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Tony’s in the lab, tinkering. It’s almost rare, nowadays, for him to be alone, just him and his tools. The quiet is nice, but Tony prefers it when Peter’s there.
His gaze flicks to the monitor, where the live-feed from Peter’s suit is playing, the volume low enough that Peter’s voice becomes background noise. Tony’s been particularly antsy today, and having the footage playing is calming.
The scene of Queens whirls as Peter swings through the air. Tony smiles a little, watching it, then turns back to his project.
“Zoom in,” he mutters, and the holographic projection focuses. “We need to strengthen these joints. If Pete comes down too—”
He cuts off, glancing over at the screen with the Baby Monitor footage again. It’s gone black.
“FRIDAY,” he barks, his heart in his throat.
“There’s nothing blocking the connection,” she reports rapidly. “The audio visual just cut out.”
“Do I still have his vitals?” Tony asks, standing. He can hear his pulse in his ears, feel it through his whole body.
“No, boss.”
Tony swears. “Get me a suit and play back the last thirty seconds of video, find out what happened.”
A suit closes around Tony only seconds later. From the corner of his eye, he watches the video of Peter crouched on a rooftop, talking to his AI.
“How many men?”
“Twelve, five of them armed with automatic weapons,” Karen reports, her voice concerned.
There’s some grim pleasure in Peter’s voice as he says, “Perfect. Karen?”
“Yes, Peter?”
“I am one with the Force and the Force is with me,” Peter says calmly.
The video goes black, the audio cuts out. It aligns with the exact second the suit went offline.
It’s a trigger phrase.
Peter has programmed a freaking trigger phrase into the suit to turn it off without sounding an alarm. And it’s a bloody Star Wars reference.
Tony has never been angry with Peter before. He’s been worried out of his mind, he’s been terrified for him, he’s been hurt and upset when Peter shuts him out, but he’s never been mad. He’s aware, in the back of his mind, that the spark of rage that ignites in his chest is born of the fear that Peter could get hurt or worse, but all Tony knows is that he’s furious in a way that makes his entire body feel too hot, his muscles tightening as he flies as fast as he can toward Peter’s last known location.
He prays that Peter is still in the same place, and tells himself it’s so he can kill Peter himself when he gets there.
That thought flies out the window when the first thing he sees upon arriving at the scene is a burly man lifting Peter by the throat and throwing him into a brick wall.
Tony’s vision goes red.
My son. My son. He hurt my son.
He doesn’t even bother with weapons. He just flies in at top speed and tackles the man, sending him crashing into a concrete loading bay and crumpling to the ground.
Tony whirls around to see Peter in a heap on the ground.
“Spidey?” Tony asks, but before he can get any closer, another goon jumps at Tony, armed with a semi-automatic rifle and too much bravado.
“FRIDAY, scan the kid, now.” He shakes the guy off, leaving him slumped and groaning next to his colleague.
“... It’s hard to tell if he’s conscious, boss,” FRIDAY admits.
Tony growls. “Get me out of the suit.”
FRIDAY dutifully opens the armor and deposits Tony on the ground, flying off to continue fighting the men on her own.
Tony races to Peter’s side, collapsing to his knees.
“Pete?” Tony asks, grabbing Peter’s shoulders and jamming his fingers over his pulse. It’s steady, thank heavens. Tony releases a pent-up breath.
“They’re running,” FRIDAY reports. Tony doesn’t care, other than that the men that did this to his kid are getting away unscathed.
A moment later, though, he understands why they’re running.
“Boss, there’s a bomb!”
Tony looks up, toward the warehouse less than a dozen feet away.
“Hit the deck,” FRIDAY shouts. Tony flings himself over Peter, covering the kid’s head and torso as best as he can. He feels debris hitting his back and presses himself closer to Peter’s prone figure.
Once the flames have mostly died out, Tony sits up, hands careful as he manually reboots Karen.
“Injury report,” he snaps as soon as the suit is online.
“Concussion, broken wrist, three fractured ribs, minor burns and lacerations,” Karen rattles off.
“I can move him?”
“Yes, sir,” she says quickly.
Tony gently turns Peter over, pulling his mask off. Twin trails of blood are leaking from his ears, more blood smudged under his nose. Tony taps his face but Peter doesn’t stir.
“Ok, time to wake up, baby,” Tony mutters, panic creeping into his voice.
“Boss, there’s another bomb,” FRIDAY reports. “Five seconds.”
“Give me the suit!”
The Iron Man armor comes flying at them, limbs detaching to make it easier to get on. Tony backs up from Peter’s prone body.
The suit attaches to Peter, forming quickly around him, covering every inch of vulnerable skin.
It’s written into every protocol, every suit. If it’s a choice between Tony and Peter, FRIDAY knows to always choose Peter.
Tony rolls to the base of the concrete ledge, pressing as close to it as he can as the next bomb explodes, sending a second wave of fire and shrapnel towards them.
He can feel the heat singeing his skin, his eyes watering from the smoke. Small pieces of burning wood and metal hit him.
Through the chaos, Tony keeps his eyes fixed on Peter.
When it’s finally over, the warehouse smoldering behind him, Tony crawls over to Peter.
“FRIDAY, we clear?”
“Looks like it.”
“Let’s get out of here,” Tony murmurs, his ears ringing.
The suit slowly peels off Peter, as gentle as if Tony were doing it himself. As it takes its customary place around Tony’s body, Tony carefully scoops Peter into his arms, grabbing the discarded Spider-Man mask.
Peter groans at the movement and Tony’s heart leaps.
“Petey? You with me?”
Peter stiffens, then coughs weakly.
“Shh, shh, you’re ok. I’ve got you. I’m right here,” Tony soothes.
Peter’s eyes open, barely, and see Tony. As if the sight of Tony correlated to ‘safe’ in Peter’s mind, he immediately goes limp again, his eyes rolling back.
Tony sniffs, swallowing hard.
“That’s it, buddy. You’re safe now. I’m going to look after you.”
He stands and flies them both home.
The doctors look over Peter, cast his broken arm, and then leave him in a room, carefully avoiding Tony and the hurricane of emotion evident around him.
Once Peter is settled, Tony pulls up a chair and stews.
Despite having been accused multiple times of being volatile and having a temper, Tony’s first reaction to any situation is very rarely anger. No, his anger has to build, like storm clouds gathering on the horizon.
A few months after Peter had come to live with Tony, he’d done something similar. He’d hacked the suit and disabled the audio visual. The vitals he left intact, so Tony had waited until he’d come to talk to him about it.
He remembers watching Peter climb through the window, knuckles bleeding through the suit, and split lip and a black eye decorating his face. Tony had been so new to the whole parenting thing, and so relieved that Peter was generally ok, and so worried of sending him tipping him over the edge so soon after May’s death, that there hadn’t been any room for anger.
Peter froze when he saw Tony. After a second, he squared his shoulders like he was ready for a fight and Tony’s heart broke.
“Hey, buddy,” he’d said, and Peter instantly looked taken aback. Tony sighed.
“I gave you that suit to keep you safe, Peter.” His voice was quiet and Peter seemed surprised. Maybe the ferry incident was fresh in his mind, but that was so long ago. Practically a different lifetime. The thought of yelling at Peter like that now made him ill. “You can’t... you can’t mess with that. Ok? That’s got to be rule number one.”
He’s tired. He can see in Peter’s face that he’s tired, too.
“Curfew, homework... sometimes you slip on that, and I get it. But this is the one thing I need you to promise never to do again.”
Peter had given a small, penitent smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Sure. I’m sorry.”
Tony floundered. He didn’t want to hound on it, but it didn’t feel like enough.
“Let me get some ice for your eye,” he offered.
“It’ll heal by morning,” Peter deflected, already turning toward his room.
“I’m really glad you’re ok, kid,” Tony called after him, hating himself for not doing more. For being too afraid to do more.
Peter hadn’t said anything, but Tony thought he could hear him suck in a surprised breath.
His one rule. The one thing Tony absolutely required of Peter, and the kid still broke it. Flaunted it. Went out of his way to break it and hide the fact that he was breaking it. Tony had trusted him with access to Karen’s code, trusted him to run the diagnostics and tune-ups. And he had used that trust to make it easier for him to get hurt.
How could Peter do this to him? Does he not care that seeing Peter in pain breaks Tony’s heart? Does he not know? Tony tries to tell him often, tries to show it in everything he does. Peter should know that he is the most important thing to Tony, that Tony’s happiness hinges on Peter.
Peter’s behavior was both extremely out of character, and concerning in a whole other way. Was Peter... trying to get in over his head? Did he purposefully seek out heavily armed men and a rigged warehouse the same way he did everything in his power to keep Tony from knowing about it? Even the thought of it sends strength-sapping fear through every one of Tony’s limbs and he has to drop his head into his hands for a minute to remind himself to breathe.
There’s so much he needs to say to Peter when he wakes up and he has no idea where to start. He just knows that the image of Peter being thrown into a wall is playing over and over in his head and Peter sought that out on his own.
By the time Peter wakes up, Tony has thought of a hundred different tactics and approaches, a hundred lectures and punishments. As soon as Peter’s eyes open, they all move to the backburner: even if he is ticked off, Peter needs to know that Tony loves him more than his anger.
He helps raise the head of the bed to ease pressure on Peter’s ribs, he adjusts his blankets. Then he sits back in his chair and looks Peter over for a moment.
“Are you in much pain?”
Peter considers for a second, then gives a minute shake of his head. His fingers are twisting in the blanket, like he’s nervous. Or angry.
“Are you thirsty?”
“A little,” Peter mutters, staring at his lap. Tony stands and gets a cup of water, bringing it back to Peter. Because his right arm is in a cast, Tony holds it up to Peter’s mouth for him, lightly bracing the back of his head to support him as Peter drinks. When he’s done, Tony pulls the cup away, wiping the drop of water that had escaped off Peter’s chin. His hand is, as it always is with Peter, careful and soft and gentle. His eyes are still distant and cool.
Tony sits back down and crosses his arms in front of his chest. They stare at one another for a moment, almost daring the other to go first. Peter looks away first, and Tony takes his chance.
“That was a pretty impressive piece of coding,” he says casually. “Did you do that or did Ned help you?”
Peter’s jaw clenches. He did it, Tony can tell. He can’t decide if that makes it better or worse.
“Don’t want to say? Ok. Do you maybe want to explain why you deliberately disobeyed my most important rule?” His faux calm tone dissolves. He’s angry, he’s furious. He is inexplicably hurt. “The one rule I told you was non-negotiable, the only thing I needed you to do, Peter. I needed you to let me protect you. That was it. I gave you all the tech, I have you on highest-priority, even-an-alien-invasion-ranks-below-this, hear-it-from-anywhere-in-New-York-freaking-City alert. All you had to do was not mess with it.”
Peter exhales slowly, controlled.
“I didn’t think it would matter,” he answers quietly. Tony’s eyebrows shoot up, his eyes narrowing as he tries to ignore the way his stomach drops.
“You didn’t think it would matter to me if you got hurt?”
“Don’t put words in my mouth,” Peter snaps, cutting a sharp glance over at Tony. “I didn’t think anything would happen! I thought I could go out and—”
“And what? That’s the part I’m not getting. What exactly were you doing out there, kid? That was a far cry from ATM robberies and stolen purses.”
Peter looks away. “Do we have to do this right now?”
Tony swallows. He wishes they didn’t have to do it at all. He wishes he could coddle Peter until he was healed, wishes they could just curl up together and watch movies. But they can’t. Not if avoiding this discussion means Peter’s going to do it again.
“Yeah, I think we do,” Tony sighs.
Peter huffs, his fingers tugging more agitatedly at the blanket. “What does it even matter? Do you need to hear me say that you were right so badly?”
“Excuse me?”
“I’m just saying, if you really cared so much about my wellbeing, you wouldn’t be trying to have a shouting match over my hospital bed!”
Tony’s shaking his head the whole time Peter’s speaking, his teeth clenched.
“You don’t get to play the ‘you don’t care about me’ card. Not after all this time. Tell me I suck at this, say I’m ruining your life, fine. But not that. What else you got?”
Peter’s mouth thins. He doesn’t answer. It’s the wrong move—Tony’s anger sparks again and this time he lets it.
“Nothing? Not even an apology? Ok, that’s fine. I can work with that.”
He stands up. Peter watches him, wary. Tony can almost excuse the flash of guilt that he feels as vindication.
“You hacked the suit. Again. And then went off and picked a fight with a dozen armed men and almost died. Do you realize that? There were two bombs in that warehouse, Peter, and you turned off your AI, who could have told you that.”
Peter scowls at the blanket. He doesn’t even look at Tony.
“I know you didn’t choose me. I know that you being my kid is just the product of you living through your worst-case scenario a few times over, that if you had any say in the matter you wouldn’t be. I know.”
Peter swallows hard at the reminder of his losses. There’s a sheen to his eyes that makes Tony want to stop talking but the words pour out anyway.
“But it’s still my job to—I need you to come home every night and you wouldn’t have if I hadn’t noticed something was wrong in time because you didn’t listen to me.” It would have been a tender confession if Tony’s voice wasn’t brittle and biting and sharp.
Peter’s biting his lip to keep it from trembling. Tony hates this. He hates it. He hates himself. He hates the thought of it happening again even more.
“So maybe next time you feel tempted to go out and get yourself killed, you could bother to take a second and remember that my worst case scenario, the worst thing that could ever happen to me, is you in a casket.”
Peter turns his face away as tears gather in his eyes. There’s a breath, where the opportunity for apology, for heartfelt honesty sits heavy in the air.
Tony spins on his heel and marches to the door.
Maggie is out in the hall, her nose pressed against the glass separating her from Peter.
Tony stops, looking at her.
Maggie doesn’t care that Peter landed himself in that medbay by disobeying, by seeking out a fight. She just cares that she isn’t in there with him. When he’s happy, she’s happy. When he’s unhappy, she cheers him up, and when she can’t do that, she stays with him.
What has storming out ever done for him anyway?
it must be nice to be a dog, Tony thinks. Then he shakes his head, scoffs at himself, and turns back around.
Tony can practically feel Peter holding his breath, waiting for Tony to leave so he can break down. So when he instead sits on the edge of Peter’s bed, Peter’s back warm against his hip, Peter sucks in a shuddering breath.
“I thought you were mad at me,” he whispers, still facing resolutely away.
“I am.”
Tony puts his hand on Peter’s shoulder, warm and firm. The action surprises a sob out of Peter, and once the first one has come he can’t seem to hold them back. He curls up as much as his broken ribs will allow, the thin blanket balled in his fist, entire body shuddering as he cries.
Tony clenches his jaw and closes his eyes and keeps his hand on Peter’s shoulder.
He wishes he could make Peter happy. He wants, more than he’s ever wanted something before, for Peter to never have a reason to cry ever again. Tony would give absolutely anything. If he had the power, he would bring Peter’s family back right now, even though losing the kid would shatter Tony’s heart into a thousand pieces, never to recover.
Peter lets out a particularly distressing keen and Tony’s eyes prick with tears.
Sometimes he thinks he’s doing alright, that Peter’s content and healing. And then things like this happen and Tony feels like he’s irrevocably failed the kid, like he’s impotent and inept and trying to fix Peter’s broken heart with scotch tape and rubber bands.
He’s trying. Lord, he’s trying.
As Peter continues to quietly weep, Tony finds tears slipping down his cheeks as well. He bows his head and gruffly swipes his hand across his face, brushing them away. He’s not even sure why he’s tearing up, he just knows that he is in physical pain listening to Peter cry and he wants so desperately to help and he doesn’t know how.
He’s not mad anymore. It might come back later, when he’s fixing the suit or removing the cast from Peter’s wrist, but right now he doesn’t think he has room for anger around the pain and guilt and overwhelming love he’s feeling.
Peter’s tears eventually slow. With his breathing still hitching and catching, Peter gingerly rolls onto his back so he’s looking up at Tony.
When he sees that Tony’s eyelashes are sticky with tears, his eyes a little red rimmed, Peter’s mouth opens in surprise, a quiet type of confused awe coloring his expression.
Tony sniffs, then reaches out and pushes back Peter’s bangs.
“Can we try again?” Tony asks, his voice low. Peter nods, wiping his eyes.
“Is something wrong?” Peter nods again. Tony rubs his knuckles lightly over Peter’s sternum.
“Is it something I can fix?”
“No,” Peter says, matching his volume.
“Ok. Is it something I actually can fix and you’re just saying no because you’re a self-sacrificial, angsty teenager?”
Peter’s smile is tremulous as he shakes his head. “No.”
Tony nods, wiping away the tear that slips down Peter’s temple. “If I come and sit next to you will you push me off the bed and laugh when I break a hip?”
Peter huffs a breathy laugh. “No,” he whispers while he scoots so that Tony has room.
Tony settles himself next to Peter, careful not to jostle him. They sit together, shoulder pressed against shoulder, hip to hip. Peter’s legs are almost as long as Tony’s. His feet no longer seem too big, his arms too lanky for the rest of him. He’s probably finished growing, by now.
Tony swallows, suddenly aware that the line between child and adult is less distinct than he originally thought. And Peter is straddling it, grief and responsibility hurtling him there faster than Tony would like.
His throat tight, Tony takes a deep breath.
“Peter—”
“I love you.”
Tony blinks at the interruption, his stomach swooping.
“I love you, too, Pete, but—”
“I know I suck at showing it.”
“Hey, no, kid,” Tony tries, but is once again interrupted.
“Sometimes I’m just still... angry or whatever, and I feel bad cause you’re trying so hard and it seems like I’m not trying cause I’m not better yet.”
Tony’s already shaking his head. “There is no better, Pete. Not when it comes to grief. There’s before and after. You know that.”
“Yeah, but you didn’t know what the ‘after’ was going to be like when you adopted me,” Peter murmurs.
Tony doesn’t answer for a minute, choosing instead to concentrate on the dirt caked under Peter’s fingernails. When he does speak, his voice is quiet. “No,” he agrees, “but I didn’t need to. You’re a little different now, but you’re still you.”
Peter looks up at Tony, his mouth turned down like he doesn’t believe him.
Tony bumps their shoulders together, forces a half-smile. “And I like you.”
Peter closes his eyes, breathing a laugh. He drops his head against Tony’s shoulder.
“You were wrong, you know,” Peter murmurs. “If I could wake up tomorrow with everything I want, you would still be right here.”
Tony doesn’t know if ‘right here’ means at Peter’s side, ribs pressing together as they breathe, or more like... at the end of the bed, but he’d take anything. Any part of Peter he was allowed to have.
Tony nods, reaches across Peter to take his left hand and squeeze it to say that he understands. Peter looks at his casted right arm for a moment.
“I shouldn’t have gone out last night. Especially without telling you. And I definitely shouldn’t have hacked Karen again. Sometimes I just need to... lose myself. Fighting is easy. Instinctual. I don’t have to think. And it’s not very heroic of me and it’s not... I didn’t want you to see.” He takes a trembling breath.
“I’m really sorry, Tony.” He sounds sorry. For everything. For the hack, for going out, for feeling that way in the first place. He sounds like he wishes he could take it back and that is all Tony needs to immediately forgive him, every ounce of anger forgotten in a heartbeat.
He’s always heard parents talk about unconditional love, but he’s never understood it until this moment.
“I know, kiddo.” He tries to pour every ounce of forgiveness he has into his voice. “And I get it, I really do. I was angry for a long time after my parents died. I just need you to tell me when you’re feeling like that so I can help. All I want to do is help.”
Peter lifts his head again, his eyes soft. It takes Tony’s breath away for a second, the realization that Peter really does love him going straight to his bloodstream like a drug, making his heart beat faster in giddy elation.
“I didn’t want to disappoint you.”
“You could never disappoint me. You just scare me to death on a regular basis, instead,” Tony says lightly.
Peter’s smile turns sad.
“I’m sorry for making your life difficult.” His voice is earnest and guilty.
“Oh, Peter.” Tony leans down and kisses him on the temple. “You don’t make my life difficult. You make it wonderful.”
Peter settles against him, a welcome, warm pressure against Tony’s side. “Is that why your hair’s going gray? Too much wonder in your life?” He teases, carefully like he isn’t sure he’s allowed to anymore.
“Haha,” Tony deadpans, wrapping his arm around Peter. “You know all of this—” he gestures vaguely at his, admittedly, salt-and-pepper hair “—is cause of you, right?”
Peter snorts. They sit in contented silence for a moment. Then both jump a mile when Maggie gives a petulant howl from the hallway.
They turn to look at her, where she’s pressed up against the glass watching them.
“I think she’s jealous,” Peter laughs.
“Alright, fine,” Tony grouses. “FRI, open the door.”
Maggie comes bounding in as soon as the door is open.
“Gentle, gentle, gentle!” Tony cries, placing himself in front of Peter to take the full impact of the deerhound leaping at them.
After nearly bowling Tony over, Maggie trips her way to Peter’s lap, calmly laying down and licking tenderly at his fingers when he goes to pet her.
“Good girl,” Peter coos. Maggie’s tail whacks Tony’s leg as it wags. Peter leans back into Tony’s chest, scratching at Maggie’s nose.
Tony tips his cheek against Peter’s head, watching amusedly.
Fathers and sons fight, he reminds himself. Nearly every conversation he had with his father was yelled, after all. One worry and grief induced argument is ok. They’re ok.