This is a part three to The One Where He Leaves (part 2 is The One Where He Stays) so make sure you read those first!

~*~

It had been almost a year since Peter had turned up at Stark towers yelling and crying.

Getting use to living with the Avengers had been weird (although weird might not be the right word to describe it) at first and it took a lot of getting use to.

Peter hadn't heard much from his Pops apart from a letter on his birthday that didn't have a return address, he couldn't reply if he wanted to.

He didn't want to.

He had started to call Tony Dad regularly and the others had been given the title of Aunts and Uncles (which they were all ecstatic about) and he wasn't as nervous around them as he had been the first morning.

Of course there were times when he remembered that he was living with the goddamn Avengers and his fanboy heart had a little bit of a heart attack.

That was fine though because he loved them and they loved him.

The love could be overwhelming at times, like when they first met his boyfriend Harley.

They had all threatened the boy, even after Peter had told them that they had already been together for two years and that they didn't need to worry.

They worried anyway.

They worried even more when they had found out Peter was Spider-Man. That had been a... fun experience.

~*~

"Oh shit oh shit oh shit." Peter continuously mumbled to himself as he hurriedly swung across New York.

He was late home, no one even knew he'd left the building but Tony came in every night at ten to make sure he was okay before he went to bed.

Which the others had found weird, they were used to Tony not sleeping but he had gotten his sleeping schedule back together as soon as possible after Peter had turned up.

He said, when Steve had asked him about it early one morning, that he wanted to drive Peter to and from school as often as possible as he had already missed so much of his life.

It was already quarter past ten and Peter knew that Tony would have already sent out a search team, or Friday would have snitched and Peter really isn't sure which is worse.

The lights were off in his room as he made his way through the window, his mask already in hand as he made his way down the wall in his room.

He let out a sigh of relief as he turned around only for the lights to turn on and the whole team to be stood behind him.

So Friday had snitched... Great.

"Oh shit." He muttered again before realisation dawn on his face and he clambered to get his suit off.

"What are you guys doing here?" Peter tried to act casual, stood in only his boxers after crawling through his bedroom window.

He was so screwed.

"Where were you?" Steve asked with his signature eyebrows of disappointment™ on his face.

Peter scanned everyone's faces which ranged from worry to angry to amused as he tried to think of an excuse.

"Yeah Underoos where were you?" Tony asked the new nickname rolling of his tongue like he had been waiting to use it, he looked like he was having a great time watching as his son tried to lie his way out of this.

If it was anything else Tony would have been just as angry and worried but he had been keeping an eye on Peter before he came to live with him and there were a lot of times when he would just disappear.

So Tony looked into it of course, he didn't want his son to be in trouble after all and he noticed that anytime Peter disappeared good ol' Spider-Man turned up.

It was easy to connect the dots and Tony is honestly surprised no one else had figured it out.

Peter couldn't think of an excuse and hoped being honest would get him out of it.

It sort of worked? He did get a long lecture from Steve about lying and how this was dangerous work, not the kind of job a teenager to have.

He was expecting a similar lecture from his Dad but Tony had told him they would talk about it another time as it was getting late and Peter still had school tomorrow.

They never did talk about it but when Peter had gotten home there was a brand new suit waiting for him on his bed so he guessed Tony was okay with it.

~*~

So yeah things had been going good, great even!

Until now.

"Boss Dr Stephen Strange is in the elevator, he's on his way up." Friday had announced when everyone, except Peter, was once again watching a film.

The film had paused when Friday had spoken so everyone was just waiting for Tony's reaction. The situation was eerily similar to when Peter had come to the tower a year ago.

"Okay, I can do this." He mumbled to no one in particular as he pushed himself off of the sofa and towards the elevator.

The doors open and there stood Stephen and Tony wasn't sure he could do this anymore.

He looked the same, older and like he was carrying the whole universe on his shoulders but the same none the less.

Tony didn't realise how much he had missed the other man until now, it was overwhelming.

Ideally Tony would just go to his room and cry for a hundred years but unfortunately he had to actually deal with his problems like an adult.

He was jealous of Cap right now if he was being honest.

Last time he had relationship problems he crashed a plan into the ocean and stayed in the ice for seventy years. When he woke up everyone he knew was dead.

Problem solved.

"Hi." Stephen stepped out of the elevator and gave an awkward wave.

"Uh hey." Tony said back just as awkwardly, he cringed internally and god, he really wished the others weren't just watching this awful interaction.  "Do you want to go somewhere to talk?" He asked timidly.

Stephen nodded and followed Tony as he led them to his room. They both sat on the bed with a respectable distance between them, like two teenagers about to have sex for the first time.

Awkward and weird and neither of them really know what they should be doing.

"I've missed you." Tony says because he's been called a lot of horrible things but a liar isn't one of them.

And he knows he shouldn't have said it, they've been over for a very long time but seeing him and being so close to him remind him how much his heart has been aching for Stephen.

"I've missed you too." Stephen replies, he's always been honest. Sometimes too honest, he's hurt a lot of people that way. He doesn't see the point in stopping now though.

It's silent again, less awkward then before.

Or maybe it's more awkward, Tony can't really tell but he's okay with sitting in silence.

"Peters at school." He says eventually. Stephen nods.

"I thought he might be. He's okay right?" He turns to looks at Tony and they make eye contact for the first time since Stephen turned up.

"He's okay. He was angry at first, confused too. I didn't know what to tell him so I told him that you loved him, that you'll always love him and that this was something you had to do." Tony doesn't break the eye contact, he's sure Stephen can tell exactly what he's thinking.

"I should have written more, I wanted to but it could've put him in danger and if he got hurt because of me I don't know what I would've done-" Tony places a hand on Stephens which was resting beside him, he instantly snapped him mouth closed.

Tony almost pulls his hand away. Almost.

"He's okay, he doesn't hate you. I promise. The letter you sent for his birthday that explain everything helped." He explains gently. "He just misses you."

Stephens nods once again and takes a few deep breaths.

"And what about you?" Stephen asks after a few moments.

Tony's doesn't know what he's asking.

He's not sure why he's so nervous but he can't seem to calm his heart, its beating so loud that he surprised that Stephen can't hear it.

"Do you hate me?"

Tony's breath catches in his throat, the questions rattling around in his brain.

He thinks about saying yes, about yelling at Stephen for leaving the first time and then leaving again but this time abandoning their son.

He thinks about how Stephen was the one who ended this, told him that he couldn't see Peter anymore and how much that broke his heart.

And how Tony had wanted to make this work, promised he would try harder and do better and how Stephen leaving and the Avengers breaking up almost killed him.

He thinks about yelling and screaming until his throat burns and his voice is scratchy. Yelling until the others have to come in and tell him to stop. He thinks about kicking him out and telling him that he can talk to Peter but he never wants to see him again.

"I could never hate you." He says instead and it's the truth, because he could never hate Stephen.

Not really.

He was mad and heartbroken and a million other things but he loved Stephen.

He always would, he knew that. Not a day goes by that he doesn't miss the other man which is ridiculous (Pepper has told him that a million times) they had broken up almost thirteen years ago.

He should be over it.

He wasn't.

It was silent again and it was back to being awkward.

"I'm sorry." Stephen breaks the silence this time. He wasn't going to at first, but he's always hated the quiet. "For how things ended, it was..." He trailed off, looking for the right word to say.

"A mess?" Tony supplies, Stephens laughs before nodding.

"Yea it was a mess." He laughs again. "Maybe we can do it better this time."

"This time." Tony agrees and doesn't think too much about what 'this time' means, offers Stephen a drink and something to eat instead.

They talk more as they make their way to the kitchen, not about anything important or serious or that they actually need to talk about but it's nice and Tony's missed this, he didn't know how much until now.

~*~

It's a mess, similar to their divorce, when Peter come home to find both of his parents in the kitchen.

He didn't say anything, just backed out of the room and left. They heard his door slam shut a few seconds later and Friday informs them that he had left through the window.

Tony is in his room when he comes back hours later. Peter ignores him, he goes to have a shower and get changed in the bathroom.

Tony's still there when he gets out.

"We don't have to talk about it." He says after it's clear that Peter isn't going to say anything.

Peter continues to ignore him, angrily tiding his room in hopes that Tony will accept that's he's busy and leave.

He doesn't.

"I can tell him to leave." He continues, noticing the way Peter pauses briefly. The fact that Stephens still here surprising him.

He still doesn't reply, Tony's not sure what to do. He's seen Peter angry, hell when he first turned up here he was yelling but this is different.

He's almost...calm?

If angrily tidying your room, slamming draws and throwing thing into your wardrobe, counts as calm.

"Pete! I need you to calm down and tell me what you want." Tony's stern voice stops Peter in his tracks after he slammed a cup down so hard it cracked.

He slowly turned to face his dad.

"What I want?" He asks voice dangerously calm. "You want to know what I want?"

Tony reluctantly nods, he's unsure of where this is going and to be completely honest he's scared of how Peters going to react.

"What I want is for my father to not have left me without anything more then a note." Peters voice is angry, getting louder as he speaks. "What I want is for you guys to not have gotten divorced so I didn't have to explain to my class that my dad had to work again so no one is coming for career day or parents evening or to see me in the play again."

"What I want is to get more then one letter from my dad in a year, one that barely explains where he's been and that I can't even reply to!" He continues. "What I want is to not have to chose between which of you guys I stay with now after I was forced to come here after he left."

"I want to have two parents that raised me together! Not one that I didn't speak to until I was sixteen and another that ditched me the first chance he got!" He carried on, voice loud but not quite a yell yet. "What I want is to have a normal family, who comes to school events and I want to be able to tell my friends and classmates that you're my dad and I want them to believe me!"

"I want a lot of things but I can't have any of it!" Peter yells. "So don't ask me what I fucking want!"

"Because you can't give me that!" He yells, voice cracking halfway through and tears running down his face.

Tony reaches out for him, Peter steps further away.

Peter wipes the tears off of his face as quickly as they fell and takes a deep breath, he turns back to what he was doing at his desk and when he speaks again it's almost as if he's calm again but Tony can hear the anger in his words.

"You can tell him to leave or don't. I don't care. Just..." Another deep breath. "Just leave me alone please."

He's sounds desperate so Tony leaves.

He wishes he had said something, anything but he didn't. He just left and he feels like the shitiest parent ever.

When he walks into the living the team are there and so is Stephen, they probably heard the argument if the sad look Stephen gives him is anything to go off of.

The others are kind enough to pretend they didn't.

"Is he..." Stephen wasn't sure what he was asking, Is he angry? Is he upset? Is he okay? Is he ever going to talk to either of us again?Is he going to ever talk to me?

He wanted to ask all of them but the words died on his tongue at how emotionally and physically exhausted Tony looked.

"We should get you to bed." He say instead of the million questions that he wants to ask, they bid the others goodnight as Stephen steered Tony towards his room.

And when Tony asked, barely above a whisper in a tiny, vulnerable voice if Stephen would stay, Stephen said yes without hesitation and climbed into the bed after him.

~*~

Peter had yet to come out of his room.

Well he has yet to come out of his door. Tony is sure he's been leaving because it's been three days and there's been no complaints from the school yet.

Plus Spider-Man has still been around, he's avoiding all of the Avengers that have been trying to talk to him. It's gotten so bad the media has started to notice.

Tony has tried talking to him when he is in room, but Friday has always like Peter better then him and refuses to let him in.

And when Tony sent Clint in through the vents to try and talk to him, Clint came back out with a broken nose.

It was worse when Stephen had gone in with a portal (because he's a wizard now, Tony is still trying to wrap his head around that) Peter had jumped out of the window and didn't come back until after school the next day.

Stephen has been staying at the tower, which probably isn't helping the whole Peter won't come out of his room situation, but he refuses to leave until Peter talks to him.

He's been staying in Tony's room.

They aren't back together, not yet, they are just enjoying the comfort that they bring each other and until they can talk to Peter about it, it's going to stay like that.

It's three a.m when Peter leaves his room, he's hungry and he doesn't have any food left in there.

He's pretty sure everyone's asleep, they normally are at this time of night.  Unless someone's had a nightmare, it's likely but it's just a risk he's going to have to take.

When he makes it to the kitchen without running into anyone, he thinks hes in the clear.

But then someone's sat at the kitchen island drinking tea, Peter knows that it's Stephen. 

He thinks about leaving, running as fast and as quietly as possible. He doesn't have a chance though.

"Pete?" He asks quietly, Peter thinks about running again.

He doesn't.

He grabs a breakfast bar and a bottle of water, sits down a couple of seat away instead.

Stephens eyes follow him the whole time, he can feel them watching him. He thinks about telling him to stop. Thinks about telling him to fuck off.

He doesn't.

Taking a bite of his breakfast bar, he can still feel his dad staring at him and he knows that he's trying to find something to say.

Peter doesn't bother to try and fill the silence.

"I know you're mad at me." Stephen says eventually, Peter was really hoping he'd just stay quiet so he could continue being angry in peace.

"I'm not mad." And he's not, he's a lot worse then mad. He's annoyed and frustrated and upset and so fucking furious that he can't remember what anything else feels like.

"I'm sorry Peter." Peter scans his face for any trace of a lie, takes another bite of his bar when he doesn't fine one.

"You're sorry?" He scoffs. "Do you even know what you're apologising for or are you just saying that because you think it's what I want to hear?"

Stephen doesn't reply and Peter knows the answer.

"Like I said," Peter starts as he stands up, throwing his wrapper in the bin. "I'm not mad at you. I'm furious."

"You left me." He whisper yells, it's three in the morning and people are sleeping. "You didn't tell me where you were going or how long you were going for or if you were coming back at all."

"You said this was something you had to do and that's fine, I get it but don't act like you saying sorry is going to fix the fact that you left." Peter shakes his head, trying to clear his thoughts. "I had to come here by myself and tell Ironman 'Surprise I'm your son!' and hope that he would let me stay because you dipped while I was at school and I had no other options."

"And then when I finally start to like it here, you come back. Expecting me to just forgive you!" He sighs before continuing again. "I know that the accident messed up yours hands and that you wouldn't be able to perform surgery again and I know this is selfish to say but when did surgery become more important then me?"

Peter turns to leaves after that and Stephens heart break into a thousand million pieces.

"Surgery has never been more important then you." Stephen say, Peter stops in his track. He was so close to being able to go back to the comfort of his bedroom. 

He wants to say something, call him out and ask him if that was true then why did he leave. He really thinks about doing, the words about to come out of him mouth but he stops. The fighting is exhausting and he just wants to go back to bed.

"Then why did you leave?" He asks, he doesn't wait for a reply and goes back to his room, locking the door behind him. 

~*~

"Who am I going to be staying with, so I know if I need to pack my stuff." Peter says as he enters the kitchen. It's just Tony and Stephen in there, Peter made sure it would just be them. 

"What?" Tony looks over to Stephen to see if he had any clue on what was going on. 

"Who am I going to live with?" He rolls his eyes as he repeats what he said. He wishes he had just stayed in his room.

They seem to have a conversation without actually saying anything.

"Well we were thinking that we could all stay here. As a family." Stephen sound unsure as he speaks, worried about Peters reaction. 

"Okay." Peter goes to leave but Tony stops him.

"Okay? Underoos yesterday you wouldn't even talk to us and now its 'Okay' what changed?" Tony gestured for Peter to sit down, he rolled his eyes again but sits down anyway.

"I'm tired of being mad." He shrugs, Tony nor Stephen can tell what hes thinking. "I can't fight with you guys anymore so I'm done." 

"You forgive me?" Stephen asks, he tries not to sound hopeful.

 "No." Peter frowns. "But I'm sick of yelling at you guys. Its not going to change anything. You guys got divorced and we stopped seeing dad, then you left and I came to live here. Now you're back and I'm just going to have to deal with it." 

"Peter..." Stephen reaches out, he wants to explain even if he doesn't know how. Peter flinches away. 

"It okay." Peter promises. 

It  isn't okay and they all know it but Peter leave so no one can tell him that, try to talk it out. 

Tony tells Stephen that they can talk to him about it later, to give him some time. They will only make it worse and they both know that. How did they fuck this up so badly? 

Neither of them know but they will spend the rest of their lives trying to fix it.

~*~

This is the longest oneshot I've written in a while. (About 3500 words!) 

Thanks for almost 200k reads it means more to me then you guys know. I really appreciate all the comments (I have read every comment) and all the votes. 

This was requested by a couple of people so shout out to them!  I hope you enjoyed it! 

Stay safe my dudes!