Who: Tony Stark and Natasha Romanoff (mcu for both) What: Talking and having a feel. Where: Natasha’s new apartment When: May 23rd, very very early. Maybe it’s still night. Who knows. Rating: Feelings.
Peter was gone.
Just… poof. Disappeared, like he’d never been here at all except in memory and Tony couldn’t really wrap his head around the thought because it was so achingly familiar and painful, he didn’t think he could handle doing it twice now. He’d have to though, he knew that. Eventually the numbness of it would fade away and he’d be left with self loathing and something else that he couldn’t possibly put words to.
He was tired. Just. Tired of losing people close to him, people he considered family. Peter was the first kid he’d really started thinking of as his, even though he was aware it wasn’t really true, and that the kid had an aunt who loved him dearly. He’d just — maybe wanted a piece of that. Something more than mentor. Maybe he’d had it. He wasn’t sure. All he really knew was that he hadn’t been diligent enough here, and that it was something that he was going to regret for a long time to come.
Steve had suggested that they go for a walk, something that would pull Tony away from his phone and his incessant pacing around their living room, and while they’d gone, Tony wasn’t sure that it was really enough to clear his head. Steve tried, bless the man, because he did, and it almost worked, but Tony was pretty sure that there wasn’t anything in this world that would be a distraction enough from tonight, not even a walk in the woods with the person he liked best.
Eventually he’d begged off, citing the fact that he’d promised Natasha he was going to show up for dinner anyway, and he might as well do that. Even if it was — well past midnight. Tony wasn’t really thinking about what time it was, only that it was something he’d agreed to do before everything had gone to hell. So he stood outside the building that was hers, fingers tapping out a text for her that he barely paid mind to.