Chapter Text
I. PETER
The first time he invites the kid to the Tower, it’s nearly by accident.
He’d been listening to one of the forwarded voicemails from Happy as he tinkered in the lab. “And I thought, you know, it’s really too hot out to leave your dog in the car, even if it’s just for ten minutes. I read an article the other day about how dogs overheat faster than humans do because they don’t cool themselves as efficiently, and then I kind of had a crisis. Like if I break this window to save the dog, what if the car belongs to some little old lady whose car insurance won’t cover it? So I went into the grocery store and was like ‘Hey, whose blue Toyota Camry is that, I think your dog is overheating,’ but I couldn’t find anyone, so I went back outside and thought, well I can’t just let the dog roast alive in there. But I couldn’t, like, leave a note in case the insurance doesn’t cover it because Spider-Man doesn’t have contact information, and I couldn’t ask Aunt May if I could leave our contact information because she’s in San Francisco and long-distance minutes are expensive, but then the dog was looking at me and panting and so I was like oh screw it and I broke the window and the dog was breathing really heavy so I got it some water from the grocery store and then I Googled how much a broken window would cost and all the sites were like, Call us for a quote, why does no one list their prices up front, Happy? Why do I have to call everyone for a quote, do window repair prices really range that much? Can’t I just get a ballpark? So anyways I just left all the cash I had on me and a note like Sorry, I really didn’t want your dog to die, love Spider-Man-”
Tony, by this point, is laughing so hard he’s set his screwdriver down and removed his glasses. God, this kid is something else, he thinks, wiping a tear from the corner of his eye. He’s glad the kid’s brush with highly dangerous alien weapons-dealing hasn’t changed him much. At first Happy had just updated him on particularly funny tidbits of Parker’s misadventures, but now he’s started to listen to the messages himself, because there’s nothing quite like hearing the stories told in the kid’s own excitable torrent of words. The voicemails make for great background noise while he’s working.
“Woah, wait, back up,” he mutters to himself, gesturing for F.R.I.D.A.Y. to rewind. She does so obligingly. “F.R.I.D.A.Y., call Happy.”
“Yes?”
“Happy. The kid’s home alone.”
“Yeah, so?”
“He’s thirteen. Isn’t that illegal?”
Happy sighs, heavily, on the other end of the line. “He’s fifteen. It’s not illegal.”
“Hot Aunt May just...went to San Francisco for whatever reason and left him to rot in his own teenage filth. The apartment’s probably a biohazard by now. What if the kid comes home with a stab wound or something, and there’s no Sexy Nurse May to patch him up? What if he’s having girls over unsupervised? May, how could you?”
“I don’t think you have to worry about him having girls over,” Happy grumbles, but Tony’s not listening.
“Pick him up from school tomorrow and bring him over here. We can...uh...bond, or something. Do a bit of a reset on the mentor thing, after I kind of let a building fall on him. And a plane.”
“Boss, really-”
“Tomorrow. After school. End call,” he says. “F.R.I.D.A.Y., call Pepper.”
“Yes, Tony?” Pepper’s pinched voice tells him he’s possibly interrupted her during something important. He scans back in his memory. Oh, yes - a fundraising event for the September Foundation, one that he probably should’ve made an appearance at.
“Pep, the kid is coming here. Tomorrow.”
“Kid?”
“You know. The kid.”
“Oh, Peter Parker,” she says, her tone warming a little. “What’s the occasion?”
“I’m an idiot, that’s what the occasion is. I was listening to one of his frankly hilarious voicemails - I mean, he doesn’t know I listen to them per se, but then again he must know because he knows that I know that he quit band practice-”
“Tony-”
“Okay. Yeah. So May just abandoned him to go gallivanting off to San Francisco and the kid’s festering in their apartment by himself and I felt like, if he starves to death or has a bad trip during a house party and drowns in the toilet that’s kind of on me, isn’t it? As one of the two adults in his life who understand his, uh, unique genetic circumstances - actually I don’t think I do understand, really, who knows what happens if he takes LSD? Can spiders absorb LSD?”
Pepper is clearly amused. “So you’re making sure he’s okay.”
“Ugh,” Tony groans.
“I think it’s a good idea,” she says gently. “We can have him over for dinner, at least make sure he gets a good meal in him.”
“It’s not a good idea and I regret it already,” Tony argues. “What the hell am I supposed to do with a thirteen-year-old for an entire evening? Let alone a freaky...enhanced...wall-crawling thirteen-year-old?”
“He’s fifteen, Tony,” Pepper chides. “Just talk to him. Spend time with him,” she says, and he wants to ask how she knows anything about thirteen-year-olds then remembers that Pepper knows everything. “Show him your lab, I bet he’d be thrilled.” She makes a quick kissing noise into the phone and promptly hangs up on him.
“Fuck,” Tony says into the quiet of the lab. Language, he can almost hear Steve echo back.
-
For once, the kid’s mouth is shut.
Well, not shut. It’s hanging open. There’s just no sound coming out of it. He’s stuck to Happy’s side like glue, clutching his backpack in front of him with both arms, eyes boggled.
“This is the kitchen,” Tony gestures. “Espresso machine’s over there. Don’t touch that, you’re too young for coffee. Don’t touch the yoghurt in the fridge either, that’s Nat’s and she could have your skinny mutant ass laid out in a second flat.”
“N-nat? As in, Natasha Romanoff, as in Black Widow?” Tony didn’t think it was possible for the kid’s ridiculous cartoon eyes to open any wider, but there they go.
And he’s proven wrong again when they reach Tony’s lab.
“Please don’t cry,” Tony begs the kid, seeing a tell-tale shine in his eye. “Other people’s tears give me heartburn.”
“Okay, Mr. Stark,” the kid chokes. “It’s just...so beautiful.”
Tony bites back a laugh, and raises his eyebrow. “Yeah, it’s okay. Shall we take a look at your suit?”
Parker reverently places his backpack on a stool, for some inexplicable reason takes his shoes off and lays them neatly by the door, and then crouches down next to DUM-E.
“Hi,” he breathes, “I’m Peter.”
Tony does not successfully bite his laugh back this time, but manages to turn it into a sort of choking cough. Happy raises an eyebrow at him.
“Can I leave you two alone now, or...”
“Yeah, I think I can take it from here,” Tony says, and is surprised to find he means it.
A couple questions about Parker’s experimental web fluid formulas sets the motor mouth off again, and the kid doesn’t slow down until Pepper comes in at dinnertime and breaks up a debate on compromising the effectiveness of the web fluid solvent for more fire retardancy in the webs themselves. At that point Parker is forced to choose between shoveling lobster bisque into his mouth and arguing with Tony about the likelihood of a secured perp accidentally catching on fire whilst trapped in webbing (which Iron Man doesn’t see the problem with, really, but Spider-Man is a pacifist at heart.) Pepper, in that graceful way she has, manages to overcome the kid’s total awe of her and gets him chatting easily on the topic of his friends and extracurriculars.
“So, how long is your aunt out of town for, Peter?” Pepper asks, refilling his glass of iced tea.
“Thanks, Ms. Potts, I hope I’m not eating too much soup, this is delicious. She went to the International Conference on Family Nursing & Health Care - you know, she wants to transition out of OR, maybe become a home care nurse - and when her hospital offered up this conference in San Francisco like, all expenses paid, in the exact field she wants I was like ‘May, you gotta go, you gotta go,’” here he puts on an Aunt May voice, “and she was like ‘But what are you gonna do by yourself for a week?’ and I’m like ‘No May, it’s cool, all I have to do is feed myself right?’ Totally cool. I can feed myself for a week. Ned’s mom won’t let him come over though because there’s no adults around and she’s really strict. I get it, so I just go patrolling most nights and -”
“Slow your roll, Spiderling,” Tony says, holding up a hand. “You’re looking out for yourself out there, right? No unnecessary risks without your on-call nurse, you got it?”
“Yes, Mr. Stark,” Peter says, respectfully, but Tony can hear a hint of eyeroll in his tone. Pepper grins at him over the rim of her wine glass, which he pretends not to notice.
In the end, Pepper sends him home with a backpack full of food and Tony sends him home with slightly more fire-retardant web fluid. Spider-Man wins this time, he thinks.
Later that night, while skimming through Baby Monitor Protocol footage from the past week, he gets a text.
(Scary Aunt May) 22:03
You’re still an egomaniac asshole, but thanks for feeding Peter.
(TS) 22:05
Are you hitting on me?
She never responds, but it’s the first time she’s used his number since he gave it to her after the Moving Day incident.
(TS) 22:29
Tell the kid he’s coming over again after decathlon practice next Friday.
(HAP-E) 23:14
Tell him yourself.
(TS) 23:15
That would mean he would have my number.
(TS) 23:16
I’m maintaining professional boundaries.
(HAP-E) 23:17
Whatever you say.
-
The eighth time Tony invites the kid to the tower, it’s sort of become something resembling a routine. Every Friday after decathlon practice, with May’s reluctant acquiescence, the kid drops by for a couple hours of lab work and then dinner with Tony and Pepper. Rhodey joins them a few times after physical therapy - he loves to cook and the kid inhales everything in front him with absolute relish, so they get along well right away (after Peter gets over his speechless, bug-eyed I’m eating roast pork sandwiches made by War Machine stupor.)
After dinner, while they’re both elbows-deep in yet another fabric test for the Spider-Suit, Peter is uncharacteristically subdued.
“What’s up, kid? It’s so quiet in here that it’s creeping me out. F.R.I.D.A.Y., can we get some background music going if the kid’s not going to talk? Smooth jazz?”
“I’m, uh, concentrating, Mr. Stark.”
“That’s not true. You’re incapable of silent reflection. We both know your mouth directly powers your brain, like a wind-up motor.”
Peter’s ears redden and his lips do that funny thing where he looks like he’s trying to swallow a live frog. Tony lets him do the frog thing for a couple minutes. He’s learned over the years that silence following a question is a shockingly effective interrogation tactic.
“Mr. Stark, what’s gonna happen when my suit doesn’t need any more upgrades?”
“Good question. I guess when your suit is powerful enough you could fly to space, track down Thor, and challenge him to a punching contest for dominion over Asgard.”
“That’s not what I meant,” the kid says peevishly.
“What did you mean, then? Jesus, kid, you can always upgrade your gear.” Tony gestures to the Iron Man MK. 87 prototype in the corner.
“I guess.” Peter bends his head back down to his work, and makes a valiant attempt to act normally from that point on, although Tony can tell his heart isn’t in it.
It hits him a couple hours after the kid goes back home.
Well...it’s not that it hits him out of the blue, per se. It’s moreso that Pepper sighs fondly at him, tells him what it is, and then presses a kiss to his temple before rolling over and nestling under the covers. Tony digs his phone out from under his pillow.
(TS) 00:08
What would you think about coming over again tomorrow? Watch a movie or something?
(Sticky Fingers McGee) 00:08
who is this?
(Sticky Fingers McGee) 00:14
mr. Stark????
(TS) 00:15
Implied by the ‘again.’ Don’t put me in your phone under a stupid contact name.
(Sticky Fingers McGee) 00:16
i would never sir
(Sticky Fingers McGee) 00:16
you wont put me under anything embarrassing either right :)))
(TS) 00:18
Wouldn’t dream of it. You in tomorrow? Yes/no?
(Sticky Fingers McGee) 00:18
yes
(Sticky Fingers McGee) 00:18
:smile: :thumbs-up: :sunglasses: :COOL: :up-arrow: :100: :rocket:
(TS) 00:25
:robot:
-
They stick to the Friday schedule, for the most part, but every now and again they take a break from the lab. Sometimes they’ll pick a movie, always Tony’s choice. (“This is not a democracy, kid. This is a dictatorship, and in my dictatorship it’s a literal crime that you haven’t seen The Goonies.”) Sometimes they’ll sit in the kitchen and Peter will work on homework while Tony taps away on his StarkPad.
Tony decides, in the name of establishing appropriate, professional mentor/mentee boundaries, that they will only text about logistics. For example, if Peter’s decathlon practice runs late, or if Tony thinks of an improvement to the Spider-Suit that he wants the kid to ponder on before their next lab session.
Or if Karen reports damage to the suit, in which case Tony feels the need to send a text reminding Parker that he’s cavorting around in a multi-million-dollar asset, so please at least make an attempt to avoid lunatics in the park with machetes, healing factor notwithstanding. (Yes, this counts as logistics, as he will inevitably be the one to foot the repair bill.)
(TS) 14:32
Reviewing Karen’s footage from Tues. The hell was that crazy jump backwards off the Citigroup building? I can’t fix your suit if you hit the ground from 50 floors up and liquefy inside it.
(George of the Jungle) 14:33
im in class mr. stark
(TS) 14:33
For god’s sake, pay attention in class, Parker. You’re going to fail Spanish at this rate.
(TS) 14:34
Answer my question.
(George of the Jungle) 14:36
well my spidey senses were going wild and there wasnt time to think so i just kinda yeeted myself off
(George of the Jungle) 14:36
good thing too there was totally a mugging in the alleyway :100: :thumbs-up: spidey senses strike again :star: :heart-eyes:
Tony wants to leave it. He really does. He knows if he asks what yeeted is, he will officially be venturing out of the boundaries of “professional” and into the horrific nihilistic swamp of Gen Z culture.
Tony can’t leave it.
(TS) 15:47
What, pray tell, is “yeeted”
(George of the Jungle) 15:47
past tense of yeet :nerd-glasses-face:
(George of the Jungle) 15:48
you know. when you yeet something, or someone, or yourself
(George of the Jungle) 15:48
or like when you drop a fire meme and you caption it with #YEET kind of like a mic drop
(TS) 16:28
So is it a verb, or a noun, or what?
(George of the Jungle) 16:28
its a way of life
He can’t help laughing, but he also sort of wants to punch himself in the face. Teenagers are the worst.
From then on the texts escalate, and soon they’re checking in nearly every day. Tony starts texting May more often, too, and for the longest time she ignores him, but he persists. He sends weekly updates on the suit and tidbits from the Baby Monitor footage he thinks she’ll enjoy (like when Peter helps lost old ladies and they pinch his cheeks through the mask). He wears her down and after awhile she sends him a couple texts back, like when Peter makes an A+ on a Calculus quiz after a week of grueling study or when he gets an A+ on a P.E. fitness test because he’s not paying attention and forgets he’s supposed to be a skinny nerd.
Eventually he creates a group chat consisting of himself, Happy, May and Pepper and christens it “Fun-Killing Old Farts.” With admirable restraint, he refrains from nicknaming anyone in the chat. For now.
(Pepper Potts) 19:26
Is he eating more the past few weeks, or is it just me? I thought he was going to choke on his pad thai last night, he was throwing it down so fast.
(May Parker) 20:02
Not just you. RIP, my grocery bill
(Happy Hogan) 21:06
Growing pains? Is that why he was such a little jerk in the car?
(Happy Hogan) 21:07
Told me I drive like a nervous old lady, which is still a hundred times nicer than the boss’s backseat commentary
(Pepper Potts) 21:15
Your driving is impeccable, your boss wouldn’t know good driving if it hit him in the face.
(May Parker) 21:16
Yes, and Peter’s one to talk, he doesn’t even know how to drive
(Tony Stark) 22:04
Good driving wouldn’t hit you in the face, because good drivers don’t hit people. Christ, Pepper. Leave the witticisms to me.
-
Professional boundaries, Tony tells himself with increasing desperation, as he starts to find himself doing increasingly ridiculous things. Adding cereals with awful names like "Double Chocolate Cookie Crisp" and "Marshmallow-Blasted Froot Loops" to the weekly grocery list. Creating a folder on his StarkPhone in which he saves all the stupid memes the kid sends him, even though he doesn’t understand half of them.
Professional boundaries, Tony thinks with a long sigh, the first time the kid falls asleep at his place. He looks like someone has dropped him onto the couch from very high up, faceplanted into the cushions with his limbs flung akimbo. Against his better judgment, Tony drapes a throw over the gangly body and settles into the armchair opposite, unlocking his StarkPad and settling in to catch up on his news alerts.
“I’m not just sitting here watching him sleep,” he stage-whispers to Pepper, gesturing to his StarkPad, when she walks in the door. “That would be creepy.”
“Of course,” Pepper stage-whispers back. The kid lets out a mighty snore.
Tony kind of hates to wake him and send him home for the night, but he’s also kind of relieved. Pepper has asked him about keeping Peter overnight every now and again but for some reason he’s resistant to the idea.
For some reason.
The reason becomes apparent one night at 2 a.m., when he hears a muffled tapping on the window of his lab. It’s different than the steady patter of the rain that’s been falling since the previous afternoon. Just barely.
He warily gestures to F.R.I.D.A.Y. to remotely unlatch the window as nanotech forms an Iron Man arm around his own, readies a repulsor, and takes aim. There's a beat, then Spider-Man falls in, a tangled, soaked mess of limbs. He lands with a wet splat on the lab floor.
“Kid?” Tony says, when Peter doesn’t move.
“Kid? ” This time, there’s no keeping the edge of panic out of his voice, but for some reason he can’t bring himself to cross the floor towards that still, huddled form. Something about it makes his stomach roil.
“Mr. Stark,” the kid croaks, and suddenly Tony comes unstuck.
“Lovely, you’re alive,” he says sharply, crossing the room in two quick strides and kneeling down. “So let's rewind a little, and you can explain why the fuck you’re climbing 68 stories at two in the morning in pouring rain.” He grabs Peter roughly by the shoulders as F.R.I.D.A.Y. takes Karen’s diagnostic scan and projects it to Tony’s glasses.
“Um,” the kid says, fighting to keep his eyes from rolling back into his head. There is a rather alarming dark stain spreading across the front of his suit.
“You’re alright,” Tony snaps. “Eyes open, kid.” Shattered ankle, F.R.I.D.A.Y. recites softly into his earpiece. Multiple contusions. Mild concussion. Stab wound, left-side abdomen.
Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.
He rolls Peter onto his back and out of the quickly-forming pool of blood, and shrugs out of his hoodie, which he balls up and uses to apply pressure to the knife wound. After a moment he places Peter's hands on the hoodie and presses down firmly, before removing his own hands and staggering over to the first-aid kit he keeps in the corner of the lab. Thank God for Bruce's obsession with lab safety is the ridiculous thing that crosses his mind in that moment.
It takes all of five breaths, one of which he uses to pause and very quietly whisper fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck out into the darkness.
In that few breaths Peter’s face has managed to lose its little remaining color. Tony grits his teeth and sets about cleaning the wound with saline solution. Nothing he can do - he doesn’t have any of Peter’s blood set aside for an emergency transfusion (fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck) and the wound is clotting now anyways. The stab is thankfully shallow and appears to have missed any vital areas. Once the site is clean of visible debris, he slathers it with antiseptic and then covers the whole thing with a sterile gauze. “Parker,” he says, as the kid’s mouth starts to go slack. “Hey.”
“Yeah, sorry,” Peter grumbles, forcing his eyes back open. “I’m awake.”
They sit there for a very long time, Peter splayed across Tony's lap, both covered in blood. A hint of color returns to Peter’s cheeks and the healing factor begins to visibly knit his shattered ankle back together. It seems to be reforming properly, Tony notices with relief, so he won’t have to break the kid’s ankle again and re-set it.
For a very long time the only sound in the room is their breathing - Peter's, slow and shallow; Tony's, rough and ragged - and the rain continuing its unceasing patter against the window.
“So,” Tony finally says, low and dangerous. “Let’s take this from the top, shall we?”
“Mr. Stark,” Peter says, barely keeping the edge out of his voice. “They were going to hurt this guy. Three of them. They’d been following him for blocks.”
“Exactly how did three lowlife jackasses beat the ever-living shit out of you?” Tony demands, resisting the urge to shake Peter by the shoulders. “They’re civilians. You’re enhanced.”
“I was fine until the knife. It threw me off my game. I’ve never been...”
Tony knows, logically, that being stabbed is terrifying. It’s on a whole other level than punches, or even bullets or alien death rays. Something about the up-close-and-personal nature of it, the devastating damage that can be inflicted even by a well-placed pocketknife. This does nothing to quell his sudden anger; in fact, it possibly makes it worse.
“Don’t get fucking stabbed, then,” he hears himself say. He’s completely lost control of the situation. “You see a knife, you run. Do you understand me?”
“What the fuck,” Peter says, and it comes out as something resembling a sob. “No. There’s no way I’m going to sit there and do nothing while someone bleeds out again. What is the fucking point of being enhanced, then?”
Again? Tony wonders dimly, but his attention is diverted as Peter struggles to sit up.
"Hey," he says warningly, but Peter shrugs Tony's hands off his shoulders and crawls over to the wall, carefully adhering himself.
“Thanks for the patch-up, Mr. Stark,” he mutters, heaving himself towards the window. “I’m really sorry about all the blood.”
“What? Where are you going? You are not going back out that window.”
“I’m fine.” Even injured, Peter is faster than Tony, and he's already on the ceiling.
“Parker, you are not going out that fucking window. Peter.”
The use of his given name stops the kid in his tracks. For no discernible reason, Tony's every cell is hit with an awareness that this is an important moment.
He fucks it up anyways.
“Why did you come here?" He hates the words as they're forming on his lips, but they tumble out regardless. "May’s a nurse, she'd be...better at this, wouldn't she?”
The kid’s face takes on a pinched look, weary and childish all at the same time. “It’s because...May...”
Tony is easily able to extrapolate. Knew how to answer his own question before he'd finished speaking it. May loves me too much to see this. May’s heart would break.
Yeah, well, kid, what about mine?
This is why he needs to stop buying cereal and memorizing the kid’s school schedule and Googling Gen Z slang. This is why the kid can’t stay overnight. He needs to be able to handle times like this. He can’t fall apart when Peter crumples in through his window covered in blood and dirt.
Professional boundaries, he thinks, as he watches Peter flip gracefully and silently back out the window. He quells the knot in his stomach that forms as the kid’s silhouette swings away into the distance. Resists the urge to ask F.R.I.D.A.Y. about the efficacy of web fluid in rainy conditions. Sets to the grisly task of mopping up the blood on the floor.
-
That Friday, neither of them directly mentions the reason they’re repairing the suit, treating the long slash in the fabric like an academic problem rather than the physical evidence of violence. They chat easily about tensile strength, and more breathable weaves, and when the food arrives and Pepper calls them up, conversation flows naturally into the weird assemblage of topics that they usually cover over dinner - ranging from third period physics to shareholder meetings.
Tony knows he should leave well enough alone, but he also knows he can’t. Has never once been able to leave well enough alone in his entire life.
“Peter,” he says, testing the name, which startles the kid out of his face-first assault on a bowl of fried rice.
“Yef, Mr. Fark?” Peter manages around a disgustingly large mouthful.
“Want to crash here tonight? It’s getting late, and we’ve got the guest bedroom set up.”
Peter’s eyes light up immediately, in a way that makes Tony feel like he needs an antacid. The kid chews and swallows his bite so fast that Pepper lifts a hand as if she might be called upon to perform the Heimlich maneuver any second now.
“Yeah,” Peter says. “Yeah! Yeah. I’d, uh...yeah, I’d love that, Mr. Stark. I just have to check with May. I mean, only if it isn’t a problem for you. I can sleep on the couch. The couch is really comfortable.”
“We have ten guest bedrooms in the Tower, and zero guests at the moment, so I think we can squeeze you in. I okayed it with May earlier today.”
Peter is predictably over the moon about the guest bedroom, which is “like, the fanciest place I’ve ever slept in, even fancier than that sick hotel room in Berlin” and over the sleepwear laid out for him (“Wow, Stark Industries-branded sweatpants! You know these sell for like, fifty bucks a pop on eBay?”) After brushing his teeth he jumps up on the bed with freakish agility, bounces once, and then hurls himself into the pillows face-first and is out cold minutes later.
Meanwhile Tony stays up late into the night. He contemplates professional boundaries and the look on the kid’s face as he flipped out the window and “while someone bleeds out again.” Resists the urge to poke his head in and check on Peter as he passes the guest room on his way to bed, finally, at three in the morning.
He wakes up after too little sleep and wanders into the kitchen. Peter is there, slumped over the kitchen island, slowly cramming spoonfuls of Double Chocolate Cookie Crisp into his mouth, hair tousled and sticking up every which way, and Tony realizes with sudden clarity that he’s fighting a losing battle. Maybe not today, maybe he can put it off for a while, but someday he’s just going to have to give up and love this stupid kid and take the hit of gory patch jobs every now and again so that May doesn’t have to. She deserves that much, at least, and so does Peter, and Tony will happily pay that price if it means he gets to wake up every now and again to a grumpy stinky teenager splashing milk and sugary cereal all over his nice counters.
“Good morning, you filthy animal,” Tony says, and he can’t even begin to disguise the fondness in his tone.