Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Hey, Mr. Stark!” The cheerful voice of Peter Parker echoes through the lab space. Tony looks up from the Iron Man schematics he was working on, failing to hide the fond smile that creeps up onto his face.

“Hey, kiddo. How was the field trip?” Tony would have never envisioned having a son—a teenager at that. He never thought he had what it took to take care of another human being—not when he could barely take care of himself on a good day. If it were any other child, he doesn’t think he’d be able to handle them. At first, he’d taken the poor kid in after hearing a sob story good enough for any orphan—first his parents in a plane crash, then his uncle in an armed robbery, then his aunt with cancer. It was honestly sad how much the kid had been through.

It’s not like he didn’t have the means to take care of a kid either. He had money, food, a roof to keep over his head—all that jazz that kids need. It’s not like he had anything better to do with Pepper off running the company, the Avengers in hiding, and Ross still refusing to let Iron Man help with any of the issues that popped up around the world.

But nothing could have prepared him for the curly brown-haired, doe-eyed boy that walked through the elevator with nothing more than an old, beat-up duffle bag and a backpack hanging on its last threads.

He knew the kid was smart—no one gets into Midtown School of Technology on a scholarship alone who isn’t, but he wasn’t prepared for the kid to immediately break out into an awe-struck rant about Tony’s scientific advancements and how it was an honour to meet one of the greatest minds. (Tony pretended to act offended by the kid’s words, saying he was the greatest mind, only for the kid to go on about Dr. Banner and Dr. Richards—he’s still not bitter about that, no siree).

Whilst Tony was completely out of his depth with this whole parenting thing, he learned that the kid loved to hang out with him in the lab, fiddling with his own little experiments or doing homework. It was so domestic that the Tony before would have probably been sick.

“It was awesome!” Peter discards his backpack underneath his personal workspace with a flourish. “We got to see Oscorp’s robotic dog prototype. It’s so cool. It even did a backflip!”

Tony raises a brow at him. “Oscorp? Really? A robot dog that does backflips? What’s the point of that? At least Stark Industries makes things that are useful. You’d think that a school as great as yours would go to a company that’s actually competent.”

“Oh, come on! Oscorp isn’t that bad. They had some other pretty cool stuff—like their huge bioengineering lab. It was so awesome! We got to see some of their projects. There were a bunch of radioactive spiders, which was kinda creepy—especially since one of them got loose, but they said it was okay; the one that escaped wasn’t harmful to humans. They said they were experimenting with cockroaches too, but that’s where I drew the line.” Peter sticks out his tongue, face twisting up at the thought of the creepy creatures.

“As long as you didn’t bring any creepy crawlies home with you, that’s fine by me,” Tony says, eyes narrowing at the thought of a stowaway spider getting loose in the tower. Peter laughs at him before going over to his lab station, where he’s been working on a project for his engineering elective.

Tony and Peter get lost in their heads, each working on their own project, Tony’s lab playlist playing in the background to disrupt the quiet. It’s only when Jarvis reminds them to take a break to eat that they pause. “How does pizza sound?” Tony asks, barely looking up from the schematics to his suit.

“Only if we can get Hawaiian,” Peter counters.

Tony’s head snaps over at him, his face screwed up. “You are an absolute heathen, Peter Parker. Pineapple on pizza is a crime—a federal crime. I should arrest you right now!”

Peter chuckles. “You wouldn’t arrest your favourite lab buddy, would you?”

“If he likes pineapple on pizza, I just might have to.”

“Oh, come on, Mr. Stark,” Peter goads. “It’s not that bad.”

“Not that—Not that bad? Are you kidding me?” Tony cries in mock outrage. “I am going to disown you!”

“Please, Mr. Stark,” Peter pleads, using his sad bambi brown eyes against his father.

Tony points accusingly at him. “Now that’s just not fair, kid.”

“Pretty please with a cherry on top?” Peter pouts leaning his head closer to Tony with the saddest eyes Tony’s ever seen.

Tony playfully shoves his head away. “Now you’re just overdoing it. I guess I’ll allow you to eat that crime against food. But don’t think that I will ever forgive you for this betrayal. I really thought you were my kid, but no self-respecting Italian would ever go to the dark side like that.”

“Good thing I’m only like 50% Italian then, right?” Peter smirks as Tony grabs the phone to order pizza.

“That should be enough Italian to know that you’re committing an atrocity.”

Tony orders the food—one Hawaiian and one supreme pizza. Peter tells him more about the field trip as they eat—Tony interrupts every once and a while to tell him how Stark Industries is better. They go back to work in the lab when they’re finished eating, promises of a late-night movie hanging in the air.

The fever hits Peter like a freight train, slamming into him out of nowhere. He stares at the project in front of him, vision blurring together. His insides boil, skin flushed and damp with sweat. He sets down the screwdriver he was using on the table, blinking as the metal underneath it warps slightly.

“Pete?” Mr. Stark’s voice is muffled against the blood rushing in his ears.

A chill sweeps through his body, causing him to violently shiver as he stands up from the workbench. Vision blackening at the edges, he sways on his feet as nausea curls through his stomach. He grips onto the metal workspace in an attempt to steady himself, not seeing or hearing the metal warping under his fingers.

“Jesus, Peter,” he hears beside him as a warm arm is draped around his waist. The familiar comforting scent of his father sends another wave of nausea coursing through his body. Hunching over on himself, Peter swallows back the saliva gathering in his mouth.

“I’on’t feel so good,” he murmurs, head spinning as he attempts to make his way to the bathroom. He can’t get sick in Mr. Stark’s lab. He crashes into Stark, body trembling violently. Tony guides the kid to the restroom, most of his weight resting against the older man as he stumbles to the bathroom.

“I knew pineapple on pizza was bad, but I didn’t think it was that bad,” Tony says, a poor attempt at humour to disguise the terror flooding through his veins. This is the first time Peter has gotten sick under his care—and it definitely hadn’t escaped his notice that the kid had bent fucking metal with his bare hands.

Peter groans from over the toilet, arms wrapped around his stomach. Tony grimaces, placing a hand on the kid’s back. He recoils upon feeling the damp fabric under his skin. Brows furrowing, he asks Jarvis to run a scan. “I’m going to call in a doctor, okay, Peter?”

“Don’ leave,” Peter cries, pathetic, tear-filled eyes shining up at him. Tony’s heart twists inside his chest at the sight.

“Wouldn’t dream of it, kiddo,” Tony says, brushing back the damp hair sticking to Peter’s forehead. “Jarvis, can you get a doctor, someone close by. We need to get him checked out right now.”

“Of course, sir. Dr. Cho is in one of the labs a few floors down. Would you like me to summon her?”

“Yes, tell her it’s urgent.”

“Of course, sir. Upon your request, I have scanned Mr. Parker. It would appear that his body temperature is dangerously high. I would recommend getting him down to the medical bay as soon as possible.”

“Peter, buddy, I need you to get up,” Mr. Stark says, voice tight. “C’mon, kiddo. Let’s get you down to the med bay.”

“I’m tired, Mr Stark,” Peter whines in protest, eyes drooping and head dropping.

“No, come on, Peter. Don’t pass out on me now.” Tears burn at the corners of Tony’s eyes, his heart beating frantically as he wraps an arm under Peter’s arms. He helps Peter stand up, holding him up as his body sways dangerously.

“I don’t feel so good, Mr. Stark. What’s… what’s happening to me?” Peter chokes on a sob as his vision fades in and out. His entire body trembles with the exertion of standing. His body feels like it’s on fire.

“I don’t know, buddy,” Mr. Stark says. “We need to get to the elevator, okay? Just hang on a little longer.”

With great difficulty, Peter and Tony stagger to the elevator. Peter’s knees give way from underneath him three times, and he crashes into Tony’s side at least five separate times before they finally make it to the elevator. Tony holds onto Peter as the elevator descends, his heart breaking as the kid shakes with the force of his sobs. “It hurts,” he wails, clutching on tight to his father’s arm. Mr. Stark doesn’t have the heart to push him off, even if the grip his kid is using is strong enough to leave bruises.

The elevator arrives on the medical floor, where Dr. Cho and two other doctors are waiting for them with a gurney. They help Stark load him onto the gurney. Peter doesn’t let go of Mr. Stark’s shirt as they wheel him to the nearest medical room. He snivels fretfully as the doctors try to make him let go of Mr. Stark.

“Please, no,” he whimpers. “I want my dad! Don’t leave me, please!”

Mr. Stark’s heart stops in his chest, staring uncomprehending at the kid. He’s never called him that before. The tears he’s been pushing down begin to creep down his face. “It’s okay, kiddo. I’m right over here. They need to look you over, but I’m staying in the room, okay? You’re going to be alright.”

Peter mumbles something back, incoherent as his eyes roll back in his head. Tony’s entire world stops as Peter grows eerily still, eyes closed and tears shining on his cheeks. He can’t hear what the doctors are saying over the buzzing in his ears. His lungs do overtime as he watches his son get poked and prodded. His heart rate is abnormal, his temperature is rising higher and higher with each passing minute. Oh god, he thinks, this can’t be how I lose him. Not now, not so soon. He just finally started to relax around me; I can’t lose my son, not like this.

“-ter Stark? Mister Stark?” a voice drifts through his internal chaos. He looks up to see Dr. Cho standing over him with furrowed brows. Blinking, Tony briefly wonders how exactly he ended up on the floor before standing back up.

“What’s wrong with him?” Tony asks, voice garbled with gravel. He glances back over to his son, pale and shivering on the hospital bed.

“We found a spider bite on the back of his neck. Has he been outside the country or somewhere that he could have come into contact with any dangerous spiders?”

“Fucking Oscorp,” Tony mutters, murder in his eyes. “He went on a field trip to Oscorp today. One of their lab spiders got loose. They said it wasn’t dangerous!” Tony fumes, pulling up his phone to call his lawyers. He was going to sue Oscorp so hard, they’d be drowning in legal fees for the rest of their miserable lives.

“Did they do any experiments on the spider before it bit him?”

“Hell if I know,” Tony grumbles.

“Statton, get samples right now. We need to make sure the patient didn’t contract anything from the spider.”

“On it!” the younger man chirps, digging through one of the drawers.

Tony curses under his breath as he pulls up Oscorp’s website—an announcement of a science panel with radioactive spiders set for this upcoming Friday is displayed on the front page. “The spider may have been radioactive.”

Tony watches as Cho’s face blanches, and a pit settles in his stomach. This is bad, really bad.

“What can you do? How can we help him?” Tony asks, ready to pull out his hair. He had always joked that the kid was trying to give him grey hairs because he was always so clumsy and had the self-preservation skills of a moth drawn to the flame. This, though… this really took the cake.

“We can give him treatment for the radiation, but nothing like this has ever been documented. I’m not entirely sure that it will do anything at this point. We’ll give him drugs to help alleviate the pain and put him to sleep.” Dr. Cho looks back at the kid. “You should stay with him. The drugs should be taking effect soon, but I know he’d want you by his side.” She gives him a pained look before making her way to the door.

Which… no… this can’t be it. He has to be okay. He’s going to make it, he just has to.

Sighing, Tony trudges over to Peter’s bedside. Peter’s entire body shakes, silent tears roll down his face—Tony’s certain the image will haunt him for the rest of his days. He grabs onto one of Peter’s hands; they’re clammy and incredibly warm. He hopes the contact is comforting—hopes that Peter knows that he’s there—he’ll always be there for his kid, always.

“Is’so cold, dad,” Peter croaks, slurring his words. Tony’s heart leaps, eyes darting to Peter’s face. Tears creep down Tony’s face; he’s never been so terrified—not in Afghanistan, not in Monaco, not at the disasterous night at the Expo, not when he flew that nuke into space, not when Wanda showed him his worst nightmare, not when Steve tried to kill him with that damn shield—nothing could ever hold a candle to the sight of his child, his precious Peter lying in a hospital bed, looking like death warmed over.

“It’s okay, Peter, you’re gonna be okay,” Tony choked out because Peter had to be okay. He had to make it out of this okay. He couldn’t bear to think of the alternative. “Just get some rest now—let the drugs do their job. I’ll be here when you wake up.”

“It hurts,” Peter mewls, face scrunching up. “Make it stop, Dad, please make it stop.”

Tony chokes on a sob, reaching up to wipe the sweat off of Peter’s forehead. “The drugs should kick in soon, okay, buddy? Just hold on. You’re being so strong, kiddo. Just hold on a little longer.”

He continues to hold his son’s hand as he shivers and sobs. “Dad?” Peter mumbles, eyes drooping. “Am I going to die? I don’t wanna die. Please, I don’ wanna die, Dad.”

Tony’s heart stops in his chest, his insides feel like they’ve been carved out and filled with lead bricks. “You’re not going to die, kid,” he says, hating the fact that he might very well be lying to his son. “You’re not allowed to die, y’hear me?”

“Mr. Stark?” Peter blinks up at him, confused, and his eyes glazed over. “I love you, Mr. Stark… is that okay? I… you’re the best dad ever. I’m sorry.”

The tears Tony’s been trying his best to keep hidden stream down Tony’s face, heart aching. Tony can’t take this—he swears if the kid keeps saying shit like this, he’s going to carve out every piece of Tony’s blackened heart. “Why are you sorry?”

“You don’ like the whole ‘feelings’ thing. It’s okay if you don’t love me too, or think of me as your son… I… I don’t want you to feel like you have to… I just… You’re a great dad.”

“Oh, kiddo,” Tony gasps, clutching Peter’s hand tighter. “I… I love you too. You’re… you’re such a great kid. Get some rest, okay? I’ll be right here when you wake up.”

Peter doesn’t fall into unconsciousness, however. The pain remains front and centre, hot and burning.

“Why aren’t the drugs working?” Tony yells at the poor nurse that’s monitoring Peter’s condition.

“I’m sorry, sir, I don’t know,” the nurse stammers, fiddling with the medical equipment.

“Dr. Cho said that they should have taken effect soon, that was like fifteen minutes ago. I don’t know what constitutes for ‘soon’ in the medical world, but it’s not good enough. My son is in pain, and whatever drugs you guys gave him aren’t helping.”

“Mr. Stark, I’m doing everything–”

“You’re not doing enough, can’t you see how much pain he’s in?” Tony questions, gesturing wildly to the boy on the hospital bed. His entire body is flushed red, tiny whimpers and groans escape from him even if it’s clear he’s trying to hold back.

“I’m sorry, I can’t administer any more drugs–”

“Why not?”

“I’ve already given him the max dosage for a kid with his weight, any more could severely damage his brain or even kill him,” the woman explains.

Tony exhales shakily. “So what? He’s just… he’s just gonna have to go through the pain?”

The nurse purses her lips. “I’m afraid so. I paged Dr. Cho, but I don’t know if even she’ll be able to explain this.”

Tony feels as if his strings have been cut. He collapses into the chair at Peter’s bedside. If—no, when Peter makes it through this, Tony is never going to let the kid go on another field trip—scratch that, Peter is never leaving Tony’s sight after this. He’ll wrap him up in bubble wrap and keep him high in the tower where nothing can touch him.

He never understood why parents were so highly overprotective before. Now, though, he completely understands.

Tony spends the night at his son’s side, wiping away the sweat and tears from his face. Peter never falls asleep, too uncomfortable, too anguished to even get in the slightest wink of sleep. Let it be said that Tony is not a religious man—he’s probably the furthest from it, but for the first time in a long, long time, he prays. He prays to a god he isn’t even sure is there because he doesn’t know what else to do.

By the time the sun creeps back up, Tony and Peter haven’t slept a wink. The nurses and doctors had flitted in and out of the room the entire night, checking up on him, collecting samples for tests, doing anything they could to help the poor child.

Pepper, having just arrived from Stark Industries’ Los Angeles division, sweeps into the room with a cup of black coffee and get-well soon presents. Tony sets the coffee aside, grateful for the gesture, but entirely unable to even think of consuming anything at the moment. Meanwhile, Pepper fusses over the scratchy blankets, fixes Peter’s damp hair and holds back the tears threatening to surface.

Dr. Cho walks into the room, face grim. “Mr. Stark, Miss Potts, can I speak to you outside, please?”

A boulder settles inside Tony’s stomach, the worst scenarios flipping through his mind at an inhuman pace. He nearly topples over upon standing up—Pepper comes to his rescue as she supports him. They walk out of the room, arms linked and dreading the words that may follow.

Dr. Cho shuts the door behind them. “There’s something wrong with Peter.”

“Yeah, we know that already,” Tony says, furrowing his brows.

“No, Mr. Stark, you don’t understand… His DNA… It’s completely changed.”

“How is that possible?” Tony questions.

“It shouldn’t be possible. If anything, the radiation could have caused damage to his DNA—breaks or deletions—this… I’ve never seen something like this before.”

“What does that mean for Peter?” Pepper asks, clenching her hand around Tony’s bicep.

“I don’t know,” Cho says, sounding more defeated than she ever has before.

When they go back to the room, Peter’s eyes are closed, chest rising and falling rhythmically. It’s the most peaceful Tony has seen him since they sat down to enjoy their pizza. He wishes Peter would stay this way, wishes he would never be in such pain again.

It’s too much to hope for, he knows, but that doesn’t stop him from holding onto the fragile hope that maybe Peter could come out of this okay.

Peter wakes up ten hours later. In that time, Pepper somehow managed to convince Tony to eat something and change into a new set of clothes. It’s only due to the fact that there was a restroom attached to the room Peter was staying in that he did the latter. She tried to get him to take a shower—to get some of the grease from his arms off, but he shrugged her off, saying that he’d do it when Peter was okay again. She just gave him a sad look that he didn’t want to dissect.

“Mr. Stark?” Peter murmurs, sitting up on the bed.

“Woah there, kiddo,” Tony gently pushes his kid back to the bed. “I don’t think you should be getting up so soon. Jarvis, call the doctors.”

“I feel fine, Mr. Stark,” Peter protests.

Tony narrows his eyes at the kid. “You said the same thing when you had an allergic reaction to that salmon I gave you.”

“It wasn’t that bad,” Peter says.

“You wouldn’t stop throwing up! I thought you were going to hack up your stomach at the rate you were going!”

“Mr. Stark, you’re exaggerating! Besides, I feel completely fine now.”

“You were bitten by a radioactive spider. I don’t think anyone just walks away fine.” Tony grabs Peter’s glasses from the side of the table and hands them to him.

Peter takes them from him and puts them on. “Woah,” he immediately removes them from his face. “Why are they so blurry?”

“What do you mean?”

“I can’t see out of them,” Peter explains, brows furrowing. “…I can see just fine without them.”

“Peter, you have terrible vision. You’re not seriously telling me that suddenly it’s all just magically fixed,” Tony says, disbelief coursing through his tone.

Dr. Cho walks into the room in a flurry with a few nurses. “Peter, how are you feeling?”

“I feel completely fine,” Peter says.

Dr. Cho raises a disbelieving brow. “Okay, we’re just going to run some tests on you, is that alright?”

Peter nods his assent, sending the nurses into a flurry of movement. Tony watches, heart teetering on a precipice as he watches them check over his son.

When Dr. Cho pulls him aside later, results in hand, she tells him, “Peter shouldn’t have survived this. It’s a miracle he is alive.”

The words echo through his head, sending him back to that cold, damp cave where he was once told the very same thing. “So, how did he survive?” Stark asks.

“I don’t know.”

The answer doesn’t sit well with Tony. If there’s one thing that bothers him the most, it is the unknown. Whether it be worlds beyond theirs or an inexplicable cure to his son’s ailments, he needs to know the answers.

Pepper sighs upon seeing Tony drowning in notebooks of research down in the archives, where he shoved everything SHIELD had given him from his father. Every other route had come up empty, so now he’s left grasping at straws.

“Tony, you’re not going to find anything down here,” she says, exasperated as ever. “Why don’t you just give it up? Miracles happen sometimes. Maybe you should just be glad Peter made it out okay.”

“But what if he didn’t? What if it’s a fluke? What if he gets better only to get worse later on?” Tony questions, not looking up from the worn notebook.

Pepper frowns, stepping around the scattered papers to reach him. She lowers the notebook in his hands and fixes him with a firm look. “That’s a job for the doctors. He’ll be kept under observation for another week, just as you asked.”

Tony huffs, running a hand through his grease-ridden hair. “They haven’t been able to explain anything about his condition, Pep. If they can’t get answers, I gotta get ‘em myself.”

“Tony,” Pepper’s mouth purses, “the world doesn’t rest upon your shoulders. It’d do you some good to remember that every once and a while.”

Tony’s heart skips a beat, tears gathering in his waterline. “I’m supposed to protect him, though. He’s my son.”

“I know Tony, I know,” she coos, resting a hand on his unshaven cheek. “Just, please, don’t destroy yourself in the process.”

He finds the answer two days later, hidden in a small black notebook. He never knew something so unassuming could hold something so world-shattering. He pores over the pages time and time again—seeing but not really believing. Each readthrough draws him further and further from reality. The earth crumbles beneath him with each handwritten word until nothing is left but him and his father in that cold sterile lab.

He can almost see it now, memories suppressed so deep, he’s not even sure they’re real. The feeling of a cold table, of leather straps and pointy needles. He remembers crying—remembers the fire licking through his veins with each attempt. Remembers Howard yelling, screaming at him because it isn’t working, god dammit! Why can’t you just be as good as Steve?

Tony gasps back into reality when he feels a hand against his back. His cheeks are wet, hands trembling around the damning notebook that confirms everything his brain dredged up.

He half-convinces himself that he’s hallucinating when he sees Peter crouching over him, brows furrowed.

“Peter?” Tony snaps the notebook shut. “What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be on bed rest.”

“Pepper sent me, said you needed me.”

Tony’s heart clenches as he looks at his child—a boy he brought into this world without knowing the risks involved—without knowing that his DNA was tainted. A surge of anger pulses up beneath the surface—what if Howard’s foolish tests had endangered Peter’s life? What if instead of being the thing that saved him, it was the thing that damned him? What then?

“What’s that?” Peter asks, gesturing to the notebook. Tony swallows, his throat suddenly as dry as a desert. He opens his mouth, once, twice, then closes it. How does he explain to Peter that there’s a pretty good chance the only reason he’s alive right now is due to Tony’s piece of shit father?

It’s the one thing Tony’s been putting off since he met Peter, telling him about his grandfather. Every time he came up, Tony expertly segued the conversation into something more comfortable—just as he does every time the media asks him about his father. He knew he couldn’t avoid it forever; he’d just hoped he’d have a little more time. But now that Howard’s actions directly affect Peter, it would only be sensible to disclose at least part of Howard’s abuse.

“I need to tell you something,” Tony says, his throat coated with sludge.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah… um… is it… can we maybe go upstairs? Grab something to eat? I’m starving! How about you?” Tony jumps up from his spot. Peter blinks at Tony’s turnaround attitude, but nonetheless, follows him to the elevator.

Tony’s hands are still shaking by the time they reach the communal floor.

“Are you sure you feel okay?” Tony asks for the third time since getting in the elevator. “We can go back-”

“Mr. Stark, I’m fine! Promise. Plus, if anything goes wrong, Jarvis will alert the doctors.”

“What if they can’t get up here in time?”

Peter sends him an unimpressed look. “They are two floors away. And that elevator defies the natural law of elevators.”

“No such thing-”

“You worry too much, Mr. Stark.” Peter laughs—as if Tony’s worry was unfounded.

Normally Tony would make a throwaway, smart-ass remark—something like “Then stop giving me reasons to worry,” or “Do you know how bad it would look if I got a kid and lost it in less than five years?”—but he is rubbed raw, each and every nerve exposed, like a live wire set to blow.

So, he says, “You’re my son. It’s my job to worry about you.”

Peter’s laughter is cut short. His eyes blow wide like Tony had said the most unbelievable thing. Tony can practically hear his heart skip a few beats in his chest. Clearly at a loss for words, Peter ducks his head. Which only tells him one thing, Peter doesn’t remember what he said in his delirium, doesn’t remember what Tony said in response to him.

They stop at the centre island; Tony places the notebook on the countertop before separating to dig around in the fridge for something edible. Peter plops down on one of the stools, fidgeting with his fingers all the while.

“So what did you want to tell me?” Peter asks once Tony has pulled out an array of fruits and vegetables suitable for a snack to hold them over until dinner.

Tony visibly tenses, his hold on the carton of blueberries denting the flimsy plastic. He wishes there were a manual for this sort of thing: How to tell your son about being experimented on by your own father. He watches Peter pop a raspberry in his mouth, eyes wide and inquisitive as always. Looking at him like this, so pure, so happy, makes Tony want to protect him from the truth. He never wants Peter to know of the evils the world holds. But to hide such pertinent information from him would only cause him problems.

“My father wasn’t the greatest… father,” Tony starts, “He uh… he never really wanted a kid so much as he needed one… to take over the company and all that.”

Peter frowns around the strawberry he’s biting into.

“I avoided this conversation for obvious reasons, but… now that your life is being directly affected by his stupidity, I suppose now is as good a time as any,” Tony finishes with a flourish, stuffing a few blueberries in his mouth. He hopes that Peter doesn’t notice the tremor in his voice, the shining of his eyes, or the trembling of his hands.

“God,” Tony huffs, “There’s no easy way to say this.”

Peter glances at the notebook abandoned at the edge of the island, wipes away the red juice dribbling down his chin. “Would you rather me read it?”

“No!” Tony snatches the book, clutching it to his chest. No child, much less his precious Peter, should be subjected to Howard’s clinical notes—how cold and indifferent he was to his own child suffering and calling out for help and-

“Sorry,” Peter says, shrinking in on himself. Tony’s heart fills with ice at the sight. He used to do that whenever Howard snapped at him. Does Tony instil the same fear that Howard did? Does Peter feel the same dread seep into his bones whenever Tony walks into a room? Does he yearn for the moments away from him?

“Peter…” Tony clears his throat, trying to rid the emotion clogging it. “Do you think I’d ever hit you?”

It’s something he’s always feared. Even before he knew of Peter, Tony was scared that the cycle of abuse would only continue—that he’d turn into his worst nightmare one day. Tony’s entire well-being hangs in the thread of Peter’s hands right now, and he doesn’t even know it. It is a blow he’ll never recover from, being told that he is no different from his father.

“What? Of course not!” Peter splutters, shock coating his face. “Why would I ever think that?”

Tony practically collapses, relief flooding through his veins. He fights back the tears as he says, “It’s my greatest fear. To become my father. I never want you to be scared of me.”

“Mr. Stark…” Peter trails off, his brows creased so deeply, Tony’s half-afraid it’s going to stick that way.

“Howard experimented on me as a child. I didn’t… I didn’t remember until now. These are his notes.” Tony continues forward, better to rip off the band-aid all at once, after all. “I shouldn’t have survived Afghanistan. Whether it be the bomb, infection, or whatever else, it was a miracle that I survived. And then you… Cho said the same damn thing about you, and I couldn’t let it go. Howard was trying to recreate Erskine’s Super Soldier Serum. He obviously failed, but hey… at least he saved our lives, right?” Tony lets out a chuckle, a bit hysterical at this point, but can it really be blamed with all that he just found out?

“Mr. Stark… I… I’m so sorry,” Peter says, tears welling up in his eyes. “I… I didn’t know. I wouldn’t have brought him up so much-”

Tony waves him off. “No sweat, kid. It’s not that big of a deal anyway. I just… um… yeah.”

“Um… it kinda is a big deal,” comes Peter’s rebuttal. “Your dad experimented on you when you were a kid. He… he abused you. That’s not… that’s not okay.”

“That’s not… I wasn’t trying to dump that all on you, kid. Jesus, fuck, sorry, don’t repeat that,” Tony narrows his eyes, pointing a finger at Peter. “You don’t have to… It’s really not that big of a deal. I just thought you should know that, I don’t know, your grandfather saved your life? Yippee. I should get the papers down to Cho, make sure she knows, just in case it affects you-”

“Mr. Stark,” Peter interrupts, standing from his stool and dashing around the counter.

Tony is about to scold him for exerting himself when only three days ago he was bedridden, but is cut off by Peter slamming into him. Blinking, Tony looks down at his kid, clinging onto him like an octopus. He swallows down the emotions threatening to boil over and carefully wraps his own arms around Peter.

“I’m sorry he hurt you,” Peter mumbles into Tony’s shoulder. He pulls away only slightly—just so he can look him in the eye— “But I want you to know that you could never be like him. You’re a great father.”

Tony chokes on air at Peter’s words, tears springing to life.

“I love you, kid,” Tony says, not even trying to hold back the emotion that coats every word.

“I love you too, Mr. Stark,” Peter hums, burying his face into Tony’s chest.

Tony bites his lip. “You called me dad when I brought you down to medbay.”

“What? No, I didn’t!” Peter exclaims, face turning beet red.

“I wouldn’t mind if you did it again.”

Chapter Text

In the days following, Peter is finally released from the watchful eyes of doctors in medbay. Tony wanted to homeschool him, but Peter was adamant about finishing off the rest of his years at Midtown. Luckily, spring break had arrived, meaning that Tony had a little more time with Peter to hover incessantly.

“Maybe I should get sick more often,” Peter remarks when he walks back into his room to find it filled with LEGO sets that he’d been wanting for years. “How’d you even get this one? They retired it like three years ago!”

Needless to say, their days were spent watching movies, playing with LEGO, working in the lab, and trying to figure out Peter’s new abilities.

The peace didn’t last, however.

Word came around fast that the Accords had been repealed. Each Rogue Avenger was to be pardoned, reinstating them back into the United States and clearing their fugitive status. It didn’t catch Tony by surprise, if only for the fact that he was one of the big players in getting the documents repealed—he had been from the very beginning, not that the Rogues ever cared enough to look deeper. He was playing the long game, the smart game all along—tried telling that to them too.

Regardless, the Rogue Avengers were meant to live at the Avengers Tower as a condition of their pardon. Just until they got everything sorted out.

They hadn’t spoken directly to Tony since their return. They hadn’t needed to. The tension settled like a storm cloud the moment they stepped inside. Every time he ran into them in the shared spaces, the room crackled with unresolved resentment. The wounds from the Accords and the events surrounding were still raw for each member.

And though they haven’t said much, their silence spoke volumes. Cold shoulders. Watchful eyes. Like they were waiting—hoping—for a reason to confirm the narrative they’d clung to since the beginning: Tony Stark was a selfish, arrogant, asshole.

Which was just fine with him.

His entire life has been built upon a facade of indifference and arrogance. People thinking the worst of him without daring to look deeper is nothing new. It shouldn’t sting the way it does when Natasha avoids looking into his eyes, when Steve frowns in disapproval every time he sees him, when the people he hoped could become the family he never had look at him with unmitigated disgust.

The only thing that he cares about is how the team interacts with Peter. He set up an alert system. Call him a helicopter parent, but every single time the Rogues interact with Peter, he’d watch the interaction to make sure that the Rogues didn’t take out their hatred for him on the most wonderful kid he’s ever known. And they don’t.

Peter, not knowing the terms of their estrangement, greeted them with poorly veiled enthusiasm. He stuttered and blushed when asking Captain America to sign his comics. He lit up when Clint showed him around the vents, all the best secret hiding spots that Tony had made specifically for Clint back when they were redoing the tower. He always lost his tongue whenever Natasha talked to him. The Rogues invited Peter to their movie nights, invited him to share dinner, and to hang out in the training centre—and Peter declined most of them because he wanted to be with Tony.

On the one hand, it made him incredibly smug that this beacon of light chose Tony over all the others, but on the other hand, it made him feel incredibly guilty. “You know,” Tony said one night, scraping his fork along the container of Thai food, “you don’t have to keep declining their invites to hang out with your old man.”

Peter looked at him, finishing what he was chewing before saying, “If they don’t make an effort to include you, then I don’t want to hang out with them anyway.”

Tony didn’t know what to say to that, so he just continued eating.

Tony is in the lab, working on some upgraded tech for the Rogues, when Steve rushes into the room. Not even looking up from the Widow Bites, Tony asks, “What can I do you for this fine afternoon?”

“You’re a real piece of shit, you know that?” Steve fumes, body tense.

It’s only then that Tony looks up, brows furrowed. What the hell did he do this time? Before he can even open his mouth to question the righteous fury pouring off of the blond, a fist connects with his jaw, sending him to the ground. Without another word, Steve storms out of the lab.

He raises a hand to his jaw, the skin tender to the touch. Wincing, he pulls it away only for it to come back red-stained. Tony groans as the blood trickles from his nose, staggering up to grab a tissue from his desk. Mind reeling, Tony can only begin to question what the hell he did to deserve that.

When the blood flow stops, he sighs. Best to get this shit show over with, he figures. If nothing else, he hopes that the other Rogues aren’t in on Rogers’ fury.

Loud voices echo through the halls leading up to the common room kitchen. Great, arguing, just what he needs. Just as he’s about to walk in and announce his presence, he stops, the blood in his veins turning to ice as he hears the subject of the conversation.

“What kinda piece of shit father experiments on their own son?” Sam questions. The floor drops out from underneath Tony’s feet. How could they possibly know about what Howard did to him? And why would Steve be mad at Tony for it?

“Tony Stark, apparently,” Clint says in response. “I knew he was an awful person, but… how could anyone do that to someone like Peter?”

“I never trusted it,” Steve added, his arms crossed tightly. “Stark taking care of a kid? Come on. There had to be something in it for him. There always is.”

From his place, hidden in the shadows, just out of view, Tony feels something coil tight in his stomach. Each word lands like a punch to the gut.

They really thought that little of him.

They really thought that he’d… that he’d use Peter. That he’d hurt his kid. That he was just as bad as Howard was.

Anger flared in his chest, burning brighter and hotter than the sun. He clenched his fists to keep from marching in right then and there and slapping that look off of all their faces. How dare they? After everything he’s done for them, after everything he’s done for Peter, how can they still view him as the villain? How can they believe that Tony Stark’s love for Peter was nothing more than greed?

To them, he would never be any more than the man they needed him to be: selfish, irredeemable, and a monster.

But before he could move—before he could walk in and set them all straight, another voice spoke up.

“How dare you talk about my dad like that?” Peter seethed in white-hot anger. Tony’s heart leapt up to his throat at the uncharacteristic molten anger rolling off of his son. “Mr. Stark is nothing like his dad! He would never ever hurt me!”

Realising what he had just revealed to the Rogues, Peter slapped a hand over his mouth. His wide eyes darted over to Tony’s hiding spot, leading the Rogues to glance back at a shell-shocked Tony.

“I’m so sorry, Dad,” Peter mutters, ears tinted red, “I didn’t mean…”

“It’s fine,” Tony waves him off, aiming to keep everything about him casual. Tony is surprised that most of the Rogues have the decency to look ashamed. Steve stands stock still, eyes as wide as dinner plates.

Tony is flippant as he says, “Alright, guess the cat’s outta the bag. Dear old dad, Howard, as I call him, experimented on his toddler. Didn’t quite work out like he wanted–” Tony sends a pointed look at Steve– “but, hey, it ended up saving both mine and Peter’s life… so, all’s well that ends well, huh?”

Steve looks absolutely horrified. “Tony…”

“Nope, Peter and I are going upstairs… you guys can continue shitting all over me or whatever else you like to do in your free time. By the way, I finished all your tech upgrades if you wanted to try them out—not the Widow Bites, though, still working out a few kinks. Go and check them out once you’re done shit-talking the person who made ‘em for you.”

Without giving any of the Rogues time to get a word in, Tony and Peter disappear into the elevator.

When the sleek doors slide shut, Peter asks, “Are you okay?”

Tony hesitates. “I’ve been worse. You?”

Peter shrugs, looking down at his shoes. “Just angry.”

“I’m sorry you had to hear that-”

“You shouldn’t apologise for what they said. They should be the ones apologising. You didn’t deserve any of that,” Peter says, interrupting him, every word laced with so much passion.

Tony swallows down the urge to hold his child tight—the urge to thank him for standing up for him (something that so few others have done for him). “No, I didn’t.”

At the end of the day, they could believe what they wanted. Tony only cared about one thing: keeping Peter safe. And, all things considered, he’s done a pretty damn good job at it.