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Two hours. Two damn hours of sitting through another meeting of God knows what. Tony wasn't really paying attention. He didn't have the energy to do so. Counting the tick tick ticks of the clock seemed far more interesting than this godforsaken conference.
He suddenly felt a stab of pain on his shin and when he turned, leaning over the table to grab at his leg, he was met with Pepper glowering at him, mouthing, "Pay attention."
Tony rolled his eyes and turned his sight to the man going over a slideshow. He could swear that half an hour ago, when he was actually paying attention, there was a different spokesperson. This was how boring this meeting is!
As if whoever was calling him was reading his mind, his phone rang in his pocket, interrupting the flow of the meeting. All eyes were on him as Tony fished it out and turned it on only to see "Underoos" and a picture of the teen on the screen. The picture was of Peter hanging from the ceiling with his old suit on with a grin on his face as he posed with his hand in the natural "Spiderman pose." The teen had taken Tony's phone while he was away in the bathroom and took a billion pictures with it. It wasn't until months later, when they were getting closer, that Tony found them in his gallery and changed his contact photo to one of the billions Peter had taken.
He tried to hold back the smile that was threatening to form upon his face and stood up. "Sorry, have to take this. It's a very important call."
Pepper could kill with the look on her face, but before she could say anything, he darted from the room and he heard the man continuing the presentation behind him.
Tony sighed as he walked the halls, getting as far away from the room as possible, and pushing the green button on his screen. "Thank god, kid. I've been sitting for two hours in this meeting and my leg is asleep."
It wasn't unusual for Peter to call him at random hours of the day. Or the night. The kid knew that Tony had trouble sleeping and that he was awake for ungodly hours of the night. Sometimes his anxiety and the nightmares didn't let him shut his eyes, so he stayed awake, working in the lab and drinking coffee that he knew would only make things worse.
He had turned down the habit though as Peter would often swing by and hide all the coffee and make him watch a movie until they both fell asleep. God, was the teen a huge help. It should be the other way around and Tony sometimes felt pathetic that a sixteen-year-old could comfort him so much. But it also made them that much closer and he wouldn't have it any other way.
"Oh, I'm sorry, Mr-"
"No, Pete, I'm actually glad you called. Unless you got hurt during patrol." His tone changed to worry. "Did you get hurt? Wait no, you normally don't call, you just try to hide until you almost bleed to death."
"Oh, haha. I'm not injured. I'm just bored." He dragged out the last word for emphasis.
"You and me both, kiddo." Tony felt himself feel a little lighter just from this conversation alone. "Tell me about your day."
There was a slight pause and then in an incredulous tone, Peter asked, "About my day?"
"Well, we gotta start somewhere, kid. I'd honestly pay you a billion bucks to hear you ramble instead of being here even for ten minutes."
He would. He honestly liked Peter's remblings, not that he would admit that to the kid himself. And even when Tony got a little annoyed, he still reminded himself that he wouldn't have it any other way because he had his kid in his life. And what more could he want?
"Aww, thanks. . . I think," Peter being Peter couldn't tell if Tony was being genuine or not. "Anyway, it wasn't that interesting of a day, to be honest. But I did go to the band room to build legos with Ned instead of staying in PE."
"Pete, you need to stop doing that. You're gonna fail that class." He said in such a stern voice that if anybody were to hear him, they would definitely assume that Tony Stark had a kid.
Peter snorted. "Says the man who is more than happy to ditch his very important meeting to talk to me."
"It's not that important." Tony retorted. "Besides, you called me, so it's kinda your fault."
"Well, I just know you, and I knew you needed a little saving." He chuckled. "What's the meeting about?"
The man racked his brain but fell short of an answer. "Ah, don't want to bore you with any of that."
"You don't know what it's about, do you?" Tony could hear the boy's smile.
The man rolled his eyes. "Hey, it's that boring. You can't blame me."
"Then you can't blame me either. I don't need that class, Mr. Stark. I'm Spiderman, I get exercise every day. Anyway, we're almost done building the Millenium Falcon, you know the ship from Star Wars? It has more than 70,000 pieces, Tony! It's so cool."
Tony couldn't help but chuckle at that. The teen had just used his own words against him, but he couldn't get himself to be mad at him. It filled him with such joy to hear his excited ramblings and to hear him finally call him by his first name, sign that they were getting closer.
"Glad to hear. Oh, hey, don't freak out, but King T'challa and Princess Shuri are coming over tomorrow-"
"What??" Tony winced at Peter's scream and he lifted his phone away from his ear. "Princess Shuri and King T'challa are coming over? Why didn't you lead with that-"
"Pete, calm down, you're gonna rupture my eardrum. And yes, they're coming over. I only just found out an hour ago. Just thought I'd give you a heads up."
"Oh, my god, I'm gonna meet them." He rambled on about them and Tony let him. No, he would not openly admit that he actually liked the kid's ramblings or how him being so happy made Tony's heart burst with a sense of pride to be able to be that someone Peter could talk to about anything. No, he would never admit this to anyone, not even Pepper, though he had a huch she knew just how much he cared about Peter.
"Haven't you met them before?" Tony asked as Peter's ramblings came to a halt.
"Only in battle, but I'm actually going to meet them! Wait, do you think Princess Shuri would want to build a BB-8 with me?"
Tony laughed at Peter's enthusiasm. "I don't know, I haven't actually met them, but maybe. If I can, I'll ask."
"Oh, my god, thank you, Tony! You're the best!"
"Sure, anything for my kid." As soon as the words left his lips, he realized he had fucked up. Without another word, he hung up.
Shit.
He should've stayed at that meeting.