Work Text:
In another life, Peter would be his kid. Peter would be his to hold and piece together time and time again. He would have gotten to see the kid's first steps, hear his first words, video-tape his first swim lesson and laugh when he giggled among the water. He would give anything to be a father.
So he asks Pepper everyday, praying that the repetition would change her mind any day now. Sometimes she even uses Peter against him.
“Would you put Peter before your own child, Tony?” She snaps.
He listens to her heels click as she leaves the room, his silence gave her an answer.
The truth is, Tony didn't know the answer. Surely if it came down to it, his child would be first. But wasn't Peter a child? Wasn't he somewhat responsible for the teenage vigilante in red and blue spandex?
Tony thinks so. He can hear Pepper tsking in his head in disappointment.
Tony let's his mind drift to Peter. How he drools on the lab counters when he stays late working, how he giggles at Tony’s terrible puns and drinks Monster after Monster until he’s literally bouncing off the walls. Tony remembers finding the boy in the kitchen at four in the morning doing homework, not even complaining when the older man lays a hand on his back and fixes his hair for him.
Today is one of those nights. Peter had come over and fell asleep, forgetting completely about the homework Tony assumes he’s doing right now. He’s sitting cross-legged on the ceiling, reading about physics, his eyebrows are scrunched in frustration and he’s sighing every few minutes.
“How ‘bout you take a break, get some hot chocolate?”
The teenager perked up at that, but his resolve deflated when he looked back at the book. “Sorry, Mr. Stark, I can’t right now. You know how it is!”
Tony pursed his lips. “I don’t actually. Why don’t you come down here and tell me.”
Peter whined. “One more chapter.”
Tony nodded and sat on the bench under him. “One more chapter. And there better not be shoe prints on my ceiling, you know how Pepper gets.”
Tony waits for Peter to finish. It only took a few minutes until the kid drops onto the floor quietly next to him. He smiles at Tony like he’s embarrassed, but the man already knows he is. Peter feels like a freak about his powers, he hates eating four meals a day and being one hundred and forty pounds at seventeen years old. Despite his small weight he can lift ten tons and stop speeding cars with his bare hands. He scrambles to hide his web-hammocks and random spurts in the training rooms. Peter especially hates always being cold even though he can’t shiver. Like he is now, he’s always wearing hoodies and grey sweatpants and fuzzy socks that make Tony’s heart melt.
“C’mere.” Tony says, holding out his hands, motioning for Peter to take them. When he does, Tony starts rambling. “You don’t have to hide your shit from me. I know you think there’s something wrong with you, but there isn’t. You’re Peter Parker and that’s all I can ask for.”
Peter’s eyes flick uncomfortably to the ground. His hands are sweaty in Tony’s and he wonders if he crossed a line.
“Sometimes I wish it wasn’t me.”
Tony sighs. “I know, kiddo. But thank God it is because I don’t know how many other kids I could tolerate for this long.”
Peter lets out a quiet laugh and pulls Tony into a tight hug. Tony runs his palm up and down the boys spine and rests the other hand in his hair. Peter sighs happily and pulls away much sooner than Tony would like.
“Thank you.” Peter says, looking at the older man with more admiration than he’s really worth.
Tony stood up and began to pull Peter along with a firm hand on his upper back. “Let’s get you to bed, you look fatigued.”
The teenager snorts and lets himself be pushed into his bedroom. “Fatigued of you.”
The door shuts and Tony fakes an angry tone. “That’s not even a thing, Spider-Boy.”
Tony lets himself drift to the lab. He won’t be sleeping anytime soon so there’s no point of going to bed and waking Pepper. He makes his way to the main bench and pours himself some coffee.
His mind wonders to his time in Afghanistan, how he hurt so many people. How his hands have killed thousands to make product. The hands that just held Peter’s smaller ones, his fragile ones. Tony wouldn’t forgive himself if something happened to that kid, if anything happened. His left hand shakes and he white-knuckles the table to try and forget. If Peter died… that’s on him. It’s completely on him, and as selfish as it is, Tony wouldn’t know how to live. Sure, he’d only know the kid for a couple years but man, did Peter have a way into your heart.
“Hey, Mr. Stark!” Peter yelps from the doorway, bustling in with a smile.”
Tony jolts in the boy’s direction. “How the hell did you get in here?”
Peter’s smile falters for a second before he answers. “The door was open. You hungry?”
Tony rolls his eyes and ignores the question, his mood worsening as time goes by. Peter isn’t talking but he occasionally asks questions that he’s too tired to answer. A few hours go on like this before Peter starts to get moody. He puts his headphones in his ears and scribbles on paper and mixes chemicals silently in beakers.
Tony doesn’t acknowledge when he leaves.
The next few days are the same. Peter comes in three times that week and has said less words than that. He comes in and sits at his own table. He listens to music and stares at the paper. Tony steals glances, his heart throbbing. He had to do this, for the good of Peter. Both of them getting attached would end up painfully.
He keeps this up until Peter announces his leave. He’s going on a trip and tells Tony he won’t be back for awhile.
“See ya.” Tony says, not looking up from the scrap metal in front of him.
Its two weeks before he sees Peter again, shoving the suit at him with a blank expression. The longest and loneliness weeks of Tony’s life nonetheless. He doesn’t show it.
“What, did you hack into it again?” Tony scoffs, taking it from him. Until he sees what’s wrong. There’s a giant hole running across the front of the suit, starting on fabric above his heart running all the way to his hip. Tony cocks his head back to look at Peter, who resorted back to his bench silently. Terror washes over the man and he wonders so many things. Peter doesn’t look up.
“Hey, what the fuck happened? Did you remodel with scissors or somethin'?”
Peter’s face doesn’t change, he refuses to look up. “You’re speaking to me again?”
Tony’s taken back. “I would if you didn’t have such an attitude.”
Peter doesn’t answer, but he starts gathering his things. He’s leaving, his face is pale and flushed and Tony wants to ask when this happened, why it happened.
“You walk out those doors, I take the suit. Forever.”
Peter turns and Tony feels something close to fear. The teenager's eyes show his furry, his jaw is clenched and his fists are bawled at his sides. He drops his bag on the ground and crosses his arms, waiting.
“What is your problem?”
Peter lets out a noise close to a sob. “My problem? You’ve been ignoring me for a month and I don’t know what I did wrong! What did I do, Tony? If you don’t want me anymore I at least deserve to know why.”
Tony feels his face morph into one of confusion. “What?”
Peter fidgets, his body shows the discomfort he’s trying to hide. “You haven’t said more than a sentence to me since I got back. I thought you were going to take the suit anyway. I guess it’s good knowing we were on the same path.” He spits out.
“I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t want you…” Tony struggles for the right words. “I don’t want to end up like my dad. You deserve more than anything I can give you.”
Peter rolls his eyes. “You think you can break me? You think that little of me? With all due respect, Mr. Stark, you think after everything I’ve been through, everything, you snapping at me and pushing me away is going to be my downfall.” He chuckles humorlessly. “You must think pretty low of me.
Tony knows what Peter’s been through. Everything is a weighted word, a term he didn’t want to think in to. “I think everything of you-”
“Then fucking act like it!” Peter snaps.
Tony flinches at the venom laced through his words, his tone, his body language. How tense his whole body is, his pacing and shaking is making the billionaire nervous himself.
“I destroy everything I touch.” Tony says quietly, looking down at his clenched fists.
He ignore the eyeroll Peter definitely gave him. “I’m not asking for your permission. I’m telling you, you can’t get rid of me, sir, wether you like it or not."
Tony can tell he’s still mad, his eyes are clamped shut and he’s breathing slowly. His pacing as slowed and his arms are tightly wrapped around himself. He hates when the id does that, hates when he tries comforting himself when Tony could do it. All he’d have to do was say the magic words and they could cuddle and Tony would apologize every second to make up for the longest month of his life. “Never knew you were so pushy.” Tony quips.
Peter grits his teeth. “I have to be when the people around me are too fucking dense to realize what they’re saying is absolute bullshit.”
Tony refrains from wincing. These are the harshest words he’s ever heard come out of that child’s mouth and honestly, he deserves it.
After a few minutes, Tony stares up at a very distressed Peter. He’s wiping tears away from his eyes and trying to calm his breathing. Great, first he ignores the kid then he makes him cry. What a great role model he’s being for that exact kid.
Before Tony can console him, Peter chokes out his words. “I lost everyone, Mr. Stark. My parents died, then… then Ben died and I thought I was dying with him. I wanted to die with him, so badly. I begged everynight to switch places so my aunt could be happy. It’s not the same. It’s not- I can’t lose you too. I have nobody left.”
Tony’s heart hurts for Peter. He watches as he cries and holds himself, wanting desperately to reach out and hold him. He’s not sure the teenager would even want that or even forgive him. “I’m sorry, Peter. I’m sorry.” Tony whispers, knowing the child heard him.
“Promise me.” Peter blubbers, stumbling to stand in front of the stool Tony is perched on. “You- You have to p-promise me.”
“Okay, okay.” Tony breathes, folding his tempted hands in his lap. “I promise, I won’t leave you.”
Peter tentatively holds out his pinkie finger. “It’s not valid unless you pinkie swear.”
Tony locks his smallest finger with Peter’s. “Pinkie swear I won’t leave.”
The kid lets out the breathe he was holding and lets some of the tension drip from his muscles. His face relaxes and his eyes shut. “Thank you.”
Tony can only nod along, not trusting the lump in his throat. He grabs Peter’s arms and holds him, neglecting how Peter squirms before he wraps his arms around Tony’s middle. He doesn’t want to let go, he can’t let go. He almost lost his kid. He almost lost his child to his own insecurities. The boys arms around him are the duck tape that he needed to stay together.
In another life, Peter would be his kid. His biological, same-saliva child that he would have to clean up after and watch around the clock. Blood relative or not, he gently wipes the blood from Peter’s cuts, hating how he bites his lip to draw even more. Tony cradles Peter when he limps into the tower bawling his eyes out after a particularly bad night of patrol, he whispers in his hair and cards through his hair. Tony even gets to teach him to drive, pushing his fears aside and lets prayers leave his lips.
Sure, Tony didn’t get to see his first steps, but he gets to see all the ones after that. Tony can’t imagine a life without Peter Parker or at least, he doesn’t want to.