Grace calls Harley after Tony leaves, just to talk to him, pass the time while she finishes her drawing, waiting for her father to get back.

They talk about Peter, obviously.

"So, you're drawing a picture of a scene from a book because Peter said the book was his favorite?" Harley asks.

Grace blushes. "Well, I like the book too, but... yes."

"So you're basically head over heels in love with him?"

"No!" Grace shouts. More quietly, she adds, "No. I'm not in love with him. It's too early for that."

Harley chuckles. "Hate to break it to you, Primrose, but love doesn't work on a schedule."

Grace rolls her eyes at the nickname. "We've only just kissed, Harley. I don't even know if we're dating. We never said anything about it."

"Have you talked to him today?"

Grace frowns. "No. But he had school; he's busy."

"Have you tried to talk to him today? Maybe he's not busy."

"No. I usually don't call him first unless something's happened."

"Hmm," Harley hums.

Grace's brows furrow. "'Hmm?' What do you mean, 'hmm?'"

"I don't know, Grace, I just..." He sighs. "It seems like you're always the one waiting on him."

Grace stops, recalling how she herself thought that once before, but then she remembers her reasoning. "That can't be helped, and you know it. He's busy out there, and I'm stuck in here, and neither of us can do anything about it."

"Still," Harley says. "Look, I know he probably isn't doing it on purpose, but... maybe he should wait on you once in a while."

Grace sighs, knowing that he's probably right but wanting to ignore it. Things are going good for them right now, and she doesn't want anything messing with that. "I don't know," she says. "I've always wanted to be Amy Pond."

Harley goes quiet for a moment, then he finally asks, "What?"

"You know, Doctor Who. Amy Pond. 'The Girl Who Waited.'"

Harley half-laughs. "Grace-"

"You know how much Rory loved Amy. Everything worked out pretty okay for them in the end, I'd say."

"Then who am I? The Doctor?"

"And Hannah is River!" Grace replies, laughing when he begins to protest.

"She's too nice to be put in prison, you know," Harley replies. "Even for killing me, which I wouldn't blame her for. Also, I just remembered that Amy kissed the Doctor at first, and now I don't wanna be the Doctor anymore."

"Oh, ew, yeah, never mind," Grace says, and they both laugh.

Harley continues. "Anyway, as I was saying before you rudely changed the subject — call him. Don't wait for him, you call him first."

"And if he doesn't answer?"

"Ask yourself if he's really worth it."

Grace goes quiet for a moment, biting her lip, thinking, then says, "He is."

"You better be sure about that," Harley replies. "I don't want you getting hurt. 'Cause I'll have to fly all the way to New York to beat him up."

Grace laughs. "The thought of that is hilarious to me because he would web you to the pavement in about two seconds."

"No, he wouldn't-"

But then Grace is getting another call, and she sees it's from her father. "My dad's calling. I gotta go."

"Ok. I'll talk to you later."

"Ok."

"Don't wait!" he adds quickly.

Grace sighs. "I won't." Then, she answers her father. "Hello?"

"Hey," he says. He sounds upset. "I don't know what time I'll be home. Hopefully soon. It might be a little bit."

Grace sits up, leaning forward. "Why? What happened?"

"Peter..." Tony trails off. After taking a deep breath, he tells her everything — how he told the FBI about the weapons, the original plan, what Peter did. "He... He was so irresponsible. People could've gotten hurt..."

Tears slip out of Grace's eyes, the fragile — and she knew it was fragile, even if she wouldn't admit it — romantic relationship she'd formed with Peter crashing down. "He lied to me," she said. "He... He really lied to me."

It's unbelievable. He's Peter — the boy who agreed to help her get her family back together within two minutes of knowing her, the boy who comforted her when none of it worked out, the boy who talked to her for forever about her and let her use his shoulder as a pillow on the plane ride home, the boy who was her first kiss, whose lips were as soft as his touch, who held her like she was the most precious thing he'd ever laid eyes on — that was exactly how it felt. He was the boy who promised her he would leave things alone and stay out of danger because she was scared to death of losing him.

He's the first boy she's ever truly loved, and he lied to her. And it hurts.

"I know," Tony says quietly, though he doesn't know — not everything. "I'm sorry, Grace."

"For what?" she replies. "It's not your fault. It's his. You told him, and I told him-"

"I know. I'm going to talk to him now. Hang tight, okay? I'll be back soon."

"Okay..."

He hangs up, and Grace, for the next few minutes, can only sit there and cry. She looks over at her phone through blurred vision and picks it up, holding it in her hands for a moment.

She could call him. She could call him and scream at him or just cry into the receiver as he tried to explain himself. She could even do both in one call. If he wasn't talking to her father right now — someone else she couldn't call.

Or she could call Harley back. She could tell him he was right, that Peter had hurt her, and then she could tell him not to come to New York, not to confront him because she knew he wasn't joking, not when it came down to it.

She looks in her contacts, the list small, especially when she remembers that a lot of these people wouldn't answer because they probably dumped their phones before they ran away. War criminals.

But there, under the P's.

Pepper.

She understands what this is like, surely. She'll pick up. She'll listen, and she'll know what to do. She'll help.

Grace calls her.

She picks up on the first ring. "Grace?"

"Mom?" It's instinctual.

Pepper can hear Grace's tears, and there's rustling on her end as she says, "What's wrong? What happened?"

And Grace doesn't know where to begin. "I... Mom, I..."

More rustling. "What happened? Are you okay? Are you hurt?"

"Mom, Peter lied to me."

The rustling stops. "Peter?"

"Ye-Yes." Grace knows Pepper doesn't know who Peter is, but she understands enough to figure it out. She can hear it; she can feel it.

"Are you at the Tower?"

"Yes."

"I'm coming, okay? I'll be right over."

~~~~

Peter is perched on a nearby building, watching to make sure everyone is rescued off the ferry safely. It seems like there won't be any trouble with that.

His heart is in his stomach, and he feels like he could throw up. Nothing went according to plan, and Tony showed up — a good and a bad thing, all at once. Peter knows Tony will tell Grace, and now she'll find out that he lied to her from somebody else, which makes it even worse. He wishes he could just go back. That it would all go differently.

He looks up, and he sees the Iron Man suit flying toward him. It lands next to him, and Tony's voice comes out of it. "Previously on Peter Screws the Pooch: I tell you to stay away from this. Instead, you hacked a multimillion-dollar suit so you could sneak around behind my back doing the one thing I told you not to do."

Peter can't even meet the eyes of the suit. "Is everyone okay?

Tony chuckles mirthlessly. "No thanks to you."

And that just makes Peter angry. "No thanks to me?" He walks up to the suit, fists clenched, tears of anger coming through in his voice. "Those weapons were out there, and I tried to tell you about it. But you didn't-" He shakes his head in anger. "None of this would've happened if you had just listened to me." He scoffed. "If you even cared, you'd actually be here."

The suit opens, and Tony steps out of it, his face red with anger. Peter backs up as Tony walks towards him.

"I did listen, kid," he says. "Who do you think called the FBI, huh? Do you know that I was the only one who believed in you? Everyone else said I was crazy to recruit a fifteen-year-old kid."

"I'm sixteen," Peter corrects quietly.

"No, this is where you zip it, alright?! The adult is talking. What if somebody had died tonight? Different story, right? 'Cause that's on you. And if you died, I feel like that's on me. I don't need that on my conscience."

Peter looks down. "Yes, sir."

Tony shakes his head, sighing.

"I-I'm sorry," Peter says.

"Sorry doesn't cut it," Tony replies. "And you know what's worse? I-I was wrong before, when I said everybody thought I was crazy to recruit you. One person didn't think so. She actually was the reason I found out about you in the first place. Any idea who I'm talking about, Peter?"

"Grace," Peter whispers, beginning to cry.

"Exactly," Tony says. "Exactly. It was Grace. And, not only did you put people in danger, not only did you directly disobey me, you lied to her. You directly broke your promise."

"I-I know," Peter says, his voice cracking. "I-I didn't... I didn't mean to hurt her, Mr. Stark. I-I promised to avoid hurting her-"

"Yeah, well that worked out great, didn't it?"

"She just..." Peter looks up at Tony. "She sounded so... sad. And scared. And I... I didn't want to disappoint her. I didn't want her to worry..."

Tony looks away, trying to gather his thoughts, trying to calm himself down before he explodes in anger and tears and frustration at himself for doing everything wrong. "She really cares about you, you know that? You're... I'm gonna level with you here, Pete: You're one of her only friends. You understand that? All she really had was me, Happy, and, over the phone, all the way in Tennessee, Harley. That's it. Her biological mom left her, her only good mom doesn't live with us anymore, the Avengers — her family — they're all gone. And here you are, right in New York, the closest thing she has to normal. Her closest friend, Peter. And you screwed that up."

Peter is full-on crying now. "I know. I know, and I'm sorry."

"You should tell her that."

"I will. I-If she'll talk to me, I'll... I was always gonna tell her, Mr. Stark. I just..." he trails off.

Tony sighs. "I don't know if she'll talk to you, either, kid. She sounded really upset over the phone. You hurt her. You screwed up big."

Peter swallows. "I understand. I... I just wanted to be like you."

"And I wanted you to be better," Tony replies. He sighs again. "Okay, it's not working out. I'm gonna need the suit back."

Peter stops. "For how long?"

"Forever." Peter starts to shake his head, but Tony is having none of it. "Yeah. Yeah, that's how it works."

"No, no, no... Please, please, please..."

"Let's have it."

"You don't understand. Please. This is all I have. I'm nothing without this suit."

"If you're nothing without the suit, then you shouldn't have it. Okay?" He mutters, "I sound like my dad."

Peter's shoulders hang in defeat. "I don't have any other clothes."

"Okay, we'll sort that out."

~~~~

Pepper arrives in less than ten minutes, coming into the living room to see Grace curled up, crying on the couch, her sketchbook thrown across the room. Pepper sits next to her, and she sits up, wrapping her arms around her mom.

"What happened, honey?" Pepper asks gently.

Grace takes a shaky breath, then tells her everything from start to finish — even the plan, the times Peter snuck onto the balcony, and the kiss too, despite the fact that Tony was home by then. He got back when she was relating how they started talking after Berlin, after those two months of nothing. She had to get him up to speed on the plan during the airport fight at one point, as he missed it, but, surprisingly, he wasn't mad about it.

When she's finished, he's sitting in a chair near her, her sketchbook in his lap as he absently tries to smooth the crinkled, folded pages, crying quietly because his daughter is hurting and he can't do anything about it. Pepper is still holding her, crying too.

"I know it hurts, but it'll pass. This is just first love, you know? There will be many more-"

"How?" Grace asks, sitting up. "Where? He's the only boy that I know, unless you count Harley. I'll never meet anybody else. There can never be anybody else."

"You don't know that," Tony says quietly, but he does. He can't jeopardize her safety. There's no one else, besides Harley — and that's only if he breaks up with Hannah, and he and Grace stop being practically siblings. That'll never happen. Unless another teenage crime fighter swings into their lives, Peter's it. And he wasn't a bad choice, not by a long shot. He screwed up, just like everyone else, just like Tony has. It's a question of if Grace will forgive him. She's never been hurt like this before, especially by someone who seemed like he would be the last person in the world to hurt her.

She finally calms and decides to go to her room to be alone, taking her phone and her sketchbook with her. Tony looks at Pepper. She looks back at him. They're silent.

"I never thought I'd be called for help with boy trouble," Pepper half-jokes.

Tony laughs shortly. "I didn't either. I didn't even know they... were together. I just knew they were talking. I didn't think there was anything..." he trails off.

Pepper snorts. "There's always something going on, Tony."

"Not with her and Harley-"

"They're the exception." She sighs. "I honestly didn't think they would be, but... here we are."

They're quiet again, Tony trying not to burst with all of the things he wants to say to her, every apology, every thank you, everything. Finally, he says, "He's a good kid. He's sweet. He just... He got in over his head. He made a mistake. I... I've been there."

"I know," Pepper says. She laughs a little. "Believe me, I know."

When she doesn't say more, Tony asks, "Do you think she'll forgive him?"

Pepper looks at him then. "Wouldn't you know that better than I do?"

"No." He sits up, clears his throat. "There's things you know about her that I don't. Stuff like this, all the things that I just... I don't understand. That's why this... works. That's why she needs you."

Pepper looks away. "She has me. She always will."

"I know," Tony says. "Thank you for coming. I don't know what I would've done."

"You've comforted her before," Pepper replies. "You would've figured it out."

"But you knew what to say."

"You would've, too. Your her father, Tony-"

"And you're her mother. You stepped in when her real mom wouldn't, before we even..." he trails off, the memories bringing a bittersweetness. "You go above and beyond, Pep. She needs that. I can't always be here, as much as I wish I could."

Pepper is quiet again, thinking of Grace, everything they've been through together. Everything she's helped her through — her daughter. The fact that this is the first time she's seen her, talked to her since she left. Then, she says, "She's growing up."

"I know. It's scary. For the both of us, I guess."

Pepper stands and walks over to Tony, sitting on the arm of his chair. She takes his hand. "I'm scared too. But I'm gonna be here."

Tony looks at her hopefully. "You're gonna be here? Do you- Are you-?"

"We need to have a talk first," she says. "There's things that... we need to work out."

Tony nods, turning towards her. "Anything. Anything, Pep. You have no idea..." He hugs her, crying again. "I've missed you so much."

She's crying too. "I've missed you too."