Chapter Text
She had been beautiful, and Tony had been sober for the first time all weekend. She was wearing a green dress, sitting at the bar with a lemondrop martini. He knew that she and Richard Parker were...some kind of an item, but she didn't act exclusive, and Tony acted as much a gentleman as he could have, sixteen years ago.
And it's true, when he looks at Peter, he sees Mary Parker.
But when he looks at Peter, he doesn't see much of himself. Good thing? He's been thinking that.
What is the question then? There are several.
Does he believe May Parker?
Does he think Peter is his son?
Does he want to know if Peter is his son?
“You do,” Pepper assures him. He keeps expecting her to be...angry. He's not sure why. She's sitting across from him at the breakfast table, the day after May's visit, sipping her tea and going over her schedule. “You have the equipment.”
“I need his DNA.”
“You have it already.”
“Yeah, but I need to get his...permission.”
“Why?” She looks at him now. “To stall? Or because this part is different.”
“...Both.”
“So you believe her.”
Tony scrubs his face with his hands. “I'm entertaining the thought of entertaining the possibility.”
“Don't be dense about it,” Pepper says, before she gets up and kisses his forehead. “And don't forget about our visitor.”
“Shit. Is he still sleeping?”
“He is.” Pepper grabs her phone and planner. “Have you told Natasha?”
“She out of range,” Tony murmurs.
“Well, I'm sure she'd appreciate something.”
“Sure,” he says. “I'll...get right on it.”
Bruce Banner is making himself at home in Tony's basement lab, shuffling around in slippers and old concert t-shirts and jeans. It was good to see him, good to have him back in the space, even if he was...rather quiet.
Tony sends Peter a drone and a note asking for a blood sample before he heads downstairs.
“Hey, big guy.”
Bruce looks up, hunched over a bowl of cheerios and looking through some data. “Hey.”
“Feeling alright?”
“Sure.”
“Cool, cool.” Tony sniffs. “Listen. I know–”
“I don't want to talk about...any of that. Right now.”
“...Okay.”
“Maybe later. Maybe...just maybe. I guess.”
“I can do that.” He clears his throat. “I'm...wondering if you could run a test for me.”
“What kind of test?”
“Just a basic marker test. A comparison. On Spider-Man.”
Bruce chokes on his cheerios for a minute before looking right at him. “Seriously?”
“You've heard of him, right?”
“I thought he was a joke. I thought he was your joke, actually.”
“He's not,” Tony says, almost defensively. “Technically he's...my responsibility. I gave him his suit.”
“Recruited him to fight Cap.”
“Hey, if you can get out of talking about all your abandonment bullshit, then I don't have to talk about my decision to recruit a fifteen year old to my team, okay?”
“Alright, alright.” Bruce goes back to his breakfast. “So what's up?”
“Just want to run some tests.”
“You'll tell me later then?”
“Sure.” Tony turns to head out of the lab. “It's good to have you here, you know. I missed my lab partner.”
The drone is back that evening, and Tony sends the sample, along with one of his own, down to Bruce for comparison.
He considers what to do in the days he'll need to wait for the results, but Bruce has it done in a few hours, which Tony should have known, considering Banner's core competency level at this sort of thing.
“Spider-Man's got an interesting protein structure happening here.”
“It's something.”
“I'd like to keep looking at it, if I can.”
“Sure, sure.” Tony swallows. “What'd your comparison show?”
“That he's fifty-percent yours.” Bruce looks at him. “Come on, you think I didn't know?”
“I assumed you did.”
“You could have just told me.” Bruce leans back in his chair. “But I get it. It's a sensitive subject. Not every day you find out you're a dad.”
“I'm not. He's just...sort of mine.”
“Pepper said you were mentoring him.”
“That's a strong word,” Tony says, and looks at the results himself. “Is there a parenting book for this? Surprise, you're a father: what to do sixteen years too late?”
“No.” Then: “Who's his mother?”
“Mary Parker. Richard Parker's wife. Do you–”
“I do.” Bruce's face falls. “That's...sad. Poor kid.”
“He does alright. You should meet his aunt, if you and Romanov aren't going to–”
“Here's your results,” Bruce says, and spins his chair toward another table. Walls up, conversation finished.
Tony goes back upstairs.
“Maybe we should come to you.”
“That's not a bad idea. He could play with Dr. Banner in the lab, might soften the blow.”
“Dr. Banner, as in...as in the Hulk, Dr. Banner?”
“The only one.”
He hears May sigh on the other end, and it's the same one Pepper gives him sometimes, when she just...can't fucking believe this shit. “Alright. We'll make a trip this weekend.”
“Perfect. I'll throw some burgers on the grill.”
It's...easier than Tony thought, telling Peter the truth. Just a little, we did a DNA test and it turns out I'm your biological father. Really simple, in its execution.
Dealing with the aftermath is...harder.
“I can't believe you knew this and you never told me!”
“Peter, honey, I didn't really know, I didn't have anything to–”
“What the hell does it even mean?” Peter demands. “I've been...I've been alone and now there's just–”
“You haven't been alone,” Tony says. “You've had your Aunt.”
“Don't.” Peter points at him. “Don't just...you've got no right to—” He groans, pulling on his hair and pacing through the living room. “I don't understand, I don't understand, I don't understand–”
“We can give you some space–” But Peter is already out of the room, down a hall and far away from them. May puts her face in her hands. “This was a mistake.”
“Maybe,” Tony agrees. He puts a tentative hand on her shoulder. “I'm...sorry, for what it's worth.”
“It's fine.” She sniffs, wiping her cheeks with her sweater. “It's...it's fine.”
Pepper comes into the room, offers to make May a cup of tea, maybe give her a place to lie down for a while. She accepts, asks Tony to find Peter, and disappears.
Tony waits, just a bit. He's been in that place, the one where being spoken to or touched by anyone is enough to push you right over the edge. He gives Peter a good thirty minutes before he goes looking for him, spends another ten just trying to find him before he gets a little message from Banner.
b: he's down here
“–in chem lab, honestly. It's pretty easy to put together.”
“It's strong. You said it dissolves in a couple hours?”
“Yeah, it's not bad.”
“That's impressive. Tony said you were clever.” Bruce looks up. “He's a cool kid.”
“He's alright.” Tony leans against the door frame. “You cool?”
Peter shrugs. “I'm okay.”
Bruce sighs and gets up. “I think I'll go for a walk.”
“Be sure to come back.”
“No promises,” he says, and nudges Tony with his elbow on his way out.
Tony steps in. “Listen, Peter–”
“Don't...tell me you're sorry. Okay?” He toys with the end of a test tube. “It's not your fault.”
“Well, it's a little my fault. It's not my fault I didn't know, but even that's pushing it a little. There's always a way to find out. And to be fair, I...followed your parents' careers pretty close. I knew about you.”
“Yeah?”
“A little here and there. Saw an article about you winning a science fair in a journal once, talked about how much like your father you were.” Tony sits in a chair. “He's still your dad, you know.”
“I know.”
“I'm not going to try and take his place. But I'm...I am going to try and do better by you than I have.”
“I think you've done okay.”
Tony raises a brow. “Yeah that suit thing was genius. Honestly? Wasn't expecting that from me. Of all people. Very much something my old man would have done.”
“Guess we all turn into our parents eventually.”
Tony looks at him, at his kid, looking right at home among all this equipment and all this tech and all this...everything. And he thinks about how much like Mary Parker he looks, and how he even looks like Richard Parker from a certain angle. Pair of nerdy glasses, maybe. A white coat. A pretty girl on his arm and a grant in his back pocket.
And then he thinks about Peter Parker, the Spider-Man. The hero with the high tech suit and that burning, undying need to constantly prove yourself, even to people who don't seem to appreciate you. Tony wonders, for a minute, when he started turning out a bit like Steve.
“Yeah,” he says. “Guess we do.”