Chapter Text
Steve was reading the paper at 6am in the kitchen when Peter wandered in.
“Morning Peter. You’re up a bit early aren’t you?” Steve said.
“Oh, uh yeah. Woke up and couldn’t fall back asleep.” Peter said, a little warily. He poured himself some coffee and headed for the door again.
“What are you doing today?” Steve asked before Peter could make his getaway.
“I don’t know. Play some video games, maybe tinker in the workshop?” Peter said with a shrug.
“Why don’t you come down to the gym later? We can spar.” Steve suggested.
“Yeah okay. Sounds good.” Peter said as he headed back to his bedroom with his coffee.
Steve hoped this plan would work.
**
The first time Steve had sparred with Peter after he was bitten, Steve ended up flat on his back with the breath knocked out of him, and Peter had ended up stuck to the ceiling.
They hadn’t sparred against each other since, instead finding a balance of Steve standing back and critiquing Peter’s technique.
Peter knew his Pop had some kind of agenda when he offered to spar. Peter was often short of volunteering opponents because his reflexes made him too quick to catch a lot of the time. His Pop was always the first one to back down from being his sparring partner. So why the sudden interest now?
Peter arrived at the gym before anyone else, so he started to warm up with a few stretches. His stretches quickly turned into jumps and tumbles, and before he knew it, he was swinging back and forth across the roof when Steve let out a sharp whistle to get his attention.
“Come back down!” Steve called, laughing when Peter slowly lowered himself down, upside down.
“You ready to go, old man?” Peter asked with a joyful grin.
“You’d better believe it.” Steve said before yanking Peter down to the floor and into a headlock, which Peter quickly ducked out of, swinging his leg around to knock Steve’s feet out from under him. Jumping away, Peter dodged Steve’s roundhouse kick.
Tony lurked in the entranceway, watching his boys brawl. It was quite obvious that Steve rarely sparred with someone as quick and as nimble as Peter. And judging from the wide grin on Peter’s face, he was enjoying himself. That’s why Steve had suggested this little match. He thought that he could help dispel some of Peter’s angst and maybe even bond with him a bit if they worked out together.
Peter and Steve had never quite seen eye to eye, even when Peter was small. And since Peter had become a teenager, he spent an awful lot of time hiding in his bedroom or down in the workshop. He was always the most outgoing and willing to talk when he first got home from being Spider-Man.
It made taking the mask away an efficient punishment for the boy, but TOny wondered if it wasn’t detrimental to Steve’s relationship with his son.
His train of thought was interrupted by a gleeful whoop let out by Peter as he swung on a web, just out of Steve’s reach.
“Hey, if you can use those, I get my shield!” Steve called, but he was laughing. It was clear that Steve was never going to keep up with Peter and his aerial gymnastics, but at least they were both smiling and having fun.
Tony smiled and left the gym, heading down to his workshop to work on putting together a more resilient costume for Peter.
**
Peter barrelled down the stairs to his Dad’s workshop.
“You called?” Peter asked, sticking his head around the doorframe.
“Yeah. Get in here, I want to show you this.” Tony said, gesturing Peter over.
On the worktop was the Spider-Man suit, all fixed up and repaired after being mangled by Doom-bots.
“Dad, it looks awesome!” Peter said excitedly, picking it up and examining it.
“I made it out of a more resilient spandex. Should prevent the suit from being torn which will help you to not get road rash. Although if you ask me, the best way to avoid that is to stop swinging around Manhattan. But we all know that’s not going to happen, so safety suit it is.” Tony said.
“Please never call it a safety suit ever again.”
“Fine. How’d your workout go?” Tony asked.
“Great! It’s always nice to actually spar with someone, you know? It’s just not the same on your own. Also I was getting out of practice, so it’s nice to get back in the groove.” Peter said.
“Good to hear. We want to keep you as on the ball as possible, you know. Don’t want anymore concussions and broken ribs, after all.”
“Yeah, yeah. I’ll be fine, Dad. Don’t worry.” Peter said offhandedly. “Can I take this?” he asked, holding up the suit.
“Yeah, it’s all done. But I’ve still got the mask until you’re done being grounded.” Tony said.
“Fine. Thanks, Dad!” Peter said, racing out of the workshop with his suit.
**
Tony and Steve walked into the living room to find Peter in the middle of what looked like either an explosion or a nest. He was sitting on the floor in front of the couch surrounded by pillows, chip bags, and pop bottles. There was a plethora of open windows on the touchscreen coffee table and Peter was immersed in a video game on the TV screen.
“Peter, what’s with the mess?” Steve asked with a frown.
“Hm?” Peter said, looking over his shoulder. “Oh! Sorry, I’ll get this cleaned up.” He started shifting some of the garbage into piles.
“What is all this?” Tony asked, moving around the sofa to see what Peter had been looking at online.
“Just googling stuff.”
“Stuff?” Steve asked.
“Yeah, just looking up whatever comes to mind. I’m bored.”
Tony read off the titles of each page.
“The Large Hadron Collider, practical time travel, the 10 laws of animation, become fluent in Swedish in just two months, how does a submarine work, tourism in Florida, and the history of Russia.” He paused for a moment. “Wow, buddy. That’s uh…”
“Diverse.” Steve said.
“Like I said, I’m bored. Did you guys need anything, or … ?” Peter asked.
“Right!” Tony said, clapping his hands together.
“We wanted to give you this back.” Steve said, holding out the Spider-Man mask.
“Awesome!” Peter said, jumping up on the couch to reach it.
“You’re free to go, but -“ Steve said, pulling the mask out of Peter’s reach at the last second, “You had better clean this up and make sure your homework is done before you leave. And be home by 10 on school nights and midnight on weekends!” Steve called after Peter as he ran off to dispose of his garbage.
“That boy was not meant to be cooped up.” Tony said with a chuckle.
“Did you say he was looking up learning Swedish?”
“Yup. But I totally get where he’s coming from. I wish I’d had google when I was his age. Instead, when I was bored, I built robots and AIs. “
Hardly a waste of your time.” Steve pointed out.
“No, but neither is learning Swedish in two months.”
“I suppose not.” Steve said.
“Alright, see you guys later!” Peter said he be ran by, already dressed in the Spider-Man suit. HE grabbed his mask and ran out onto the balcony, hopping over the edge with a quick salute back to his parents before he was out of sight.
“You know, I don’t think I’ll ever get used to seeing him do that.” Steve said weakly.
“Good. Who wants to get used to seeing their kid jump off of skyscrapers? Come on, let’s go swimming. The pool is guaranteed to be unoccupied by angsty teenagers for at least a few hours.” Tony said, pulling on Steve’s hand.
“A few hours? Tony, I think we’ve got,” Steve checked his watch, “Exactly 8 hours until we hear from him again. Let’s go swimming.”
**
Peter climbed in his bedroom window right as the alarm clock on his nightstand turned 12. He pulled off his mask and tossed it on his bed, letting out a content sigh. There was nothing more relaxing, more cleansing, or more stress relieving than swinging around New York and helping people.
Unfortunately, doing so didn’t come free. He had gained a black eye a split lip on his evening’s excursion, so he headed out to the kitchen to find something to put on his aching face.
“So how did it go?” a voice said, startling him as he passed through the living room. Spinning around, he saw his parents sprawled across the couch. Tony was fast asleep on Steve’s chest and Steve was reading a book one handed while his other hand carded through Tony’s hair.
“Went good.” Peter said, trying to escape to the kitchen quickly. His Pop never dealt with his injuries very well.
“Well come here, let me see the damage.” Steve said, beckoning him to come closer. Peter slouched over to the couch, disappointed that he’d been caught.
“Hmm, that’s going to sting later. You should ice it. There’s some frozen peas in the freezer.”
“Aren’t you going to yell at me?” Peter mumbled.
“No. I’d wake your Dad up. Plus, I have a feeling this happens more often than I ever heard about.” Steve said slyly. Peter grinned sheepishly, causing his lip to split and start bleeding again. “Go put ice on it and get to bed.” Steve said with a small smile.
“Thanks, Pop.”