Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

There is no hell like an anxiety disorder.

He’s always had it, really, but it hadn’t really been until Afghanistan—or maybe it was the whole Obie-is-a-wacked-out-evil-shit that really got it kick-started, he didn’t have nearly as many nightmares before that, though honestly, it was hard to tell what with the already, admittedly, erratic sleeping schedule he had—that it’d really come to full throttle. Nightmares occurring every time he closed his eyes, the taste of sand and blood on his tongue whenever he couldn’t get liquor or coffee on it, the constant wonderings and recollections of his latent guilt and anguish over everything that had gone down in the life he hated—no, abhorred—to call his own.

Contemplated ending it, once or twice. Or maybe more. He doesn’t really know anymore, to be perfectly honest, because it’s all become a foggy haze of anger and confusion and lack of drive and whiskey and probably too many things for him to even start giving a name to, with a glass in one hand and Howard’s old M1917, given to him by the ever-so-wonderful Howling-fucking-Commandos as some sort of gift, he forgot the reason for it now, but it doesn’t matter when this relic is sitting in his left hand with a bullet in the chamber, just itching for the hammer to be released to let it loose into his brain pan. He’s sure he would’ve gone through with it, too. He knows he wanted to. Or believed he wanted to. That’s what the therapist Pepper got him said, anyways; that he’d believed that he’d wanted to, and it was just the fear that was talking. The disorder. The depression.

But it was him, he knew it. It was him, thinking about how much he’d rather shoot out his [treasured] little brain and end every part of his shitty little life right where it was, right as it stood—just finally fucking end it—but he never gets to, never finds the chance. Closest he gets to it is slotting the barrel of the gun between his teeth and getting his index finger to slide onto the trigger before Pep—or is Rhodey? Maybe it’s Happy; all three of them kind of merge together sometimes—bursts in and rips the gun from his hand, knocks the glass of whatever it is from the other, screaming, shouting, begging all the while, making him feel guilty for this act of his own free will that they’ve so wrongfully thwarted.

He’s over his suicide phase now. (Mostly.) There’s some days he’s got half the mind to end it, but he doesn’t, can’t do it, because now he’s more than the fuck-up that is Tony Stark; now he’s Iron Man. A goddamn ‘hero’, if you can call him that, in a world that needs one more than it ever has, because now things are getting weird in the world—and weird definitely needs that emphasis. And while he’s not the sanest line of protection for humanity, he knows this all too well; he also knows he hasn’t got a fat lot of choice. Funny thing, being the man with the resources. Being the man with the ability. Sometimes, you get fuck all choice in it what you did with it.

It’s why he’s got such a hard time walking away. Pepper claimed it was the anxiety talking. And, you know, maybe she’s right, maybe it is. Maybe it’s why he thinks so much about every decision he makes, no matter what the decision is, (even if the decision is rife with insignificance) and maybe it is the very reason he’s having the problem making the choice to walk away from this life he’s found himself leading. Maybe it’s why he’s let it consume him. Maybe, even, let it make his decisions for him. But, then again, maybe she’s wrong, because she doesn’t really know the half of it. She doesn’t know what it’s like to think like he does, to think of every little disaster before believing in the one he just wants to be the right outcome (and almost never is); to always fear the worst outcome no matter the situation. She doesn’t know what it’s like. She’s lucky.

Everyone else is lucky. They don’t know the half of it.

And the luckiest of them all?

The luckiest of them all is Iron Man, because Iron Man doesn’t have the worry about being some anxiety-riddled prick with an alcoholic tendency. No, Iron Man is just a hero. He’s a hero with quasi dare-devil inclinations that sometimes leads the high risk of death, but a hero nonetheless, and he is a hero with significantly less decisions to make. Sure, he makes the occasional hard call—but, in the heat of the moment, when he’s Iron Man, he found himself with a lot less thinking to do. Found himself able to focus on one thing at a time, a new thing for him. A great thing. An amazing thing. Something that he can never explain to Pep; just how nice it is, because she wouldn’t understand. She thought the multitasking thing was something to be jealous of. He doesn’t blame her for it; nobody would really get it.

It makes him forget. It makes him forget a lot, to be thinking of so much always, and not having the mind necessary to remember it all, to keep all of the old memories with the new ones, and it was never something he could ever explain to someone else.

Iron Man is the luckiest of them all, and Tony Stark? Tony Stark is the bane of the world; the almighty shit storm incarnate that he was carved out to be, and he hates himself for what he cannot help being. He hates himself more than anyone can possibly hate a person, and if it weren’t for his responsibilities—not as Tony, but as Iron Man—Tony would end it all. Make it easier in the emptiness. In the void that he can only assume came after death.

But he can’t. And it’s not because he’s stronger than it, and it’s not because he thinks it’ll be an escape.

It’s because he knows.

He knows.

It’s because he knows that he doesn’t bother with the pills he was given after the battle of New York. They do nothing to help him, anyways. They just make everything blurry. Make his mind gum up and his fingers numb. When he takes those things, he’s stuck in bed all day long, staring up at the ceiling like some sort of veg, unable to think at all, and if there’s anything worse than thinking too much, it’s that, it’s not being able to think at all. He doesn’t enjoy the feeling, he never does, because it feels like it’s erasing him, who he is, what he can give back, and he has so few good things in life that he refuses to let that be taken from him, and his ability to give new innovations every single day is one of those things. He doesn’t want to lose those scant things he can actually be proud of.

So he tips the pills into the toilet after the third day. The therapists said that he has to give his body time to adjust to it, that he will return to normal once he has given his body time to adjust and all he has to do is be patient and he doesn’t care, not one bit, because they weren’t working for him, not even a little bit, and he doesn’t want the doped bliss they bring to him. This leads to a fight between him and Pepper, which leads to a panic attack because she threatens to leave, and he’s reminded just how not okay he is when he’s not taking the medicine, but he still doesn’t take his pills again, even when Pepper conjures him up some more from who knows where, and for this, she actually does leave him, and Rhodey has to come running to make sure that the panicked call from Tony isn’t going to end with the remains of his blown-out skull all over the pillows.

For this, Rhodey’s pissed at Pep for a while, but Tony, he doesn’t blame her. To be completely honest, to a certain extent, this is what he wanted to happen, because it removes her from the danger that is his own decaying mental and emotional state. He can see it every time he dons the suit, in the back of those eyes of hers; the pain he causes her, the pain she thinks she’s hiding from him but can’t, because it’s the same look he used to see in his mother when Howard picked up a new bottle to nurse through the night—it’s just that Tony’s picked a different poison.

He doesn’t want Virginia Potts to lead the life of Maria Stark, and he tries, so damned hard, to explain this to Rhodey, but he won’t hear it, because Rhodey doesn’t get it. He doesn’t see why Tony is a difficult person to love, despite the fact that he’s spent more time with Tony than anyone else on the face of the planet; doesn’t get why he has to push her away in order to save her the pain. James Rhodes, the beautiful loyal man he is, he doesn’t see that Tony’s a roach, a stain, and so while he should be running away, instead he’s coaxing Tony through the umpteenth attack that week, holding him so tightly in his arms that it’s as if he’s trying to use pressure in order to glue the broken shards of Anthony Edward Stark back together.

Rhodey steps in, taking up the role of authoritative girlfriend that Pepper can’t bring herself to fulfill anymore. He doesn’t try to get Tony back on his meds, though it’s clear that he wishes he would, but he does make changes to Tony’s everyday life. Cleans out his liquor cabinet, for one, leaving him with only a fraction of the selection, and gains control and liberty over Tony’s bank account in order to keep track of just what Tony is spending money on (even though it’s a bit hard because Tony has significantly more numerical figures in his account than Rhodey those, but somehow the man manages all too well). If Tony brings home one bottle of alcohol, he rids the house of two. He knows that the alcohol is the least of it all, but it is one addiction that he can rid his friend of, one day at a time. Tony’s not proud of how he handles this change—with tantrums and insults—but Rhodey takes it all without even batting an eye. His mom did it for his pops, after all, and so he knows what to expect from Tony.

Once he gets a handle on the alcohol, his next target is the dietary practices. Starts Tony on a strict regimen of hideously and vibrantly green smoothies to start his day, which are so sweet that Tony’s teeth ache, and makes him spend an hour a day on the treadmill to improve his endurance. Makes him eat a small snack before lunch, another green thing, except this time, he’s supposed to chew. Takes him out to the shooting range, too, to improve his accuracy, because he knows he’s atrocious with guns. Brings him home, makes him sit down for a while before feeding him dinner, which he thinks has a meat product of some sort within until Rhodey informs him it’s in fact tofu, which is cruel because Rhodey makes himself chicken.

Tony hates it. He hates it all. Sure, his body feels better than it had in a long time, but he hates this feeling of feeling good because he doesn’t deserve to be, does he? He doesn’t think so. No, he thinks he deserves to be miserable and hated. He shouldn’t be forced to have to go out as often as he is. He tries to tell him so, that it’s painful to go outside and see all the life that wasn’t his to have, but Rhodey doesn’t listen to him, and it’s because he seems to think he’s helping.

Physically, yes, he is, and Tony knows this. But what Rhodey’s not grasping is that, mentally, Tony doesn’t work like Rhodey wants to believe he does. He’s not happier when he’s having his diet regulated and forced to work out and go outside every single day. He’s not happier having his bank account watched and countermeasures taken against him. No, it just makes things worse, because he knows that, deep down, he’s not doing what Rhodes wants of him—he knows he’s not getting better.

Problem is, he’s sure he will never get better, and he’s tried telling Rhodey, but the man refuses to listen. Refuses to accept it. Pepper accepted it, and she was supposed to be the love of his life. If Pep could accept it, then there truly was no hope for him, was there?

The answer is no.

No, there is not.

There isn’t a fucking prayer for him, and he knows it. Not a chance he’ll ever get better.

Until him.

Chapter Text

He meets him at the 2013 Stark Expo, a bigger convention than even the year previous, and unfortunately, he finds himself forced into attending as a guest of honor, and if it weren’t for the evil eye that he’s sure is awaiting him if he says he doesn’t want to go, he honestly would have avoided the night, and stayed at home instead to work on his new project for the Metro Transit Authority. See, because of how Rhodey has been as of late, Tony has taken to escaping whenever he finds the chance, which would be harder to do if he were still out in Malibu, but since Pep left him, Rhodey’s taken to the tower. The empty, empty tower; riddled with escape routes and service exits and backdoor exits that make sneaking out under Rhodey’s watchful eye a breeze. He hates going outside, especially in New York, because he can still see the scars of the lives he’d ripped apart that day, but he does it just to get away from Rhodey for a few hours, so he’ll hop on a train—which one depended what color he was feeling that day—and go exploring.

After two months of living in the city, Tony’s so familiar with the subway system that he’s honestly debating revamping their beyond pitiful Metrocard system, because his legal boarding of the train should not be dependent on the exact speed at which he swipes the card at the terminal, and he needs to have a talk with their maintenance crew because goddamn how inefficient these cars of theirs are; and after four months, Tony’s already got a crew underway with construction of the addition of S.I. annex subway access terminal to Grand Central. At five months, Tony has fully explored the Bronx and Brooklyn, and has become a welcome face at surely every coffee shop he’s found in immediate area around the stations he gets off at, and can come in without worry about a pap taking photos for a gossip mag since the owners have taken to threatening people they see trying to snap a photo in Tony’s vicinity.

Whether or not they're actually trying to take a picture of Tony, at this point, has become debatable.

And now, for the Expo, they were debuting the proposed alterations Tony had for them, along with the new reader system and train modifications, which have been already approved by the MTA itself and was now moving into the fabrication phases, which Pep had partnered up with Kawasaki in order to do, which was getting them big points in the stocks. Of course, there were more things at the Expo than some trains—Tony had a few projects up for display, some of which he was planning to make cheap and readily available for public usages, which was not a big hit amongst the board but Pep was going to make happen for him; as well as a numerous amounts of stalls, performances, and entertainments galore.

But the best part, in Tony’s opinion, was the Third Annual Howard Stark Foundation for the Gifted Youth’s [long name; he's aware and is currently working on a shorthand] National Science Fair. Centered for ages ten to eighteen, the competition was a two-day event for twenty-five kids with aptitude and intrigue in STEM to display their proposals for the Foundation’s mini-projects, competing against other kids from across the US for scholarship prizes. The first year, the Foundation had the kids design and fabricate their own robots, some complete with full programming and functionality; though the point of it was to see how hard the kids were willing to work rather than full engineering prowess like the Foundation’s namesake would've assume—they were, after all, children.

This year, the project had shifted more to the side of the eco-friendly side, requiring the kids to come up with a competent system in which to alter and improve any wasteful facet of any system currently in place, which means that he’s seeing a lot of projects of how to correct the issues with waste management or water distribution, all of which intrigued him in their own ways because he likes seeing how these kids are thinking, even if the ideas themselves weren’t all too new to him because, hello, he’s Tony Stark, he’s thought of it before, including the one where a kid suggested the implementation of a hyper-purifier to rid the waste from the used water and to, in essence, keep using the same water throughout a building, which he is already working out the kinks of to use in his own tower.

Still, Tony’s intrigued. By the time he’s halfway through the kid’s booths, he’s already picked out three kids for a possible internship in the Environmental team at S.I for the summer, their names scrawled unprofessionally onto the back of his hand with the same gold Sharpie that he’s using to sign the occasional autograph. Despite initially not wanting to go, Tony’s kind of glad he has. Sure, he has to deal with the random bigwig lying through their teeth, but he’ll suffer through it as so long as he gets to see the children sciencing their little hearts out. In fact, he actually finds himself texting Bruce Banner about it.

He’s surprised that his friendship with the good doctor has lasted this long, to be completely honest, because he’s not the most polite of people and Bruce, not the most tolerant, but somehow, Bruce has yet to snap his neck. They banter whenever possible, constantly bouncing ideas off each other, taking up the mantle of each other’s critic and cheerleader alike and, although he isn’t around as often as Rhodey is, Bruce has made it his business to make sure Tony isn’t going to let himself shy away from human contact, which Tony thinks is ironic, all things considered, but he never calls Bruce out on it.

He tells Bruce that these kids are amazing, and how it’s like looking at twenty-five miniature versions of himself; to which Bruce asks if he’s looking at the right set of kids here, because the ones he’s seeing don’t have goatees and a cup of coffee permanently affixed to their left hand, which is how he lets Tony know that he’s actually there, at the Expo, and suddenly Tony’s so giddy that, when he finds Bruce in front of the falafel stand, he hugs him so tight that Bruce has to cough out his laugh. He almost drops his food, too, but luckily, the ever-silent Romanov is there to grab it before his hand even fully releases it.

Tony can’t help but waggle a brow at his friend when he sees the silent redhead beside him, earning an [affectionate] eye-roll from the former assassin, who hands Bruce his falafel back wordlessly and walks off in search of food for herself, claiming that the latent Russian still within her is refusing to let her eat something that was not an actual meat product, and Tony is struggling to withhold the dirty joke. Bruce sees the visible struggle, blushes, and tells Tony to get his mind back out the gutter.

“Just a minute ago, you were talking about the kids,” Bruce reminds him, “What happened to that Tony?”

Tony shrugs. “We’re one in the same,” he informs him with a wolfish grin before grabbing Bruce by the arm, pulling the man into the science fair so he can continue his walk-through, now chattering away a mile a minute in Banner’s ears as he walked through the lines of proposals. Bruce is quiet, smiling and nodding in all the right places to keep Tony speaking, knowing that what he was saying has nothing to do with what he’s actually looking at, which was a series of alterations to the current waste system in place in San Francisco, which looked to be something out of a horror movie in comparison to the young lady’s reform plans, which is scary considering she’s no more than twelve years old.

“But how are you?” Bruce finally asks after about ten minutes of non-stop verbal vomit, finding a lull in the words that he knew he had to use right then and there, “Really, how are you?”

Tony pauses, looking at Bruce for a millisecond before looking away. “Peachy keen. I am living in the crest of my life.”

Bruce frowns at him, knowing he’s lying. “Rhodey said you’ve been refusing to go to therapy. You’ve missed two consecutive sessions.”

Tony shrugs. “Not a big deal.”

“You’ve also been disappearing on him, and not to the lab.”

“I go out sometimes, too. Free country, last time I checked.”

Though unnecessary, Bruce finds himself ducking his head when a uniformed guards comes too close. Old habits.

“He’s just concerned,” Bruce counters.

Tony’s frowning. “When did we enter the lecture series?”

Bruce raises his hands defensively. “Not what I’m trying to get at. I’m just trying to remind you that we care more than you think we do.”

He can’t help but think that they shouldn’t, and somehow, he’s able to stop the words from leaving his lips. “You don’t need to. I’m good,” Tony says before he gets into conversation with the first kid he sees. Anders? Andy? Eh, he’ll figure it out.

Bruce doesn’t try to push the issue after that, which Tony appreciates, and instead keeps the rest of the conversation flowing with his latest collaboration with Helen Cho, who was famous even in Tony’s field for her work. It made perfect sense why she seems to give Bruce a science boner; she was brilliant. Her Cradle, renowned. Tony’s been trying to get her to work for his company for ages—unsuccessfully, but he’s ever hopeful she’ll change her mind. He likes hearing about the work, though he doesn’t know much about biological engineering, but mostly, he likes that Bruce is so happy being able to do just a little bit of what he loves. He’s happy that Bruce isn’t running back to Calcutta or Kabul or wherever he was to go back into hiding from fucking Ross.

Tony and Bruce walk around for another hour, Tony introducing Bruce to some of the more noteworthy kids, as this stage of the competition drew to a close. In about two hours, the kids would be taking the center stage for the announcement of this year’s winners. In order to keep things fair, they had one winner per age group, with a total of three scholarships, each one a full ride to any technical university, presented by Tony himself. Tony wasn’t overly excited for this part of the competition, because if he has his way he’d be giving full scholarship to every kid in the competition. As it stands, they are already giving each kid a scholarship for the amount of five hundred dollars just for making it into the twenty-five slots of the competition, so he guesses it isn’t too bad, but still—it’s just not enough to him. He knows he can do a lot more for them; it’s well inside his own personal budget, but he’s also aware that he can’t pay the way for every child in the world. He knows that it’s not his place to.

But he wishes it were.

Tony drags Bruce around once more before Natasha comes back, looking around with the feigned mild disinterest that almost has Tony fooled before she smiles at one of the young girls with a rumpled blouse and messy braids, who gawks at her openly, and asks her about her proposal with a flash of intrigue in the depths of her eyes before she masks it once more. He sneaks a glance at Bruce, who has a small smile on his face as he beholds her, and Tony can’t help but nudge at his side, grinning and waggling his brows suggestively once he’s gained Banner’s attention.

Cheeks flushing bright scarlet, Bruce mutters, “Shut it,” despite the fact that Tony hasn’t said a word, because Tony doesn’t have to say a word. See, they work on something like the same frequency; words having become unnecessary waste of breath for them now. Bruce can read him all too easily, just like he can read how enamored Bruce was at the sight of Nat indulging this little kid by listening to her ramble on about her proposal, how fascinated he’s finding himself just with the look on Nat’s face, and it’s utterly adorable, to see how in love Bruce is with Nat. He approves without as so much of a second thought, because he knows how much Bruce deserves this—to be happy.

“Honestly, Tony,” Bruce is scowling now, though the embarrassment is shining through any irritation he actually feels, “Nothing’s going on between us.”

“Sureee,” drawls Tony, “And I have Cap’s face tatted on my left ass cheek.”

Bruce doesn’t even pause. “I could’ve sworn it was the right one.”

Tony shrugs. “You got me.” He flicks a glance at Romanov now, who’s still talking to the little girl. “So was this a plan? A little date?”

Bruce shrugs now. “Not sure. Don’t think I had a plan—I’m kind of just glad she’s willing to be anywhere near me.” He smiles. “Did you ever get that way? Around Lady Voldemort, I mean.”

Tony can’t help the snort. “Lady Voldemort? You have now beaten me for the title of shit nicknames.” He whips out his phone. “I am so telling her you called her that.”

Bruce winces. “Can you not?”

“Too late.” He taps his finger on the green send icon with a bit too much emphasis. “She’s probably reading it right now.” He’s still grinning, amused with Bruce’s embarrassment, but appreciative nonetheless, because Bruce isn’t skirting around the issues, yet knows how precarious things are for Tony and does his best not to make things tip overboard by pushing him. Bruce’s understanding is above and beyond what Tony can ask of a guy he’s only known for the better part of a year, and Tony has never been all too great with expressing feelings.

“You’re cruel,” Bruce says with a shake of his head, “A bully.” He’s smiling, though, so Tony knows he doesn’t mean it. Or maybe it’s because Nat’s finally stopped talking to the girl and has begun to saunter on over, her teasing smirk growing on her lips. “The worst of men.”

“Yeah, yeah; so I’ve got a new project in the works, and I just got new toys in the workshop. Come by if you get a chance, your input would be good,” Tony says, doing his best to convey those feelings of gratitude—he really was shit at it. Should he be practicing? Maybe he should be practicing. He makes the note to practice, a note he’s made exactly three times before in the whole of his life, a note that’s been a work in progress since he was eight years old and couldn’t even say out loud that he loves his own mother.

Bruce watches him now, smiling softly at him still. “You never answered my question,” he informs him.

Tony risks a small smile. His sincere one; not the one he has for the pap. “I always feel that way, Bruce,” he says quietly, before Nat snakes an arm around Bruce’s waist, slipping under his dorky tweed jacket to do so, infiltrating Bruce’s personal bubble. Nat only gets to see a hint of the smile before it’s stowed away once more, and Tony puts back into place that mask of his. “So nice of you to join us, Ms. Romanov.”

“I thought it was about time I grace you boys with my presence,” Nat says, and Tony can’t help but snort. “Is that girl getting a scholarship?”

Tony shrugs. “Committee decision. I’m just the pretty face,” he informs her.

Nat sighs. “She should. She’s getting bullied by some of the other kids here for her project. Jealous of its simplicity. But it’s brilliant.”

“I know.” Tony rubs the back of his neck. “Well, if they don’t, I was already planning on hiring her on as an intern for our summer program, so there’s that at least.”

Nat doesn’t visibly react, because Bruce does it for her. He gives him that smile of his that tells Tony that he’s not half of the bad guy he thinks himself to be, and it makes Tony’s stomach lurch with how little he actually believes it, and his heart hurt with how much he wants to, and it is probably on his list of top twenty shittiest feelings. He does his best to make it seem as if it doesn’t affect him as strongly as it is, and if he didn’t have a good few decades of practice, then it’d probably be more difficult than he finds it to be.

He doesn’t know if Bruce sees the hurt he inflicts, but if he does, then that beautiful stallion of a man; he doesn’t note on it, and he doesn’t let Natasha note on it, and he sure as hell doesn’t let Tony note on it, because before Tony can discern one thought clearly from another, which is difficult in the best of situations, Bruce is suggesting they go get some ice cream from one of the stalls he says he spotted before, because it’s been a while since he’s had a good scoop of mint chocolate chip and he’s itching for some, so they should all go get ice cream while they wait.

Tony, himself, he’s not a big fan of ice cream. He’s not really got much of a sweet tooth at all, actually, but he finds himself agreeing despite himself, saying he’d like a large cone of vanilla, which he knows is going to stick to the back of his throat and make him want to gag with the sugar content, but it’s for Bruce that he agrees. He lets Nat grab him by the sleeve of his suit jacket and drag him along, and simply just wills his feet to move with her, because it’s easier this way.

Within minutes, Tony finds himself with that cone of soft-serve vanilla he proclaimed to desire, and yes, the vanilla sticks to the back of his throat and the sweetness makes his teeth hurt, but he doesn’t care; because Bruce has a goofy green milky mustache in moments that Nat is attempting to turn Fu Manchu, because no other style of facial hair can apparently suit the good doctor, and she’s laughing with Tony as she does it, but not a fake laugh; a real sincere one that she keeps low in volume, as if she’s afraid that she doesn’t deserve it. Bruce has already abandoned the idea of actually consuming the ice cream in his hand, which Nat is dipping her finger into repeatedly in order to create such a facial monstrosity, and he doesn’t even mind; sneaking in licks here and there at her fingertip to at least say he’s gotten his money’s worth with the treat.

Tony’s more than slightly aware that, with other people, he would be feeling like an intruder, (more so than he does in a standard situation), but somehow, Bruce and Nat make him feel like he’s in on the joke. It may have something to do with the fact that Tony’s giving Nat artistic pointers as she creates her masterpiece, but that’s neither here nor there. Point is, Tony doesn’t feel totally unwanted. Tony’s actually feeling like he sort of belongs there, although he doesn’t feel he deserves to be, and it’s a thought he pushes to the back of his mind as hard as he can because, honestly, he’s got so many things to think about, like how he’s going to now have to convince Bruce to grow an actual Fu Manchu, because it needs to happen, or how his phone is now bursting with messages from Barton about the piece of pure art coming to life upon Banner’s upper lip and cheeks.

So caught up is he that, despite having a hyper awareness usually, he doesn’t really hear the shouts of his name in a high-pitched voice until he hears the shouts of considerably deeper ones, paired with the sudden detraction of Natasha’s attentions from her Mona, the smile slipping from her lips, and Tony finds himself turning around to see exactly what it is that’s stolen her from her da Vinci-esque work, ready to shout in annoyance before he finds his blood running cold, because he can’t believe his eyes. He refuses to, because believing what he was seeing means that he was actually seeing two of his security team for the event manhandling what looks to be a boy of no more than ten years old, who must’ve been the one screaming his name because, based on the way his lips were moving, he was still screaming it right then and there—which is utterly unacceptable, to say the least, because, hello, guys, the kid’s ten.

It takes him a moment or so to really come to terms with the fact that he actually is seeing this scene, and even less time to stalk up to them, utilizing his title as Anthony E. Stark to exact authority over the two security guys who, if Tony has his way, would be out of a job for the indefinite future, drawing in fronts of his jacket together so he can button it right back up, and he finds himself fuming, no; he finds himself livid by the time he actually gets to them, which is only made worse because they’re putting fucking zip ties around his wrists.

Hands fisted tight at his sides as he tries to ignore the flashing bulbs of cameras pointed in his direction, he has to hiss out his question of what the fuck these men thought they were doing exactly, binding up a kid as if he’s a criminal.

“He has no convention pass, sir,” one guard says, the other smartly staying silent, as they can see quite clearly what kind of place Stark is in, “And he was running at you in a way that could be seen as—” And Tony doesn’t listen to the rest, because he’s sure if he does he’ll find little reason not to use the mini-repulsor up his jacket sleeve on the man, and instead focuses on the broken frames for thick coke-bottle lensed glasses sitting at his feet, bending over to scoop up the remains of the flimsy, cheap optics that the kid was in possession of.

“Let him up,” Tony orders, not caring if he’s interrupting the man, as one guard is already pulling out the wire cutters to get the kid out, whilst the other is gaping at Tony like a fish out of water. “Did I stutter?”

The man swallows. “Ah… no.”

The other guard at least possesses the courtesy of displaying his utter embarrassment as he releases the kid without a word uttered, looking utterly thankful that he hadn’t gotten to actually tighten the cable ties to a tight lock, so the boy’s able to slide his hands out of the ring of locking plastic, which falls to the floor like some harmless little trinket, though the way boy’s face is looking, Tony can see clearly that he is well aware that it’s not harmless. In fact, the way he’s looking, if he possessed the opportunity; he’d burn it with fire and acid.

Tony plays with the pieces of the kid’s glasses he’s still holding in his hands unwittingly, his attentions now solely on the boy, who’s being a little soldier and trying his very best not to cry. Now that he’s closer, he’s figuring this boy is a bit younger than ten. Not too far off, but a bit—what is he, eight? Tony’s not sure. What he is sure of, however, is that the kid is in need of a pick-me-up if any kid ever is, one beyond the powers of a good few inspirational words and a pat on the back.

“Favorite sweet?” Tony asks him, drawing the kid’s full attentions, earning the wide-eyed stare of deep chocolate eyes. Seriously, it is ridiculous, how brown this kid’s eyes are. It shouldn’t even be possible, to have eyes that look like melted chocolate, but they do, and Tony’s instantly intrigued not only for their amazing nature, but for the sharp intelligence and extreme doubt hidden within the folds of molten cocoa. He bites his little lip, swallowing dryly and rubbing his wrist with his left hand.

“Apple crumble,” he says slowly. Only hesitating slightly. His eyelid twitching, and his feet positioned like he’s ready to bolt—Tony gets why. He doesn’t feel as offended as he might’ve otherwise.

Tony chuckles. “No apple crumble stands,” he says, “But I can get us a candy apple, if that’ll do.” The boy eyes him warily, and so Tony holds his hand up. “Up to no tricks. Just want to do you a favor.”

The boy’s stare turns the slightest bit icy before it ebbs away. “I can pay…” he begins to say, but Tony’s got a hand up before he can even finish the thought. There’s no way he’s going to pay for the candy apple, he says, and it’s got more to do with the fact that no vendor has yet to dare try to charge Tony for anything yet tonight than anything. Everyone’s somehow afraid of charging him, and Tony doesn’t really get why, because he’s willing to pay, totally willing to, but he’s also not complaining about it.

“So,” Tony concludes with a smirk, “Why not use that to our advantage?”

Tony can tell he’s not in agreement, and that he’s a bit uncomfortable taking a handout, but he doesn’t complain. Instead, he simply and silently follows after Tony, who gives the silent Bruce standing ten feet behind with the majestic ice cream mustache wiped clean off of his face a nod, which Bruce returns and Natasha simply observes with an indistinguishable look in her eye before she tells Bruce she wants to go see the live performance of one of the band’s she’s actually heard of. Bruce knows full well that Natasha has little to no interest in this band play, mind you—and Nat knows that he knows this—but they go off anyways, because they know they’re only needed if Tony simply cannot handle the situation. Not that they doubt him, because they don’t: they know Tony can handle this. This is a kid, after all, and despite all his complaining, Tony’s actually pretty good with children and generally making them feel better, just in a very weird and inadvertent fashion.

So they go off, and Tony gets the boy a candy apple the size of Cap’s fist, and the boy looks so cautiously amazed that Tony’s guilt soars through the roof.

“Look kid, I just wanna tell you right now that I am gonna destroy any chance those two morons think they’ve got at ever getting a job at even a McDonalds,” Tony mutters when the kid takes the initial lick of the red candy coating, testing the waters in a way that tells Tony that it’s the first time he’s even eating a candy apple. “No, wait, I take that back. Not even the golden arches will take ‘em. When I’m through with ‘em, they’ll be begging to wipe the shit off the bottom of a trashman’s shoe.”

The boy stares at him for a minute. “Are you supposed to be cursing around me? I’m a kid.”

“Eh, you’ll learn the words anyways,” Tony says, waving him off, “I’m just giving you a head start. You’ll thank me one day.”

The boy shrugs, turning his attentions back to the treat. “This is nice.”

“Best I can do,” Tony returns, sitting down at a nearby bench and waving the boy over. He’s still playing with the broken glasses, but based on the fact that the kid’s not tripping over his own two feet, he’s guessing they’re really more just to see things far away, which isn’t too bad, but it must be pretty heady given the sheer thickness of the lenses. He looks over at the kid, who’s worrying at the fabric of dark grey jeans, and Tony notices that they’re a bit too worn in places. He knows that ripped and frayed jeans are all the craze these days, but this goes a bit too far beyond popular fashion—that, and they’re just a bit too short on the kid.

“Where’re your parents?” he asks before he thinks about it.

The boy bristles just a bit. “Where’re your parents?” he retorts.

Tony’s at the point in his life that he doesn’t even stiffen when he says, “Six feet under.”

The boy nods, as if he already knew that—which makes sense; it was on his dad’s Wiki article, and he says,

“Well, you’re lucky you know that much,” in the quietest voice ever.

It’s not broken up, much to Tony’s surprise; it’s simply just quiet. As if he’s long since accepted it, but he really still doesn’t want it to be the truth. That’s the child in him, Tony infers, and he feels so terribly for this kid.

“Parents are dicks,” Tony says without thought.

The boy stiffens a bit before smiling. “Yeah,” he agrees with a whisper.

It takes an hour or so of Tony making his attempt at small talk—usually, he would go with word vomit but he doesn’t think the kid can handle it in the state he’s in—to get him comfortable enough to tell Tony his name. The candy apple is but a memory, the red-stained stick still tight in his grip when he suddenly mutters the name—Peter Parker—in the middle of Tony talking about the Coldplay performance to take place in an hour, which he knows all about because Pepper forced him to watch their practice for the event, because she’s evil sometimes, and Tony pauses for a good minute or so, eyes wide, before smiling and sticking out a friendly hand, introducing himself as if he is anything less than the world-famous superhero; just some run-of-the-mill guy whose name isn’t plastered all over the entirety of the event, including the stick remaining from the candy apple, and though it’s stupid, the kid—Peter—is smiling, and so, as he reminds Tony that he obviously knows this, he shakes hands with him.

And, for the first time in the longest time, Tony sleeps soundly that night.

(Not a nightmare, from what Tony can tell, because he can’t remember his dream, in fact, which only happens when Tony’s drunk himself into the embrace of sleep, which he hadn’t last night. It’d, in fact, been quite a while since he’d been able to, what with the strict lockdown that Rhodey had him under.)

(Which means that, even though he can't remember what it is he dreamed, it's still a good thing. He kind of takes what he can get.)

Chapter Text

The next morning, he finds himself intrigued by the child he’d met the night before, and so, utilizing the endless resources he has at his disposal, he searches for any bit of information that he can pull up about the young Peter Parker, and he finds an assortment of things.

For one, he’s actually eleven years old, which surprises Tony because he looks so much younger than that, but no, he’s eleven; he was born in the August of 2001 to Mary and Richard Parker in Queens, New York. Richard was a scientist over at Oscorp, and dimly, Tony recalls vying for Richard to move over to Stark in order to handle the fledgling biotech division, but, since at the time, Tony was still in the business of making weapons, Richard chose to stay over at Oscorp. Surprisingly, Tony’s unable to find much about Mary Parker, other than some general information; it’s like there’s an void where there’s supposed to be an entire person, which leads Tony to assume that she must’ve been some sort of agent, to which point he tries to hack S.H.I.E.L.D. for more information.

Well, he doesn’t really try, per say. He does it. It’s never difficult, even with the supposedly ‘aggressive’ firewalls Fury had put up after he hacked the bridge on the helicarrier, which reminds him, he’s got to talk to their cyber security department about this; it really shouldn’t be so easy for him to do this, they're a top-secret organization of spies and assassins, after all, and he's just a civilian. He’s actually managed to get on the phone with their IT department (which is easy to find the number of, since he’s already hacked them) when Natasha walks in, as if the Tower’s security is nothing to her, which he figures it really isn’t; he never designed it to counteract a Black Widow. She’s followed by Barton, who vaults over the couch onto a bag of Doritos Tony’s got lying there, and holds his fist out to Tony, who returns the greeting with a tap of his knuckles. Tony doesn’t even bother looking up at them; he already knows that they’re here because of the hacking.

“You promised Fury you were done giving our IT department a conniption, Tony,” Natasha chastises as she flops down into the couch, digging into the bag of now crushed Doritos. Clint, meanwhile, starts channel surfing. He loves Tony’s TV. He honestly cannot get enough of it.

“Hey, have you ever heard of a Mary Parker?” Tony asks rather than responding, tapping away at the screen of his tablet furiously, his eyes darting through the information. As he goes, if he finds the information pertinent, he swipes so that they become part of his growing cache of windows on the holographic display before him, all of which pertain to little Peter Parker. “Couldn’t find much on a standard search, and I’m looking through the roster of agents, deceased, alive, or inactive, and I’m not finding jack. Also, on the topic of jack, I think I’ve got some prime pepper jack cheese in the fridge, Clint, can you make me a sandwich?” Clint makes amazing sandwiches.

“Your hands broken?” Clint asks as he settles on the Harry Potter marathon playing on ABC Family.

“Who’s asking?” Nat asks, arching a brow at Tony.

Tony shrugs. “Was doing a bit of research; the name come up.”

“In regards to whom?” she pushes.

He sighs. “Doesn’t matter,” he responds, shaking his head as he reaches the bottom of his results, “Do you know the name?”

“You know, there’s a reason why S.H.I.E.L.D. files are hard to get at,” Natasha reminds him, munching on chips, eyes concentrating on Tony, who has begun to refine his search in their database. Natasha rolls her eyes and sighs. “Try M.I.A,” she suggests, turning her immediate attentions back to the screen and ignoring Tony’s outraged cry of why didn’t I think of that as he goes through their files with a renewed vigor. He doesn’t turn up a Mary Parker, but he does turn up a Mary Fitzpatrick. A bunch of agents with the name of Mary turned up in his searches, but none of them were the woman he’d been looking for.

This one is. This is her. The ID photos match, as well as the general information. The kid has—or had—a parent in S.H.I.E.L.D.

“Her kid was at the Expo,” Tony whispers.

Nat looks at him from the corner of her eye. “I know,” she informs him, because of course she knows.

“Fury’s keeping an eye on him,” Clint adds, not looking away from the screen for a moment, “For reasons.”

“For reasons,” echoes Tony emptily.

“Valid reasons that don’t need you meddling with,” Natasha emphasizes strongly.

Tony looks over at the two of them, growing irritated. “Doesn’t he get to know?” he asks angrily. He feels no need to specify; the two agents know exactly what he’s talking about.

“What will it change if he does?” Natasha questions, her eyes flashing with an annoyance of their own, which apparently leaks into her voice enough for Clint to pause the movie, just as Dumbledore’s about to apologize for asking too much of Harry for the umpteenth time, and sit up, looking uncomfortable as hell and wishing to be anywhere else but here.

“He’ll know that his parents didn’t just ditch!” Tony responds, throwing up a hand in frustration. “So that he can have some sort of closure! So that he’s not, I dunno, always wondering and wishing!”

“And how will any of that help him, Tony?” Clint asks quietly, utterly serious as he began to shake his head. “Knowing the truth isn’t always best.”

“It is with this,” Tony argues vehemently, shaking his head in rejection, and it’s funny, in the back of his mind, because just a few moments before Tony was actually just the least bit happy. “It always is with this!”

Clint, however, continues to shake his head, whilst Natasha sighs, rubbing the bridge of her nose in not so much irritation as tire; as if the conversation is physically demanding of her. She’s far from upset with Tony, though, which he realizes only after means how much she agrees with Tony’s beliefs on the subject, but as she finds herself bound by the ties of her job, she can’t exactly take his side on the matter. He doesn’t realize it then, though. He’s too angry to catch on right then and there. In fact, he’s so angry that he can’t even really think straight, which doesn’t happen all too often anymore, but does result in great moments of stupidity when it does—such as, for instance, deciding to take a swing at Clint.

Which results in the shiner he’s currently treating the old-fashioned way, with a thick slab of meat pressed against his aching eye, attempting to soothe his boiling blood with the sweet sounds of a screeching electric guitar, while Clint is busy preparing him the sandwich he’d asked for in penance for punching Tony, despite the fact that, as he’d put it when Bruce had ran in when Tony had been screaming in pain, “Tony had started it.” Bruce had sat himself at the other end of the couch, and currently is attempting to meditate despite the fact that heavy metal typically sets him on edge, whilst Nat reads through the information Tony had been gleaming about Peter before the conversation had taken a sharp descent into a bad place.

Natasha can’t help herself after about twenty minutes of a quasi-terse silence while Tony ‘tended’ to his new injury, and asks Tony why he wants to know so much about the young Peter Parker. After all, he couldn’t be more different from Tony—but, honestly, is he? Tony’s not too sure. To be completely honest, he probably sees too much of himself in Peter; so much that it’s actually just the slightest bit off-putting, and he can’t help but want to take the boy under his own broken wing—protect him from any other evil the world can think to hit this innocent child with. However, despite wanting this, Tony knows he shouldn’t want it, because what exactly can a man like him do to protect a kid? If anything, he would only make the kid’s life just a little bit worse, what with how messed up he is himself. He’s got no right to try and help someone like Peter, who has the entirety of the world before him, even though the world doesn’t seem to want Peter.

But he tells her none of this. It’s better that way.

Peter Parker, as he finds out, attends a middle school out in Queens, the name of which Tony can’t quite remember but finds himself in front of nonetheless only two days after his altercation with his friendly neighborhood SHIELD agents, his hands stuffed into the pockets of Adidas sweatpants he’d gotten for Christmas years before and his face hidden by the brim of a Mets ball cap, waiting patiently for little Parker to exit out the doors of the school. He’s been itching to talk to the boy; he’s not sure why. He is sure that this is borderline creepy, but he just wants to get to know Peter better, despite the fact that he’s done enough research to be able to write a thesis paper on him, and Tony doesn’t know how to go about it in a normal way, so he’s here, dressed plain clothed and hiding in plain sight as he waits for an eleven-year-old boy he cyber-stalked to get out of school so he can talk to him again.

And you can bet his anxiety is running rampant. Telling him that this is a terrible idea. That nothing good is going to result of this. That little Parker is going to call the cops, and no amount of ‘I’m Iron Man’ would stop his ass from going to jail for pedophilia. Or, at the very worst, Peter will just laugh in the face of Tony’s concern and reject Tony on the very principle of it. Or—

“Mr. Stark, is that you?”

Peter’s brown eyes are laced with concern when Tony snaps to attention, biting at the inside of his cheek nervously with a hand tight around the strap of weathered book bag whilst the other gripped at what looked to be an old VCR, complete with its cord. Kids are streaming around them, either to their parents or to the local transit, none of them noticing either him or Peter, which is good for Tony because Peter did not catch him in a moment that he would not be okay with the public being privy to. Tony, distrusting of his voice, simply nods in the affirmative at the young Peter Parker, who shifts the VCR due to its bulky nature, looking around himself with a certain guardedness that Tony recognizes all too well.

“Is this where you tell me that I owe you money for entering the Expo illegally like that?” Peter asks, apprehension evident in the quivering of his voice. “Because I don’t think I have the funds to—”

Tony can only imagine how comically wide his eyes go in response as he shakes his head, reminiscent of a dog shaking off water, grabbing the young boy by the shoulders with inadvertent aggression that has a few kids turning their heads in their direction in, for the most part, curiosity. Tony swallows dryly, letting go of Peter almost immediately before brushing off the kid’s shoulders. Peter watches him with more intrigue than before, his beautiful eyes careful to not let too much show to the man before him.

“No,” is all Tony can say with another dry swallow. Happens a lot when he’s especially anxious. Who knew that simply speaking to an eleven-year-old could trigger such a reaction? Though, to be fair, it wasn’t like Tony went out of his way to speak to kids. He already knows he’s not all too good with them.

Peter cocks a brow and asks Tony why he’s here then.

And Tony blurts out the first thing that comes to mind.

Peter looks at him confusedly in response and asks, “Why would you want to replace my glasses?”

Tony shrugs. “My hired thugs broke ‘em. I should replace them. Right thing to do and all. But can’t replace them with frames you don’t like, so I kinda need you. Got a particular style in mind, kid?”

Peter fidgets. “It’s okay, Mr. Stark. You don’t have to…”

“I know. I want to,” Tony argues, “Now spit it out, kid. What kind of glasses do you want? Those broken frames aren’t gonna be much use.”

“It’s fine. I fixed them with some glue,” Peter says, pulling the broken frames out of his pocket. They could look worse, Tony decides, but they definitely had some room for improvement. Before realizing it, Tony asks if the kid used Elmer’s to fix them, to which the boy goes scarlet, shoving them unceremoniously back into his pocket.

“Not everyone has everything, Mr. Stark,” he says, chin jutting out.

Tony sighs. Not how he wanted this conversation going. “Sorry. Let me help you, then. I can fix them.”

Peter sighs too.

“I’m going to hit curfew, Mr. Stark. I need to go.”

To the group home, Tony can hear although it’s not said.

“Called your social worker,” he says quietly.

Peter bristles. Asks why almost immediately. Tony sighs once more.

“Wanted to see what your situation was.”

Why, he’s asked again. Tony honestly believes now that it’s possible to hit a sigh quota, so he just shifts on the balls of his feet.

“Because I was intrigued by you, Peter. Now shut up and let a stranger do something nice for you.”

Peter is now gaping at Tony. He can tell just by the look on his face that Peter’s sure that Tony is not would be categorized as a role-model adult.

But, despite this, he still says okay. Still gets into the car that Tony has two blocks away from the school with wide, amazed eyes at the console; VCR sat upon his lap. Peter looks like he’s stepped into his own personal wet dream, and Tony’s just unable to help the laughter that rises up his throat, because it’s in that moment he realizes just how adorable the kid is. Seriously, he can act like such the hardened individual, but at the end of the day, Peter’s just an eleven-year-old boy who’s never been in a car that cost as much as this one does. For effect, Tony lowers the roof with a few switches, and watches Peter’s face as he follows the folding movements of the roof.

“Awesome,” Peter murmurs.

Tony snickers.

His original plan was to take Peter to a glasses shop none too far from the tower for some new, sturdier frames, but since he was pretty gung-ho about the shattered frames he already possessed, Tony bypasses the shop and takes the kid straight for the tower, where he has far better ways of repairing the frames than the use of cheap non-toxic glue. The drive takes thirty minutes, partly because Peter’s school is out in Queens, but primarily because he makes the executive decision to, for once, obey traffic laws and not run every single red light he can.

Which has nothing to do with the kid strapped in to the seat beside him.

None whatsoever.

In what feels like no time, he has JARVIS doing a complete scan of the glasses Peter’s ‘fixed’, while the boy himself is looking like he’s found himself in Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory. He doesn’t have enough sensory intake for the room, it seems, and young Peter just looks like he doesn’t know what do with himself. Anything he sees, he tries to touch, and it’s nearly comical to Tony, mostly because if he were Peter, he’d probably do the exact same thing if he found himself in such a workshop.

“Mr. Stark, this is amazing,” Peter whispers.

Tony snorts. “Yeah, I know. I’m pretty sure I made it. It’s in my tower, after all,” Tony says in a purposefully haughty voice, trying to mask on the inside how happy he is that Peter appreciates this space. Most people—i.e Steve—don’t see it for the beauty that it is.

“No, really, Mr. Stark,” Peter continues, “I think this is where I’d want to have my ashes scattered.” Tony arches an amused brow while Peter goes scarlet, coughing slightly with embarrassment. “In my defense, it didn’t sound nearly as creepy in my head. More amusing than anything else, I think, but, but… Jesus.” He sighs and tilts his head back. “Swallow me, Earth.”

Tony can’t help his laughter.

Chapter Text

Peter’s a funny kid. Talkative beyond belief, and definitively inquisitive. Tony’s more than happy to give him access to tools to deconstruct the VCR, which Tony learns he’s taking it apart for no other reason than just for the sake of taking it apart. It’s a reason that Tony can get behind, as he’s had lesser reasons for taking things apart, and so he simply just allows Peter to ramble on about the ‘new’ laptop he got—old to everyone else, but new to Peter, which he’s currently in the process of modifying, apparently, but the VCR has absolutely nothing to do with it. Tony figures that it has something more to do with the fact that the kid’s never even used a goddamn VCR (he’s that young, it’s ridiculous to Tony to be aware that he's talking to someone who's never forgotten to rewind the tape after watching) that he wants to see how it works.

“—I mean, I’m hoping I come across a laser disc player next—can you imagine it?—all the parts! And just putting it all back together so that it works, just—wow, this fan is ginormous, how hot was this thing getting?—I can’t believe this thing was actually useful to people!” Peter says excitedly as he removes the solder on the wires with the practiced hand of a master technician, with clean precision and controlled motions, and Tony can’t help but snort at the rambling. Tony doesn’t say all too much, which is unusual for him as he is the epitome of rambling, but he keeps his own words to a minimum because the boy wants to speak. He asks mostly questions, and occasionally answers some of Peter’s, because Peter is, additionally, endlessly curious.

For Tony, it’s like looking at a miniature version of himself, and he wants to do his best to foster his curiosity, because he remembers those brighter days when he would ask his father endless questions and receive little more than grunts and grumbles, and he remembers how it feels; to be shunned by the adult he wants most to want him around, and while he believes he’s not that person for Peter, he does want to be—which, yes, stuns Tony, who shirks responsibilities such as these like the plague. Tony is well aware that of all things he is, the last he is a role model, though children like to believe he is, and he is also more than aware that he shouldn’t be one for them. He’s not the right fit to be one, he believes, but not because he’s impulsive, no; it’s because he genuinely believes that he would do more harm than good when he tries to help. It certainly seems that way, sometimes. But, God, how badly he’d like to be a role model for Peter Parker. He’d like nothing more than to coach Peter on his path to being… well, whatever Peter wanted to be in his life, which could be anything, because is the kid smart. Crazily smart, especially considering his age; it’s amazing.

“Mr. Stark?” Peter asks in the quietest voice Tony’s heard him use to date, the VCR now fully dismantled parts and pieces scattered across Tony’s work table, screwdriver tucked behind his ear as he looks at Tony with a hint of what seems to be apprehension, “Why exactly did you want to help me?”

Tony arches a brow. “Told you why already, didn’t I? My so-called security attempted to bring you bodily harm at a convention. I owe you so many favors that I’m pretty sure any unlikely grandchildren I could potentially have are going to be paying you back.”

Peter shrugs. “You don’t really owe me anything… I’m just some kid who wanted to see a Stark Expo.” He ducks his head. “So I don’t get it. Why do you want to help me?”

Tony can’t help but sigh. How can he explain it when he doesn’t fully understand it himself, after all? He doesn’t understand why he wants to help Peter so badly. He doesn’t get why he wants to foster that mind of his. He doesn’t comprehend why he wants to protect Peter more than he’s ever wanted to defend anyone in his entire life. He doesn’t know why he’s doing any of this. It’s the most irrational he’s ever acted, the most compulsive he’s ever been, and for the life of him, he doesn’t know why he’s doing it. And, honestly? Now that Peter’s asked, it’s now ushered in a feeling of fear, of worry, because he knows himself to be selfish; knows himself to be greedy, and he’s worried because he doesn’t know if he’s really doing it for Peter or if he’s actually using Peter as a way to, inexplicably, make himself feel better, and without a reason behind his actions, the self-doubt rises in his throat like lava, boiling at his esophagus as it burns its way upwards.

“Why do you need a reason?” Rhodey asks him with an arched brow. Tony dropped Peter at the group home hours ago, none too long after he finished reassembling the VCR in the terse silence Peter’s unanswered question left them in (because, honestly, he didn’t know what else to say after that, something that doesn’t too often happen to the engineer).

Tony sips at the glass of green shit. “I always have a reason for the things I do. I’m not completely irresponsible, Rhodey.”

Rhodey snorts. “Right, because you just live your life by the books.”

“Shut it.”

Rhodey shakes his head in amusement. “Still, Tony. Doesn’t really matter if it’s selfish or not, I really think that you don’t need a reason to want to do right by someone. I mean, unless you’re becoming a cliché supervillain and just plan to rip it all away to render him pliable and weak.” He looks through the information Tony’s got on Peter once more whilst Tony stutters, indignant at the joking accusation. Quietly, Steve wanders into the room, sketchbook in hand and attentions automatically attracted to the holographic display before Rhodey, opened to the files that Tony’s managed to collect on Peter. Neither Tony nor Rhodey notices him—Rhodey too busy reading; Tony too busy arguing.

“And if anyone needs it, it’s probably him,” Rhodey says, frowning, brow furrowing; whilst behind him, Steve’s eyes have gone as cold as the ice that trapped him. “Jeez, this kid’s got a life. No family to speak of whatsoever?”

“I’m working on it,” Tony says softly, taking another sip, “His parent’s files aren’t all too complete, and Parker’s a last name that’s all too common anywhere. It’ll take even me, with all I’ve got, a bit of time.” He bites his lip. “This is a terrible life for a kid to have to live.”

Steve is still silent, still taking in the information before him before he swallows dryly, trying to avoid making too much noise. He suddenly just wants to go to his apartment and remain there until the apocalypse comes; flashes of long unwashed hair, pale eyes as transparent as the sky, and whispered promises running rampant through his mind, and before he realizes it he’s clenching his sketchbook so tight that he’s ripped through several pages. He had come in to hang out with Tony—wanting to become closer to the engineer for reasons he doesn’t really understand but doesn’t want to fight—after asking JARVIS for his location, but now, now he just wants to break down and cry. So, quietly, he backs out of the room, eyes still glued to the image of a child, to the description of a soul left alone that reminds him too much of another.

Meanwhile, Rhodey nods in agreement with Tony, but says, “It’s only terrible if you have to go through it all alone.” He looks at Tony expectantly. “Will you let him?”

Tony doesn’t have a verbal answer for Rhodey’s question, but, as it turns out, he didn’t need a vocalized response—him turning up at the group home Peter’s currently living at two days later in a shiny red sports car with a small, wrapped box in hand turns out to have just enough effect, with the addition of the right amount of Stark flair, especially when he tells the head of the home (he’s sure that kind of position has a name, but for the life of him he just can’t remember what it is) to blow it up his ass when he says that he will not allow Peter to accept a package from him. It’s almost as if the man is scared that it will contain any ounce of enjoyment for the kid.

(Which is not entirely the case; it’s mostly just protocol, to be fair.)

Tony marches through the boy’s home like he owns the place, which he decides in about two seconds that he should look into making such a purchase because he already can tell that the men and women who work in this home aren’t doing their utmost to find that these kids find one of their own—never mind that it looks as if it’s in need from a little tender lovin’ care from a nice little cleaning lady or eight, because there’s a thick coat of dust on every available surface, never mind the mud (mud?) that seems to be ingrained in some areas of the carpet. Tony’s got nineteen cleaning companies in mind before he even hits the second floor, and an additional six when he actually reaches Peter’s door. There would be more, but he does see some boys tending to some of the mess, so he at least sees there’s a bit of effort going into the maintenance, albeit not by the staff who work here, but he’s happy to see that the people who live here at least give a damn about how the place looks.

Well, not happy, because children doing housework just screams wrong, but maybe it’s that raised-by-twenty-housekeepers-and-Jarvis that’s affecting his judgment in the situation, but he’s already ordering what he feels to be the prime choice of his selection of cleaning crews to come in to the home when Peter opens the door, eyes going comically wide(r) with recognition before he grabs Tony by his [read: expensive] shirt collar and pulls him inside the room as swift as his eleven-year-old body will allow him to. Tony would laugh, and he’s ready to; but all that stops him is the incredibly freaked-out look that the boy’s face is contorted in currently—because, in the list of things Tony’s looking to get out of this impromptu visit, upsetting Peter is definitely the opposite of what he wants.

“What are you doing?” Peter asks worriedly, running his hands through his wild hair in a frantic motion that makes Tony wonder if the kid will be upset if he books him an appointment with his own barber, because he’s got a nest atop his noggin that begs to be taken care of. “You—you can’t just…!”

Tony arches a brow in that elitist way he really doesn’t have use for outside of the press, in an effort to try and amuse Peter, and crosses his arms.

“I can do a lot,” he informs the boy haughtily, “I am Tony Stark, after all.”

“Yeah, sure, I got that, but you can’t just walk into a group home!” Peter hisses venomously, “You’re gonna tease the kids!” Tony must look visibly confused, because Peter sighs and says slowly, as if Tony’s 100 IQ points dumber and needs things decoded in a special way, (rubbing the bridge of his nose as he does), “Imagine you’re five years old, Mr. Stark. Imagine you’re by yourself in a big place because your parents aren't around, going from house to house and family to family, without a real place to call a home, and imagine the only way of this system is if a perfect stranger just decides to pick you over every other kid that lives in the same house as you. And now… imagine the richest man in the goddamn world coming into the house.”

Tony blinks. He honestly hadn’t thought of it that way.

“I came to bring you this,” Tony says, not really knowing what to say in this situation, holding out the wrapped present like an idiot of the highest order because a regular person would simply apologize, whereas Tony will just ignore that he’d ever made a misstep to begin with (not a great habit, but perhaps borne after years of answering to a man like good ol’ Howie).

Peter arches a brow of his own, seemingly incredulous, but reached out for the package all the same, as if knowing well enough not to really expect more from Tony’s limited knowledge on the scope of human emotion, and Tony, for his part, appreciates this all too much, sliding his hands into his trouser pockets, trying to quiet the anxiety telling him that he’s messed up for the umpteenth time. Mentally, he’s already planning all the future visits that Iron Man is going to make to the scattering of boys’ and girls’ homes around New York City proper, as well as the expensive gifts he’s going to shower Peter with in apology for this misstep of his, because, yeah, he should’ve thought of that, he should’ve thought of how the little boys would feel if a rich man and prospective parent walked into their group home only to ignore the crap out of them all, because, hell, how fucking wrong is that? Why would he think that he could just walk into a place like this with a present in hand, nonetheless? He can almost hear Howard’s voice screaming at him, berating him for such a stupid choice, because it is, it’s stupid, it’s horribly stupid, and Peter, he probably hates him now, doesn’t he, hates him because he made some of the boys suffer just because he wants to show off for this one kid and, oh, damn, he ruined the prospective image Peter had of him, didn’t he, he went and screwed this all—

“They’re exactly the same,” gasps Peter quietly, drawing Tony out of his spiraling thoughts, holding up the new frames modeled directly on the old pair he’d tried to repair.

Tony blinks, a bit out of sorts now, whilst Peter awes at the spectacles that mirror exactly the ones that were broken.

“I looked through developing different models, but I figured you had an attachment to these, so…” Tony shrugs. He hadn’t thought much of it at the time, when he’d done it, he’d just… done it. “I used a reinforced carbon fiber to make the frames themselves and then coated them with a polymer to make them take on more of the design of the glasses you have. Topped it off with polycarbonate transition lenses coated with glare protection—real glare protection, not the fake shit that glasses makers charge for and oh my shit please stop looking like you’re going to cry, stop it, stop it now,” he finishes, frantic because the kid looks like he’s actually beginning to bawling.

“There’s two,” Peter whispers, blinking rapidly to stop the tears, “You made me the same glasses twice.”

(Tony figures that this probably isn’t the time to tell him there’s about forty-eight more copies of the same pair in his tower.)

Tony rubs the back of his neck, embarrassed for reasons he doesn’t completely understand. “Well, in case you lost one. Or if you left a pair at home. You could, I don’t know, leave a pair in your book bag, if that’s still a thing kids carry, or you could… hug me, yup, that’s what you’re choosing to do,” he completes as he’s impacted by the full-force of Peter barreling into him like a clumsy football player, wrapping his arms tightly around the engineer in a tentacle-like embrace, while Tony has his hands raised above his head in the awkward motion of a man who doesn’t too often get hugs from children—or, at least, children who have spent more than three seconds in his company.

“Hug me back, you awkward idiot,” Peter mumbles into his upper abdomen, just below the arc reactor. His words virtually vibrate against its metal casing inside the depth of chest, and he blames that on the overpowering feeling he has to embrace the crap out of the kid, which he finds himself forced to act upon as he wraps his arms around Peter’s considerably smaller body as tightly as he dares. He feels something strangely akin to warmth bottling up in his chest as he embraces Petey, a warm feeling he doesn’t dare to note upon; simply embraces Peter for as long as the boy desires before mentioning, casually, the laser disc player he’s got sitting in the trunk of his car downstairs, and he relishes in the high-pitched squeal that leaves the boy’s mouth before the child can stop himself.

(He then proceeds to spend the next six hours tinkering with the kid, staying even though the person in charge threatens to call the cops, because just how can he leave when Petey's looking at him like that, with those big doe eyes of his, really?)

“So how is he doing?” Natasha asks curiously as she helps Bruce prep for dinner that night, dressed to the nines in one of Tony’s old Aerosmith (guilty pleasure, we all have guilty pleasures) shirts and what looked to be a pair of Steve’s boxer-briefs, the messiest bun Tony’s ever seen her in, topping it all off along with the still-gorgeous, makeup-free face she had going on. Bruce taps her hip in a silent question for the spices she’s holding in her left hand, visibly paying no attention to the conversation around him other than the carefully calculated glances Bruce casts over to Tony.

“Yeah, how’s the tyke?” Clint asks as he slides to a seat atop the countertop before Bruce shoos him off with little more than a [slightly amused] dirty look, which Clint acquiesces to, only charging Bruce by taking a sneak off the ladle Bruce had left in the curry he’s been working on all day long.

“Don’t eat it all, we still have guests coming, piggy,” Natasha chastises before looking back towards Tony (brow arching in expectation of an answer sometime before the curry was done).

“He’s good. He liked the glasses,” Tony says shortly, shrugging. He doesn’t really want to talk about Peter right now. Not that he doesn’t have a plethora of things to say, because that’s not true; Peter is a topic that he could gush about for hours upon hours, and that in and of itself is the reason he’s not exactly jumping to share, because he’s just some kid that he owed a favor—so why does he want to chatter about Petey so badly?

Clint pauses mid-swallow, while Nat levels with him a stare. “That’s a casual reaction considering you made hundreds of the things,” Clint says incredulously.

“Not even, it was only fifty. And now there’s only forty-eight,” Tony argues.

“I’m not sure the count was the important part of the statement, Tony,” Bruce mutters almost to himself, but the other occupants of the kitchen hear him very well (well, not Clint so much, but he was reading Bruce’s lips which was virtually the same thing anyways, in his mind at the very least); Nat nodding in silent agreement, still staring at Tony in that calculating way of hers.

“What is running through that little mind of yours, Stark?” she asks.

Tony arches a brow. “I think we all know that my mind is far from little, Nat,” he says incredulously, “But I don’t see why you’re all trying to see something where there’s nothing to be seen. Petey’s all good, and he really liked the glasses.”

It’s now apparently Clint’s turn to arch a brow. “Since when did the kid become Petey?” he asks before both of his brows raise, and his eyes widen so far open that Tony’s sure that one, if not both, are going to pop right out of his skull and into Bruce’s curry. “Holy shit, you’re feeling emotions! Tony Stark is feeling feelings! Nat—wait no, JARVIS! Are you recording this?! Your creator is exhibiting actual human emotions, please tell me you’ve got this for me! I want to see this on an HD LCD display with true color!”

JARVIS doesn't seem to deem Clint worthy as an answer, as the program remains silent despite the direct call for its assistance.

“Clint, stop,” hisses Natasha once she’s noticed how much Tony’s stiffened at Clint’s insensitive jokes, “Tony nicknames everyone.”

“Yeah, but, but,” Clint says, pointing and laughing, “Not with affection like that!”

“Maybe take it easy, Clint,” Bruce says carefully, voice audibly edged with a terseness that has Clint [finally] pausing, taking a look over at Tony, who, by now, is clenching the countertop so tightly that, if he were remotely like Cap, he would’ve already broken that edge right off. He knows Clint’s just joking; that he’s not serious, but Jesus fuck, who was he to try and claim that Tony didn’t feel things? He felt everything. All things. He felt too many things all the damn time, every single day, and excuse the fuck out of him if he didn’t feel like expressing it all the time. For a moment, he wishes Peter was here. He always feels better when Peter’s around. He doesn’t know why, but every time he goes to see Petey he doesn’t feel as big a fuck-up as he normally does, as long as he’s around the kid, because, sure, he has messed up around Peter, but the kid still somehow manages to surprise him at every turn by… somehow, not hating him.

And it’s different, for Tony to feel this way, to know that this one kid doesn’t hate him. It’s just one thing his anxiety can’t take from him; the knowledge that this kid actually likes having him around, and that’s a new feeling for Tony, a feeling he doesn’t want to just let go. There are times when he’s sure that even Rhodey, his best friend since the dawn of goddamn time, hates him like he’s the bane of the goddamn universe, and Peter doesn’t make him feel that way ever. Sure, he's afraid that he'll make Petey hate him, but it's a far cry from being sure that he already hates him.

That’s how he justifies it to himself when he finds himself outside of Peter’s school again, hands wrapped around a new, larger package; a different Mets cap shoved atop his head to hide his identity as he waits for the boy to come out of the school, swallowing dryly, half-wanting to run away for fear that he’s actually wrong about Peter, that he actually does hate him, and then he’ll be reminded that he doesn’t deserve to be around this child whatsoever, doesn’t deserve to taint him, and he—

“You know, we can talk to the school about making it legal that you show up on campus, Mr. Stark,” Peter says with a big toothy grin, hands tight around the straps of his backpack, glasses as big and goofy as the last pair; befitting of the boy with a shirt that had the periodic table upon it. Instantly, Tony’s mind soothes, like it has these past few times that he’s met with Petey, and smirks down at the kid, narrowly managing to resist the urge to ruffle his hair.

“Hey, squirt; no household appliance this time ‘round?” Tony asks him.

Peter snorts before explaining how it had been confiscated today; his teachers apparently not seeing the recreation in a preteen dumpster-diving for a record player to take apart, not noting all the while the ostentatious package in Tony’s arms as he walks with Tony to his car, opening the passenger door himself this time before sliding into the seat, tossing his bag into the back [noting aloud how this is the first of Tony’s cars he’s seen, whether in real life or in a magazine, that actually has a back seat, making Tony think about looking into purchasing a lot of possibly more kid-friendly cars] and buckling himself in, not even bothering to ask where they’re going. Tony, for his part, simply takes the cap off, slides the expensive sunglasses on, and offers Peter a pair, which causes the boy to point with glee to the now-darkened lenses of his new glasses, making Tony break into a grin of his own, placing the package on Peter’s lap unceremoniously.

“What is it?” Peter asks, giving it a shake as well as he can (as it is nearly the size of his torso), reminding Tony that he is, in fact, still a child.

Tony says, (barely withholding the wince,) “Why don’t you try opening it if you’re so curious?”

Petey rolls his eyes as Tony starts the car.

“We’re already on three gifts, Mr. Stark,” he tells him with a smirk, “You’ve got to be careful; you’re coming off as some sort of sugar daddy.”

Tony snorts as Peter begins to open up his gift.

“I think we have entirely the wrong relationship for me to be your sugar daddy, Peter,” he tells the kid as he uncovers the (filled to the fucking gills) toolbox Tony had put together for him fresh that morning, having noted, when he’d gone to the home and had witnessed the scattering of objects around the room, that Peter’s quote-unquote ‘tool kit’ was skimpy at best; probably having picked up random tools as the years passed, and it just wouldn’t do for a burgeoning young scientist such as Peter to be using a flat head as his only type of screwdriver.

“Oh my God, there’s a Dremel, I have a Dremel, am I dreaming?” Peter gushes to himself, having already opened the toolkit to unveil all the goodies. “And, dear sweet baby Jesus, there’s a soldering iron, a brand new soldering iron, I’ve never had one of my very own! And… hex drivers… are those Allen keys… an ohmmeter, really?… oh my God, Mr. Stark!”

“I think you like it, huh?” Tony asks casually (or, as casually as he can, because Petey's excitement has him through the goddamn roof with complete and utter happiness, and Petey's smile [or just what he can see from the corner of his eye because he tries harder to focus on the road when Petey's in the car, he's noticing] is just wrecking his heart).

“I’m dying. I think I’ve died, yup, had to have, because I have a tool box with my own tools and I must’ve gone to heaven. I can hear the angels now,” Peter says excitedly, “When you stop this car, Mr. Stark, I’m gonna hug you really tight. Just fair warning. Though, I may very well die from all the excitement. You know, of course, if I’m not actually dead or dreaming right now.”

“Well, damn, kid. We still need to pick up the hand drill and heat gun,” Tony says (leaving out the part about the mini lathe; based on this reaction he’s gonna give the kid a damn heart murmur if he mentions how he’s planning to turn his bedroom into a miniaturized version of a workshop), and Peter, on his part, suddenly goes silent, quiet as a grave, which has Tony’s heart leaping into his chest because he expected far more excitement at the prospect of more tools. “Everything good, kiddo?”

Peter’s quiet for a second more before finally whispering, “Yeah. Yeah, um…” He fidgets beside him, and Tony can’t make out his facial expression too well, but he can see his hands tightening around the tool box. “But, I uh… Mr. Stark, it's just that… I just don't… just, I don’t… I don’t get it.”

Tony’s confused. “Get what?” he asks.

“This,” Peter says, making an obvious gesture to the toolbox, “Or the glasses. Or any of it, really, I guess. Why are you doing this for some kid you don’t even know all that well? What is it that you’re getting out of this?” (Tony’s still confused. He doesn’t see why he needs to get anything out of wanting to give Peter as much as he can.) “Is it to apologize? To make up for what happened at the Expo? You don’t need to do anything to make it up to me, Mr. Stark.” He sighs quietly now. “I… there’s so many other things that are more worth your time, Mr. Stark. Is some orphan brat from Queens worth even a fraction of it?”

Yes, is what Tony wants to say to this orphan brat from Queens, You’re worth more than you know to me.

But he just can't say that. He doesn't know why; he just can't.

Instead, he asks, “Do you want me to take you home? We can get the other things another day.”

Even in that moment, he knows that there is no other day.

And when he recalls the moment later, he realizes that Peter's aware of it, too.

Peter’s hands are so tight around the edges of the toolbox that the skin over his knuckles is virtually see-through, and, ever so quietly, Peter nods in agreement. Tony does his best to make it seem like this doesn’t affect him so much, too much, even after he drops Peter off at the home, even after he drives himself back to his Tower. In fact, and he’s kind of proud of this, he manages to make it all the way to his workshop before he has a breakdown that has him virtually blacking out.

He doesn’t sleep all that easy that night.

Or the next night, for that matter.

Chapter Text

He doesn’t go to the home Peter lives in.

He stops following Peter’s life so intently.

He stops pouring through his past.

He doesn’t go by his school.

He doesn’t even stop by Queens. He refuses to even look at things mentioning the damned borough.

He throws all the other glasses into the bottom drawer of one of his cabinets and throws away the key (Dummy picks it up when he isn’t looking, though). He falls back into his old routines dealt to him by Rhodey, breaking back out those god-awful green smoothies and trips to the gun ranges, trying to keep himself busy so he doesn’t have to think of a kid with big brown eyes and glowing, happiness-inducing smile. He throws himself back into philanthropic efforts to fill in the voids left in Rhodey’s schedule, and uses his work to avoid having to see the inside of his bedroom. He regresses back into the shell of Stark, and he does it so subtly that his friends don’t notice it at first, but do they come to notice it slowly by slowly. He’ll avoid coming to their group dinners, which, over the months, have become tradition. He’ll fall over himself with excuses as to why he can’t watch some stupid movie with them. He’ll even deny the invitation to come train with them (though, admittedly, he was never exactly eager to do so before).

He does all this with his trademark half-smile, because Tony knows better than to let people know he’s feeling like a sorry sack of worthless shit that infects the very air that they breathe. It’s not fair to any one of them to feel chained down just because of him, he feels, and he does his best to detract himself from their lives as best as he can—because he believes it’s better for them all this way.

So he smiles at Bruce when he denies the offer to join in on Bruce’s latest project.

He waves it off when Clint invites him to play a round of Mario Kart.

He brushes it to the side when Natasha asks him to tag along to the restaurant on twenty-eighth that they both like.

He declines when Rhodey, who’s in town for some reason, asks him to tag along on his run. He almost blatantly ignored Steve when he asks, like the observant crap he is, if Tony has something he needs to talk about.

He simply sticks to his routine, because his life is by far easier that way if he isn’t thinking on the quiet way Peter questioned him on his goodwill; because it’s far better that he doesn’t think about how saddened Peter was, how crestfallen he is, when he drops him off at that home of his, somehow knowing that that would be the last time he would see the face of Tony Stark ever again. It’s for the best that he doesn’t think about how that moment was the last moment that Tony got to take in the all those features he’s come to love about this child.

Love.

It’s not a topic Tony thinks about often, but in his heart, as detached as he tries to be from it (but never successfully is), he knows it to be true; this little boy went and downright stole his heart right from under his unsuspecting nose that very night that he’d gotten him that candied apple at the Stark Expo. Peter gave him a reason to live that he’d long since forgotten, and all he’d wanted in return was that Peter saw him as a father, like as Tony sees him to be a son, because, in truth, that was the very heart of his reason for doing anything for Peter. It’d never been out of any sense of owing him favors for his thugs; it’d been for the sole reason to better his life and to make sure he was kept healthy, kept happy. Tony just wants Peter to be happy.

But Tony doesn’t believe he can do such a thing for Peter any longer. He’s gotten over this childish whim of his; to make the boy look up to him, to adore him. Peter won’t love him; he doesn’t trust him, and doesn’t a son need to trust his father? Wasn’t that the basis of such a relationship? A child needs to trust their parent, and if there’s one thing Peter doesn’t need in his life, it's another adult to distrust. So, for Peter’s own good, he pushes aside this desire of his, and for his own good, he does his best to not want it anymore. He strives to use work to forget, to forget the child, to forget the fact that he’d wormed his way right into the very center of his heart. And, so, it takes a few months, but very soon, Tony thinks he’s finally done it. He’s finally gotten over himself, finally recognized that a man like him doesn’t deserve to have the unreserved adoration of the child. He’s finally getting to a point that, while each breath feels like the shrapnel tears new holes through him, breathing is something he no longer has to think to do.

Having to intermittently suit up helps. The world’s getting weirder each and every day, so weird that Tony feels normal, and it’s part of Iron Man’s calling to deal with the weird that actual normal people can’t. Being Iron Man allows him to better pretend that he doesn’t feel the pain all the time, because Iron Man doesn’t have to worry about one little kid (just one more thing for him to have to envy about the hero); all he has to worry about was keeping the world out of the fire, and Iron Man is good at that.

He is very good at that.

Until, when they’re dealing with the Doombots ravaging through San Francisco and Iron Man spots a child who’s face and stature is all too similar to that of Peter’s does the worry over the one little kid begin to blend in with that of the world, distracting him for all of a fraction of second—apparently, more than long enough for a targeted electro-magnetic pulse to shut down his suit functions, stopping the Iron Man and leaving one Anthony Stark plummeting to the ground hundreds of feet below him, who thinks, in these spare seconds he has before he smacks face-first with concrete, about a little boy who hugged him for bringing him new glasses.

And then everything’s black.

Tony comes to with the sound of beeping in his ear and the smell of antiseptic tickling at his nose, eyes dry and scratchy but fully able to take in the sight of one Natasha Romanoff standing over him, carding her fingers through his hair. She’s crying, very quietly, very softly; damn near unnoticeable if you're not looking for it, and Tony knows better than to comment on it because even in this state she’ll rip his arm off if he says a word. She’s looking at him with eyes too expressive for her normal self, and she begins swearing at him in Russian about how fucking selfish he was and how if Bruce and Steve didn’t pull him out of that rubble and rip apart that suit he would’ve bled out from the thigh plate cutting into his artery, and how shaken they all were, not just her, and if he weren’t nearly dead she would seriously beat the crap out of him until he wished he were.

And he doesn’t doubt that, which he tells her in a clean, crisp Russian of his own, which has her smiling softly, beginning to get back in control over herself before bending at the waist to kiss his forehead, whispering, in English this time; that she’s so happy that he’s back. On his part, he makes an untimely joke about how bad he is at dying, and he winces at the painful slap she lays on his wounded leg.

He’s apparently been out a week, and, according to the doctors, with his history taken into account it’s actually nothing short of divine intervention that he’s even alive, news that Clint and Rhodey both are, for their parts, none too happy to hear whatsoever, based on the way they both begin to out-do each other with the whole over-protection thing, as Clint deigns himself something akin to Tony’s human walker and walks with the man everywhere, whilst Rhodey overlooks all aspects of the provision of Tony’s healthcare with the watchful eye of a soldier who does not seem like he’ll hesitate in gutting any nurse or doctor who takes his heart rate in a way that he deems to be unacceptable. Natasha, for her part, becomes Tony’s watchdog from the shadows, knowing there were people out there who would take advantage of Tony’s current status as wounded to take down an Avenger, whilst Bruce simply fulfilled the job of keeping Tony from going off the walls with insanity, keeping him pacified with conversation and, best of all, science and, when not possible, mathematics at the very least.

Even Steve comes by, seemingly not as involved as his other teammates were in Tony’s situation, but filling the gap left by Bruce on occasion by asking him questions about technology that Tony knows full well that, by now, Steve knows backwards and forwards how to use; as well as allowing Tony to be silent as he draws in the solitary chair in Tony’s hospital room, knowing that even quiet company was better than overly invasive company that regularly threatens the hospital orderlies with bodily harm, which Tony appreciates deeply.

“So, Bruce told me about a kid. Peter, his name was?” Steve says absently one day, his pencil making the lightest of scratching sound against the paper pad he’s using, legs thrown up improperly over the arm of the chair in a position that one would never think Captain America, the pinnacle of liberty and good ol' classic American sensibilities, would use, but Steve Rogers, the Former Art Student would. Tony stiffens the moment he hears Peter’s name, pausing in the scrawling of his schematic on the paper borrowed from Steve’s pad, looking up at Steve, who’s paying just enough attention to have a conversation; not looking up from the paper. “You made him glasses.”

“My fault they got broken,” Tony mutters.

“You mean it was your employees’ fault they got broken,” Steve corrects, “Bruce told me.” He flicks a glance up at Tony. “You love the kid, I take it.”

Tony snorts. “I’m not capable of emotion like that,” he says smarmily.

Steve smirks. “So yes, you do, a lot,” he says, accepting the information easily with a shrug, “That’s good, Tony. Everyone should have a person they love.”

“Kid deserves better,” Tony says softly.

Steve gives him another glance. “Maybe,” he agrees, statement striking deep at Tony before he shrugs, “Maybe not.” With one more scratch of the pencil, he reaches down towards the pouch he has lying on the floor beside him for a new one to begin adding details to the sketch. “Thing is, it isn’t for you to decide. Parents don’t get to decide how their children love them, generally.”

“He’s not my kid.”

“He may as well be.” Steve smiles. “Went to go see him myself, after the accident. While you were still…” he doesn’t say the word, doesn’t want to say the word, and Tony doesn’t mind it, “… went to go see him at the home. The kids were all excited and were tripping over themselves to tell me to tell you how much they appreciated the cleaning services that you apparently footed the bill for… as well as for getting them started with scholarship funds. They were all too happy to show me the way to Peter’s room. The kid’s room looks like a cheaper version of one you’d have in your house if you were his age, but he was just, just…” Steve swallows now, “Just lying there. Didn’t even get up to look at who’d come in. In fact, when he saw me, he just turned over so he didn’t have to look at me, because it wasn’t me he was waiting for.”

Tony’s throat feels like it’s constricting. Thankfully, Steve doesn’t note on it, he simply continues.

“He came by, to see you, you know. I told him where you were, got him access. Stayed in here for three straight days. Slept only when we forced him to, ate only when we were on the verge of threatening to go about feeding him through a tube. Three days and only two meals. Nat screamed at me when she found out that I’d told him. Blocked his access and had Clint berate him for being an idiot.” Steve shakes his head. “Then they turned on me. Getting a kid so worked up like that.”

“Where is he?” Tony gasps out when his throat finally lets him.

“The home. Safe. Nat’s keeping an eye on him. School’s out for summer, so he’s got nowhere to be, but he sits outside on the steps all day, like he’s waiting for something.” Steve smirks. “He reminds me of Bucky, the kid. Buck got attached like that too.”

Tony’s barely listening at this point, because now he’s on a one-track mind, a singular function that has him swinging his feet off the bed, taking off the sticks tacked to his chest to track his heart rate, beginning to remove the IV’s. He ignores the frantic beeping of the machine, ignores the pain shooting through his leg as he forces his weight upon his still-healing leg, because he doesn’t matter all too much at this moment for him to really think about what he’s doing to himself, because… because…

Because he’s got an eleven-year-old boy waiting for his visit and he’s kept him waiting too long. Wait, no. Not just an eleven-year-old. His eleven-year-old. His little Petey. His precious little Petey—his son, Peter, who’s waiting for him in Queens, New York, on the steps of a crummy home he’s spent far too long for Tony’s tastes living in. No, he deserves better, he deserves the entire world; and as luck would have it, Tony’s got the means to give it to him by just his name alone.

He’s dimly aware that Steve’s behind him, and damned guy is probably smiling the cat that got the canary, but Tony’s somehow okay with that. He can hear Clint screaming at him to wait up from down the hall, but Tony doesn’t slow; he’s already not too fast anyways, what with the cast on his leg, but once Clint catches up, he helps with that by throwing Tony’s arm over his shoulder and taking on the weight that his leg shouldn’t. He can hear the angry sounds of twittering doctors and nurses as they try to tell their belligerent patient to get back in bed, but Steve—good ol’ Captain Rogers—silences them with what Tony hopes is his best disappointed look; the one that could make kittens feel guilty.

Rhodey catches up with them before they make it to Clint’s Jeep, and while he berates Tony for his stupidity, he does little to actually stop him, simply climbing in beside Tony whilst Clint crows for shotgun, tossing Steve the keys to his own car. Before Tony knows it, they’re moving, tearing out of the Mt. Sinai parking lot before Tony can blink, Steve daring to ignore traffic laws while Clint natters on at a mile a minute in his excitement. Tony, for his own part, is simply just trying not to let his heart beat out of his chest before he gets to the boy that his heart has deemed to be his son, Rhodey’s fingers flying across the screen of his StarkPad as he contacts Pepper on Tony’s behalf, muttering something about papers.

Everything’s moving so fast that Tony can hardly blink, but he doesn’t care all too much, because before he knows it, they’re pulling up in front of the home, already in Queens, and Tony doesn’t have the thought necessary to think about how many tickets Steve’s wrung up in the time he was driving because he sees the face of the child he’s come to treasure, he sees Peter, and he knows, as he rushes out of the Jeep as best as he can with the fucking cast on his leg to wrap up that kid in his arms, that he’s all okay.

Peter’s crying into the thin fabric of his hospital gown (he’d forgotten he’s even in a hospital gown), arms wrapping so tight around Tony that he’s sure he’s going to squeeze the strength right out of him, his face smashed against the arc reactor in what Tony’s sure is an uncomfortable position, but he doesn’t seem to even desire to move from it; in fact, he burrows in further, as if he’s afraid that if he retracts just a little bit that Tony’ll run, and Tony hates himself just a little bit for making that a thought in the kid’s mind, but, hey, he has the rest of his life to prove that he’ll never do something so stupid as that ever again, so he just hugs harder.

“You idiot,” sobs Petey, nearly unintelligible, “You stupid lug, Tony. You can’t do that ever again.”

“Won’t,” murmurs Tony, burrowing his face into the nest of Petey’s hair, reveling for the first time in its surprising softness, “Never. Can’t risk leaving you, kiddo.”

Peter sniffles, still crying hard, but Tony can almost hear the wobbly smile he must be making when he says, “Good, because I’m not losing another one of my parents ever again. I’ll kill you if you die on me, Stark, ‘cause you’re stuck with me now. You don’t get a choice.”

Tony laughs a bit. “I think I’ll get over that,” he says, “I think I’ll get over that pretty easily, actually.”

And, based on the fact that, for the first time in a long time, the whispers of his anxiety aren’t egging at the back of his mind, he’s telling nothing but the absolute truth to his son, and he knows that while his battle with it, with the anxiety; it’s far from done—knowing that he had the absolute love and adoration from the child that was somehow always meant to be his son, no questions asked, it’ll become easier to deal with. The road, he can tell, was going to be difficult—that much is for sure—but, for now, he’s content to stand in the middle of that Queens sidewalk with his ass hanging out and an embarrassingly large cast around his leg hugging the crap out of this little boy he was fortunate enough to call his brilliant kid.

Because he’s okay with it, okay with whatever, as long as Peter’s happy, because, at the end of the day, Peter’s happiness kept his demons away, shining a light upon his heart as he strived to be the best for this kid he was fortunate enough to call his kid.

Life may suck, but at least he's got someone to help him out with it now.

Even if it is some kid from Queens.

Especially that it's some kid from Queens.

Because that kid? He's Tony's kid.