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Peter hadn’t come out of his room all morning. That wasn’t just odd – it was concerning. He hadn’t been out of the lab for long, but ever since he’d gotten his new room he’d been up and waiting in the living room every morning.
Instead, Tony finds himself drinking his morning coffee alone. He doesn’t like it.
Even when Peter had been in the lab, Tony would spend most of his breakfasts down there. He realises how much of his routine now centres around Peter and wonders if that’s a good thing. He’s certainly not unhappy about it, at any rate.
His coffee is finished. Now he’s bored.
He knocks on Peter’s door.
“Hey, kid, you up?” he calls.
“Yeah,” he hears from behind the door.
Tony frowns. “Cool. What are you up to?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“What? Why not?”
There’s a pause. “… I can’t tell you.”
Alarm bells go off in Tony’s mind. What could Peter possibly be doing that he can’t tell him about?
“FRIDAY, what’s he up to?” he asks.
“Peter has asked me to keep that a secret, boss,” she replies. “You have given him the authority to request privacy.”
He should have known one day his creations would rebel against him.
“Can you at least tell me how long you’re gonna be, Pete?” he asks.
“I need twelve more minutes,” Peter tells him.
That’s very specific.
“Uh, okay.” Tony sighs, utterly powerless. “I’ll be in the living room when you’re done, then.”
“Okay!”
Tony stands there a moment. He presses his ear against the door but can’t hear a thing. He’s curious as all hell but relents and heads back to the living room. He kills time deleting unread emails on his tablet. If they were really important they would have been forwarded by Pepper, he figures.
“Dad?”
Finally. Tony looks up from the tablet with an easy smile. “Morning Number Five. Decided to join us at last?”
Peter’s eyes dart around the room but then he seems to realise that Tony wasn’t referring to a literal collective and says nothing. Tony feels a little swell of pride until he realises Peter’s holding something behind his back. He looks nervous.
“What’s up, kid?”
Peter walks up to him and stands before his seat on the couch, hands still hidden. Tony tries to take a peek and Peter immediately flinches away.
“Alright, what’s going on?”
Peter stares at the ground. “Uncle Rhodey called me yesterday.”
“Uncle Rhodey?” Tony smirks.
“He said that’s what I could call him.”
“That’s fair. What did Uncle Rhodey want?”
“He said it’s Father’s Day today.”
It sounds like something Rhodey would go behind Tony’s back about.
“It is,” Tony confirms.
Peter nods. “And he said that Father’s Day was for showing appreciation to my father.”
“… Yes.”
“And you’re my father.”
Tony crosses his arms. “Okay, Peter, I think I know where this is going but I’m gonna need you to use your words and say it, please.”
Peter frowns, still staring at the ground. Tony wants to give him a hand but he’s better off first trying to find the right conclusion himself.
“I wanted to know how to show my appreciation and Uncle Rhodey said I should give you a gift. But I didn’t know what to give you and I didn’t want to steal any of your money because I couldn’t tell you I was buying something.”
This is painful, but Tony reminds himself to be patient. Good things…
“Peter, is all of this information important for me to know?” he asks.
“I think so.” It sounds more like a question than an answer.
“Is there much more to the story?”
Peter ducks his head. “Yes.”
“Then you have only twenty-five words left to tell it.”
The android’s eyes widen and Tony swears he sees something short out behind them. Peter just stares for a full five seconds before blurting:
“Uncle Rhodey said some kids draw pictures for their fathers so I wanted to try that. He said you’d like anything I drew so here.”
Suddenly there’s a piece of computer paper right in front of Tony’s face and his not-as-young-as-they-used-to-be eyes have a fit trying to focus on it. He takes it and holds it at a more acceptable distance.
It’s a picture of Tony, entirely in steady black ballpoint pen. He’s smiling in precise, diagrammatic outline. Every tiny curve of his face has been methodically drawn to perfect scale. In the top left corner is an inscription that reads:
Dear Dad,
Thank you for building me.
Happy Father’s Day.
Love Peter
Tony only barely notices that it’s written in his own handwriting.
“It’s the first time I registered you smiling at me,” Peter explains. “I thought that would be special. I placed the vision onto a grid and mapped it with functions until it looked like you. I didn’t know how else to draw it.”
Tony can’t speak. He just stares at the drawing and wonders why it’s going blurry.
Peter is crouching in his line of sight then. “Are your eyes irritated? They’re watering.”
Tony blinks away the moisture and smiles. “No, you just made me cry. Thanks a lot.”
“Oh. Rhodey said you would do that. It’s happy crying, right?”
“Yeah, Pete.” He has to keep blinking. He places the drawing on the seat next to him and holds out his arms. “As an apology you can give me a hug.”
There’s no hesitation and in the next moment Tony’s arms are wrapped around Peter.
“I know I wrote it on the drawing but Happy Father’s Day, Dad.”
“Thank you.” His stupid eyes are getting misty again.
Peter pulls away from the hug and settles cross-legged on the couch.
“Do you like the drawing?” he asks.
“I love it, Pete,” Tony tells him and absolutely means it. “Mind if I put it on the fridge?”
“The fridge?”
“That’s where fathers put things they’re proud of their kids for.”
After a moment, Peter seems to understand the implied compliment there and his face lights up. “Oh. Yes, Dad, you can!”
Tony picks it up to look at it again. It’s incredible and he’ll definitely scan it later and make it his lockscreen. One thing does confuse him, though.
“That’s my handwriting, isn’t it?”
Peter smiles, sheepish. “I wanted the inscription to look handwritten so I used your writing for reference.”
Tony has to laugh. “Okay, well our next project is finding you your own hand. I don’t need people thinking I wrote my own Father’s Day message.”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be, kid. It’s adorable.”