Chapter Text
Tony slips out of the Audi, stretching as he stands to his full height, squinting up at the sparse sunlight before pushing purple glasses up his nose. Behind him, Peter is the first out from the backseat and unlike his mentor, the teenager tips his head up to soak in the rays with a small dopey grin. Rhodey and Pepper exit near simultaneously, both wearing identical looks of satisfaction. It puts Tony on the defense and he opens his mouth to call them out on it when,
“How’s it already so busy?” squeaks Peter. “It’s ten in the morning on a Saturday!”
Rhodey deadpans, “It’s ten AM on a Saturday, Pete.”
Peter tosses him a wounded glance that no doubt is his attempt at projecting his displeasure but he ends up mirroring an irate toddler.
Tony chortles.
“Come on, Pete; we’ll go buy the tickets.” Pepper ushers the teen, holding her fiancé’s gaze to make sure he’s watching as she rolls her eyes, before tugging Peter into her side and they go on ahead.
“He’s a good kid,” Rhodey says casually as Tony rounds the car to his best friend. “Who is way too easy to tease like a certain someone back in the day.”
“He is,” he replies without taking the bait. “You know he wouldn’t have minded if you wanted to go back, right?”
“And miss you falling on your ass in front of people? Hell no!”
Tony jambs into Rhodey’s shoulder and grumbles under his breath when his friend doesn’t even lose his balance. Then they are both laughing merrily as they meander to catch up with their missing party.
Peter finds them before Tony even has the chance to honestly look, skipping over and sporting a trademarked Parker megawatt smile he wears when he’s ecstatic, two pairs of ice skates slung over his shoulders, and his unfinished drink in his free hand.
“Hi Tony!”
“Hi bud,” he parrots, matching the grin at his approaching kid. “Pepper not squared away yet?”
“Oh, she ran into someone she knew.”
“She did? I wonder who it could be.”
“Beats me. But why are you surprised? Pepper’s social. What else would you call it when someone happens upon an acquaintance outside of work? I call it socializing.”
“Kid.”
“What?”
“Are those my skates?”
“Yep!”
Tony motions left with a chin jerk and Peter leads them to a free section of a bench. The teenager allows both skates fall off his shoulder, then he hands off one to his mentor, slurping at the red Starbucks cup absentmindedly. Tony tries hard not to wince at the sight and sound of his kid’s slurping. He sits on Peter’s right and starts mimicking the lacing motions in hopes of ignoring it.
“Drink all your hot chocolate, Pete; if we leave it with Rhodey, he’s liable to drink it gone and I don’t wanna hear you whining for another one.”
“You got it dude.”
“I am not your ‘dude,’ child, how many times do I have to tell you?”
“As if I’d drink some kid’s hot chocolate while he’s ice skating.”
“Don’t listen to him, Underoos— Rhodey’s always been a dirty liar.”
“Says the kettle.”
“Wait— wouldn’t I technically be considered the pot now? Y’know, since I married Pep?”
“You can be both the pot and the kettle, Tones.”
Peter doesn’t bother covering up his snickering.
“Wait wait wait: are you insinuating that I’m a liar? Me? Did I hear you correctly?”
“I didn’t insinuate. I know you’re a liar.”
“And here I thought I only brought one teenager to skate today.” drawls Pepper.
Tony, Rhodey, and Peter look up in unison to see the strawberry blonde with her arms crossed and a put-upon expression of boredom.
“C’mon gentlemen, I don’t have all day.” his fiancée continues on, taking a seat and lacing up her ice skates more efficiently than she claimed to have known. She told them last week when they agreed on their weekend activities she hadn’t been ice skating since she was ten. Then, as if she reads Tony’s mind, she says, “Did I lace these correctly, Peter?”
Peter falls for the ploy and bends at the knees to inspect, while Tony and Pepper hold eye contact, the former narrowing his while the latter raises her eyebrows as if daring him to call her out. He doesn’t.
“Perfect!” the kid crows, standing up fluidly and Tony admits he’s jealous of Peter’s balance.
Because Tony? He may have memories of ballet lessons but they certainty don’t translate to balancing on ice skates even on non-frozen, solid ground. He’s visibly wobbly.
“This is gonna be great. Peter, you’re a genius.”
“Shut up, platypus.”
“If you two are finished with your material spat, Peter and I are ready.”
“I recall being married only once.”
“That’s because you were drunk at ours, Tones.”
“What? Back at MIT?”
“He would have been a minor then, Rhodey. Like say, my age?”
“Oh my god! Let’s go skate now, I can’t wrap my brain around the fact we’re making jokes about marriage when my kid is the same age. I just— andiamo subito la mia famiglia, I can’t take any more with my bad heart.”
And Tony trots off without Pepper and Peter.
“He thinks walking away and claiming a weak heart automatically means he won,” his kid pips up.
“I can still hear you, Roo!”
Next thing Tony knows he’s got a spiderbaby hugging him from behind and his wife’s giggling form slipping her arm through his right one. And he’s certain that if they all weren’t wearing shoes with blades attached Peter would be attempting to hitch a piggyback. Pepper presses a kiss above his goatee, her smile wide against his cheek.
“Who’s teaching him how to skate first?” questions Peter.
Tony sputters but he doesn’t have time to interject the phrasing as his wife replies quickly.
“You.”
Then she’s fluidly detaching from the crook of his arm and inserting herself into the gathered crowd entering and exiting the ice rink. And she pushes off with grace.
“Haven’t been ice skating since she was ten my ass,” he grumbles.
Peter loops around to Tony’s front and he has yet to lose his trademark smile, reaching down to latch onto his wrist and tugging them forward.
“Please tell me you both haven’t lied to me?”
“I haven’t,” his kid replies, peering around customers ahead of them to see how fast the line is moving. “Honestly, I haven’t been skating since two years before Uncle Ben died.”
Peter weasels between people and Tony follows, not minding the traffic jam so long as his kid knows how to navigate, and suddenly they are on the ice.
“Pete.”
“I’ve got you. Hey! This is worlds easier than the last time I was here.”
“Like you don’t know why,” snarks Tony with a blatant eye roll.
A smirk blooms on the kid’s face and Tony automatically grips Peter’s forearms.
“Pete.”
“I know you; trust me, we’ll go around once and I promise you’ll have it picked back up by then.”
“I haven’t been ice skating since I was your age, kid.”
“It’s not dissimilar to bike riding.”
“Not helping.”
But Pete’s a sneaky kid when he wants to be; while he is too busy making sure he’s not gonna end up flat on his ass (as if his kid would let him), Peter has them casually skating along. And of course he doesn’t notice it because they are talking because Peter really does know him.
“Don’t freak out, we’re doing fine.” the words slip out of Peter’s mouth, his wide eyes silently begging Tony not to look away.
“I trust you,” he replies gruffly. “Rhodey let me fall on my ass right away when he took me for the first time.”
Peter giggles, biting down on his lower lip to keep the noise inside but they are close enough Tony can hear.
By the time they are on the opposite side of the rink Tony feels his confidence spike and at the same time he has his epiphany the teenager echoes it. Peter raises an eyebrow to ask if he wants to be let go and Tony doesn’t even pause as he releases his death grip on the younger’s forearms. Peter keeps skating backwards and spreads his arms out wide, nearly smacking several someones in the face.
“That didn’t take him long at all,” his wife’s voice comes from behind before she appears next to them.
“I told you it wouldn’t.”
“Why I always put you in charge, Peter.”
“I thought you were in charge?” asks Tony, bemused.
“Oh, I am in charge. But if I can’t be, Peter’s my second in command.”
“He’s mine too, so I cannot fault you there.”
“I’m gonna go a couple laps, okay?” Peter injects smoothly, doing a tight spin before he’s skating backwards again as he gives Tony the beginning stages of his puppy eyes. As if Tony is going to tell the kid he couldn’t after they are already skating.
“Kid—”
“Hold on, wait— Peter, where are your gloves?” Pepper holds up a black leather hand to stall them.
Brown eyes widen as the teenager peaks down at his bare hands. “Ummm.”
“How’d you lose them already?” sighs Tony and begins slipping off his own.
“No, no, Tony— I’m fine!”
“Says the teenager who walked into the kitchen this morning in sweats, a hoodie, and his comforter.”
“So I get cold easily!”
“Take the gloves, Roo.”
“No, I’m okay. I promise. I have pockets.”
And the little shit doesn’t allow Tony another rebuttal because he takes off, bobbing and weaving between other skaters as he picks up speed.
“Ugh!”
His wife out right laughs at him.
“He’s a menace to society.”
“You don’t mean that.”
“Okay, so I don’t mean half the things that I spew out.”
“C’mon, let him have a little bit of fun. You can skate with your wife?”
Tony’s grin feels sappy as he gazes at his wife and they lace their gloved hands together.
Fifteen minutes later, he has to admit he’s enjoying the time alone with Pepper. They decided their weekly date was going to be a family event, but he’s grateful they still have had some time to their selves. They’ve both been keeping a surreptitious eye on Peter, who is progressively drawing attention the faster he gains speed and the more spins he does. Granted, Peter has mostly kept to single flip jumps if he’s still up-to-date on figure skating lingo; but Tony knows it’s only going to be a matter of time before Peter forgets where they’re at and does for something showy like one too many Lutzes.
“He is agile, isn’t he?”
Tony hums in agreement.
Several paces ahead of them, Peter picks up speed once more. He positions himself to do another jump and as the brunet goes to land a girl comes barreling into his orbit and Peter senses it and mistimes the landing and ends up crouching down low. It’s no good. Tony knows he’s going to end up on the ice, so he unlaces his hand with Pepper’s and pushes forward to close the distance in hopes of lessening the damage.
Peter loses his balance and instead of landing on his ass like physics says, the kid attempts to scramble forward and he wipes out on his front.
Not fretting about speed now, Tony races off to save his kid.
“Pete!”
He is so close now that Tony actually watches what happens next clearly. A fast paced skater zooms by and quite literally glides over the kid’s outstretched hands. Peter’s face crumbles and Tony winces.
“Peter!”
Mindful of how he approaches the teenager, Tony bends at the knees and situates himself to help pick Peter up so he’s not putting any weight on his hands, which have stained the ice and Tony’s pretty sure those are bones he sees.
“Holy shit, kid,” he curses once Peter is upright and leaning against him. “Let me see them.”
“I’ve been sliced and diced.”
“Oh my god, Peter!” a startled laugh is pulled from Tony and he manhandles his kid, throwing promises over his shoulder to passersby he’s got the situation handled, until dazed brown eyes face him. He thinks Pepper is behind him as a form hovers at his shoulder. “Let me see, Roo.”
Peter obeys by placing bloody palms in his own.
Immediately Tony unwinds his scarf and makes to wrap Peter’s hands.
“Wait! No way are you sacrificing Gucci for my hands. Stop that!” Peter tries to bat Tony away.
Tony bites back a groan and keeps a lose, but firm grasp on Peter’s forearms. “No, you stop it. Peter, listen to me: I need to wrap your hands.”
“You can’t wrap it up with your scarf.”
“It’s a stupid scarf. And it’s not Gucci.”
“Nope, but mine is.”
Before either genius has the chance to protest Pepper swoops in with a white scarf and wraps up Peter efficiently.
“The most expensive bandage I have ever had in my life. Ever. Oh, my God.”
“Catch him, Tony, before he faints.”
“Don’t think it’s because of blood loss, Pep; just think he’s been sticker shocked.”
“It’s cashmere Gucci, too!” wails Peter. “I can feel the expensive wool!”
“Your priorities are out of alignment,” he informs Peter as the three of them begin the slow trek toward the exit.
“And yours aren’t?” quips his wife.
“Not helping.”
“Do you think I’ll get a free slushie?”
“What?” comes his wife’s intelligent response.
“Kid, I’ll make you hot chocolate when we get back to the apartment, okay?”
As soon as they are off the ice, Rhodey is there with a rink employee and Tony has to work his magic to get them the woman to leave (she does with little fuss, surprisingly), as Tony unlaces Peter’s skates and slips his black Converse back on. Rhodey hovers and Pepper rambles nervously. Tony’s had enough experience with his kid getting injured on patrols by now not to freak out in the midst of it. While shoving the left foot into the black canvas shoe, Peter blinks up and holds up his hands and says,
“Look, I’m a crime scene.”
“If I didn’t know about your enhancements,” Rhodey starts off softly, “then I’d swear you were drunk off your ass right now, Peter.”
“I think I’d rather be drunk,” nods a dazed teenager.
“Take off your skates Tony and take him back to the car; I’m going to return these and we can go home and treat him.”
“Do you think they’re already healing?!”
“Shh, Pete. Secret identity, remember?”
“How sweet would it be if they were healed by the time we got back to the penthouse?”
“Not sweet because I need to disinfect them at the very least.”
Peter’s brows furrow and he jerks back.
“No arguing. We aren’t letting the superhealing do all the heavy lifting this time.”
And his kid starts pouting.