is the clingiest of all of them, demanding their attention when he isn’t holed up in his workshop, and even he knows that that happens way too rarely to be really classified as clingy.

But seeing as Tony is the only one who can interact with Peter, it wasn’t that unpredictable that he would imprint on him like a duckling on its mother’s butt. Only in this case, Tony is said ass.

Clearly not the kid’s best decision, but it’s also his only option.

And for the record: Tony is really trying, okay? He makes a point of stopping by and talking for a little longer than necessary. He doesn’t cut the kid off when he starts to ramble (but to be fair, Peter stops his rambling by himself fast enough, face bright red, mumbling a timid sorry when he notices it). He doesn’t tell him about how Tony is still wandering through the dark with no leads whatsoever.

Which is why these tests are so important. Tony needs at least some evidence that he isn’t hallucinating the entire thing that’s going on.

“Your lab isn’t in the hospital,” Peter says, looking like he’s just seen a ghost.

“Yeah. I know it’s hard to believe, but I don’t actually come here that often.”

“No, I know that,” he quickly says, cheeks turning red. “It’s just… I, uh-”

“You what?”

“I’ve never left the hospital before, like this.”

“We’re sitting outside.”

“Yeah, but technically, this is still the hospital. I’ve never left its grounds.”

There’s another quip on Tony’s lips but he stops himself, taking in the kid’s nervous appearance. No, not nervous – he’s afraid. Afraid of leaving the place where his body is. Tony can’t really blame him, to be honest. They have no idea if Peter will notice if something is happening to his body or if he’d even be able to wake up at all without his body and soul being close to each other.

Peter obviously needs someone to give him a little pep talk and reassure him that everything will work out fine.

Did Tony already mention that he’s absolutely not up for that task? Usually when he has to reassure someone, it’s about one of his new creations not blowing up or that it will actually make a profit. Still, he needs Peter to come with him. Which means he has to do this.

“Hey, Peter,” he says, trying to keep his voice as soft and stable as he can in an attempt to create some sense of reassurance for the kid. Tony waits a second until Peter looks him in the eyes, his own just as full of emotion as they always are – which isn’t making this any easier. “It will be fine.”

“How do you know that?” he whispers, still sounding way too afraid.

Yeah, that’s a good question. How does Tony know that?

“Because I won’t let it be anything else but fine.”

It’s a shitty explanation, one Rhodey and Pepper would’ve graced with a scoff if he was luckily, demanding to hear the real source of his confidence and therefore exposing him for having no reason to be confident at all.

But Peter is different, because he believes Tony’s words. Tony can pinpoint the exact moment Peter finds whatever he’s looking for in Tony’s face. The worry washes out of his eyes and is replaced by a fragile – but still there – confidence. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Yeah, okay.” Peter takes a deep breath, standing up from the bench and looking to the other side of the small park – the side where the hospital officially ends. “Let’s do this.”

There’s a look in the kid’s eyes that makes Tony want to tell him to slow down, that he doesn’t have to push himself if he isn’t ready yet, but he ignores that urge. They have to leave the hospital to move along and, like he already mentioned, they’re kind of on the clock with this entire thing. So, Tony stands up as well, nodding towards where his car is parked. “Alright. Let’s blow this popsicle stand.”

With every step they take, it becomes clearer and clearer that Peter isn’t ready to leave the hospital yet. Tony has to stop himself three times from calling the entire mission off and considering how short the journey to the car is, that’s saying something. But Peter doesn’t say anything, so Tony doesn’t either.

Tony barely notices it when he steps over the invisible border, only catching up to what’s happening when Peter suddenly stops, looking at the ground like he’s trying to solve an especially difficult puzzle.

“You can do it, kiddo,” Tony encourages him. “Everything will be fine.”

“Yeah,” Peter mumbles, not sounding convinced at all. However, before Tony can so much as think about another way to encourage him, the kid takes a deep breath, lifts his foot, and sets it down only a couple of inches in front of the other one.

Both of them wait and hold their breath.

It’s surprisingly undramatic. Peter doesn’t suddenly get beamed up into the hospital. He doesn’t turn into dust or some weird light or anything else. He doesn’t get thrown backwards like he hit a strong force field.

Nothing happens.

It’s almost boring.

Only now, boring is good, which is a slightly foreign concept for Tony.

Peter’s head snaps up, looking at him with his eyes as big as tennis balls, like he just made an absolutely incredible scientific breakthrough. “Nothing happened.”

“Of course, nothing happened,” Tony says with a smirk. “I said it would be fine, didn’t I? Are you questioning my judgement?” Peter chuckles, not thinking too much about Tony’s joke which the genius is quite grateful for, and catches up to him, joining him on the few feet journey to the sleek, black car. “Ready to see my lab, kid?”

Peter’s smile is bright enough to power all of New York and the suburbs during Christmas time. “Absolutely.”