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Peter: I know we said that we’d wait for you to get here, but I don’t think we can.
Harley: It’s one more week, Parker.
Peter: They will. Not. stop. Fighting.
Harley: Wow, one word sentences. It’s got to be bad.
Peter: Even DUM-E is avoiding them now.
Harley: Fuck.
Harley: Okay, fine, but keep me updated.
Harley: And buy them some supplies.
Peter: Gross, Harley. I’m not buying my father and his almost boyfriend lube and condoms.
Harley: I’m just impressed you knew what I meant.
Peter: I hate you.
Harley: Yeah, yeah. So you’ve been saying.
Harley: Listen, as Tony’s first stray, I promise you he wants this, he’s just an idiot. So, you have to eliminate any way for him to wiggle out of it.
Peter looked up from his phone with a start. He knew exactly what he was going to do.
Peter: Good thing I can make sticky string come out of my hands.
Harley: That’s not the only place, I hope.
Peter: You are gross.
Harley: It is literally an older brother’s job to be gross. I’m sorry I never gave you the manual when you got herded into the fold.
Harley: Got to go, class is starting. If they’re not fucking by the time I get back for Spring Break, I’m holding you responsible.
Peter: I DO NOT WANT TO THINK ABOUT THAT.
Harley: Buddy, I bet they’re going to be loud.
Peter: CLOSING THE APP NOW.
Harley: lolololololololololol
___________________
When Peter Parker had found out that he was going to live with Tony Stark full time, he had figuratively lost his mind. It wasn’t like his foster care was bad, it was just… not home and once he got his powers, it made it really difficult to patrol.
He knew of the Avengers, of course, everyone did. But he figured they needed help - they couldn’t be everywhere and petty theft was below their skill level, but his neighborhood was full of it. Peter thought that as long as he used his powers for good - the ones he’d gotten after that weird field trip to Oscorp - they’d never need to know about him and he wouldn’t bother them.
So, when Iron Man interrupted one of the aforementioned patrols, Peter nearly fell off the ledge he was perched on.
“Kid, those are some really impressive pajamas that will do nothing to prevent you from getting killed as you fling yourself around the city, but I like the color pallette.”
Peter just gaped at the suit, until the helmet flipped open and it really was Tony Stark hovering in the air in front of him. “Is it the talking to the slits? Cap tells me people think that’s weird. It is weird? Is this better? You’re still not talking. Peter? It is Peter, right? Friday, why isn’t he talking.”
“Probably because you haven’t stopped doing so, Boss,” Peter heard a voice coming from the suit, and he definitely fell off that time. Luckily, Tony’s reflexes were quick. “Hey Underoos, let’s go somewhere safe to chat. Mrs. Alvarez know you’re out of the house?”
Peter shook his head. “Okay, well, then let’s be quick about it. I’m not explaining why the single, gay, very infamous Iron Man has suddenly acquired a 14-year-old in the middle of the night.”
They’d found a rooftop to sit in, so that Tony could interrogate Peter about his powers and his training and his plans. Tony asked a lot of questions, talked to his suit a lot, and finally looked at Peter with piercing eyes. “Are you safe in that house?”
Peter, no stranger to houses where kids were not safe, nodded quickly. “She’s one of the good ones, but I know she wishes I would move on. I’ve been there since I was 12, when the last adoption fell through, and she doesn’t really like working with teenagers. She’s great, don’t get me wrong, but I just know I’m in the way.”
“I know that feeling,” Tony said, and Peter got the impression the older man wasn’t really addressing him.
The pair were quiet for a minute until Tony looked at Peter. “I gotta fly, Cap gets antsy when I leave the Compound and don’t tell him, and an antsy Cap is an especially annoying Cap, so I’ll be in touch, okay?”
Be in touch for what? Peter wondered, but nodded. “Bye, Mr. Stark.”
“Please, it’s Tony.”
“Okay, Mr. Stark.”
Tony smiled as the helmet slid shut again. “We’ll work on that.”
A few days later, a package had arrived for Peter containing a backpack made out of some material that Peter had never felt and a request for his exact measurements. Then the suit came, then Iron Man started showing up on Peter’s patrols nearly every night, and then Mr. Stark, in full suit and accompanied by Captain America and that Ms. Potts who was always on the news with Mr. Stark, and Peter was asked if he wanted to go live at the Avengers compound and be Mr. Stark’s son.
Peter nearly swallowed his tongue.
“Hi, Peter,” Captain America smiled. “I’m Steve, and we tried to tell Tony to be patient, but that’s actually not something he’s capable of, so if this is weird or freaks you out, you and Pepper can come up with other living arrangements where you’ll be safe and cared for and-”
“No, I want to go with Mr. Stark,” Peter said. “If that’s okay. I mean, I don’t want to be a bother, I’m perfectly fine here, and it’s okay, really, I can stay here, but if I get a choice, then yes. Oh, wait, school? Do I keep going here? Or-”
He noticed Ms. Potts and Captain America exchange a grin before Ms. Potts spoke. “You’ll probably need a new school,” she said gently, “but if you want to stay in this one, we’ll make something work. There’s supposed to be a much longer process for this, which Tony has completely skipped, so this is really sudden and probably overwhelming -”
Mrs. Alvarez and his social worker had left him alone in the room with the three adults, so he felt he could speak freely. “Ms. Potts, I have no idea what I’m doing with my powers, and I know who you all are and you seem to know what to do with yours, and I could really use some help. So if I can go train with the Avengers for a bit and then move back here to Queens once I’m legal, I can be an even better friendly neighborhood Spider-Man than I already am and I’d like that a lot.”
And so Peter had said goodbye to his life as a foster kid and started adjusting to one as a Stark.
Which was weird.
The money, of course, was super awkward to get used to, and all the tech around the compound house. He found out that Tony had pseudo-adopted a kid named Harley a bunch of years back and he was only a couple of years older than Peter himself.
“He doesn’t have powers, or anything,” Tony explained in the workshop one day. “He’s just a really smart little shit who has a lot of potential, so I talked his parents into letting me help a bit.”
“He said you’ve paid for college for him, and bought him a townhouse to live in off-campus,” Peter clarified.
“Yeah,” Tony said before clamping his welding mask back in place, “like I said. I help a little.”
So the money, the tech, the older brother-ish person… all of that was weird, but manageable.
How Captain Rogers and Mr. Stark fought was another thing entirely.
“They’ve always been like this,” Mr. Barton shrugged one day. “We all got used to it.”
Ms. Romanov rolled her eyes. “They’re easy to manipulate, at least.”
Peter was confused. “Why?”
“Oh,” Ms. Romanov smiled softly. “They are completely in love with each other but will never admit it, so the rest of us just kind of use that to get things done.”
Peter furrowed his brow. “Should you, I don’t know, just make them tell each other?”
Mr. Barton laughed. “If you figure how to make either of those idiots do something they don’t want to do, you let us know how we can help, kid.”
He clarified the situation with Harley the second or third time Harley had come to visit, and the other boy only affirmed what the two Avengers had said. So the pair had set up some fairly elaborate plots to try to get Tony to at least admit to someone - anyone - that he had feelings for Steve.
They had all failed.
Peter shifted his strategy to Captain Rogers. He’d needle the other man during his training sessions, saying nice things all the time about Mr. Stark and waiting for the other man to rise to the bait.
That didn’t work either.
“Cap, I’ve got a question,” Peter had said one day when they were on a break.
“Shoot, kid,” Steve went over to grab a bottle of Gatorade out of the fridge. He offered a red one to Peter and took a blue for himself.
“Why did you come the day Mr. Stark brought me home?”
Steve’s insides made the same twisty motion they did every time Peter called the compound ‘home’. “Well, we were afraid he’d be weird.”
“Why didn’t everyone else come?”
“You mean like Nat and Clint and Sam?”
Peter nodded. “Why you, specifically?”
“Because I’m the team leader,” Steve said, not really sure what Peter was getting at.
“So, just because you were gonna be my boss? That’s it?”
“Peter, what is this about?”
“Nothing,” Peter sounded defeated and Steve remained confused.
The night of Peter’s 16th birthday, though, Peter began to see hope. Tony and Captain Rogers had gotten in such a huge fight that they each gave him their gifts separately and the Captain barely spoke through dinner.
Peter had gleefully texted Harley.
Peter: They got so mad over something Friday said was really stupid that they’re not speaking.
Harley: And this is good news, how?
Peter: Ms. Potts said that Tony cannot handle someone not wanting to talk to him. So he’ll sulk for a while and then make Cap talk to him.
Harley: Please just call her Pepper. You aren’t their employee. You call Tony ‘Dad’ most of the time now anyway.
Harley: I still don’t see your point.
Peter: The opposite of love isn’t hate, it’s indifference, right? So this is just further evidence that Tony loves Steve.
Harley: Good spiderling.
Harley: Okay, but how do we work with that?
Peter: Let me talk to Pepper. She seems to know everything.
Harley: She does. She scares the shit out of me in a really hot way.
Peter: Will report back.
Over the following six months, Peter and Harley consulted with Pepper - who was just as exasperated as they were - to figure out how to trap both Steve and Tony in a room where they’d have to be honest with one another.
When the fighting began to really ramp up at the beginning of March, Peter started to formulate a plan.
________________________
“Do I want to know why he’s got us in here?” Steve looked at Tony, who looked exhausted.
The pair were in a storage closet off of Tony’s workshop, Steve in full uniform and Tony in an old sweatshirt, and Peter had somehow managed to swindle Friday into locking the door. Whenever one of them fiddled with the handle, Friday replied, “Peter will be along in a second, Boss, he just needs you to be patient.”
“The long answer is that I adopted a blank canvas of enthusiasm and then introduced him to Harley,” Tony sighed. “The short answer is that I think he thinks he’s helping.”
“Helping,” Steve sighed.
“Yeah,” Tony said helpfully.
“So, he knows we broke up?” Steve reached down to slide off his boots.
“I don’t think he knew we were together,” Tony replied, refusing to make eye contact with his … oh god, he had to call him an “ex” now.
An uncomfortable silence fell over them until Tony finally dropped into one of the chairs Peter had set up in the center of the room. Steve soon followed. It was so much easier to talk when they didn’t have to look at each other.
“Listen, Tony,” Steve started when they heard the vent above them sliding open and Peter’s webs started shooting out. After a few chaotic seconds, the two men were wrapped together and Peter was dangling from the ceiling.
“Dad, Steve,” Peter greeted with a grin. “Those are the new webs, the ones Dad and I figured out how to make last for six hours, so thanks for testing those for me yesterday, Steve, and so you’ve got time to talk about whatever is happening that means you two have been fighting nonstop. My delicate child sensibilities are getting overwhelmed by the hostility.”
“I’m going to kill Pepper for giving him that Word-Of-The-Day calendar,” Tony muttered.
“So, chop chop, use your words, see you soon!” Peter retreated into the ceiling and Steve said something about how Clint was a jackass.
The feeling of Steve against Tony’s back was painful. Like, actually, fully painful. Not as painful as being the person to speak first, though, so Tony kept his jaw clamped shut.
“I’m sorry,” Steve blurted. “And I have no idea how we got here.”
“Well, Peter-”
“No, Tony, I mean you and me.”
Tony sighed. “Yeah, I figured, I was just-”
“- I know.”
There was silence again for a few moments before Tony heard Steve take in a shaky breath. “I should have told you. I know that now, Tony, and I’m so sorry.”
“You know I still would have helped you, right?” Tony replied quietly. “You know that I never would have not helped you find your best friend.”
“I know,” Steve was crying now. “I know, but I was scared, and then I was stupid.”
“I still love you,” Tony’s voice scraped over the tears gathering in his throat. “I don’t know if anything could make me stop - but that fucking stunt got damn close. I could have heard it straight from you, and instead, Fury dropped into conversation like he assumed I’d already heard.”
“I love you,” Steve confessed. “I know I haven’t been acting like it.”
“No, Capsicle, not even close,” Tony’s voice held a tone of pain that cut Steve’s core.
“The kid isn’t going to let us out of here,” Tony continued, “until he thinks we’re going to live happily ever after.”
“And if he’s using the vents, Clint and Nat are helping,” Steve continued.
“And if Friday’s on his side, then he also got Pepper,” Tony concluded.
“So they all know?”
Tony shook his head and Steve could feel the webs pull slightly. “No, not the full truth. We were really careful. I mean, it was all so new.”
“It’s not new for me,” Steve said quietly. “Not new for me at all.”
Tony paused. “The day you got back from your weird little road trip.”
Steve flexed his toes inside his socks, afraid to move any other part of his body lest Tony be able to tell.
“You had gifts for everyone and we had known you for, like, seven seconds,” Tony chuckled, “and they were all perfect. And I’ve never met anyone who had my attention to detail, but not for circuit boards. So, yeah, for me, that’s when it started.”
“I was on my weird little road trip,” Steve responded. “I headed out to your plant in Memphis and charmed my way into a tour, saying I was thinking about going to college as an engineer, and dropped Pepper’s name a few times, and they started showing me around.”
Tony shifted. He wasn’t sure how he felt about never hearing this story before.
“It was the way they talked about you, the workers there,” Steve said softly. “The way they defended you when they thought I was maybe making fun of you, the way they talked with pride about their work and the products you were developing there, the stories they told me about the quiet ways you had been taking care of them since even before Iron Man.”
“They were always my plant,” Tony murmured. “Since MIT, they were the ones who put what I dreamed and tinkered with into production. It was the only place at SI that was never Howard’s.”
“God, Tony, it shows,” Steve said, with a tone of love in his voice that pierced Tony’s soul. “It is you top to bottom. I left that place, knowing that if I didn’t spend the rest of whatever life I had left helping you be that man, the man they knew, I’d regret it.”
They were both quiet for a few minutes, digesting what the other one said. Finally, Tony spoke first. “What do we do now?”
“Can you forgive me?’
“I don’t know,” Tony replied. “But, I think I want to try.”
“Do you want to tell your kid this time?”
“Oh, I think that ship sailed,” Tony laughed. “Plus, the only time I want to be tied to you is in a consensual manner and I like the ropes to be less…”
“Yeah,” Steve laughed. “Agreed.”
“Would you think about therapy?” Tony asked. “I know you-”
“Of course, Tony, anything,” Steve interrupted. “Anything.”
Tony nodded. “Friday, get Underoos back in here.”
“Yes, Boss.”
Peter appeared no less than two minutes later, with a smile on his face and one of Nat’s throwing stars in his hand. “You guys figure things out?”
“You promise to never pull something like this again?”
“Nope,” Peter said.
“He’s your son,” Steve laughed.
“Yeah,” Tony smiled at Peter. “He is.”
____________
“You gonna ask her to dance,” Harley sat in the chair next to Peter and looked askance at the younger man.
Peter shifted nervously and played with his bow-tie. “I mean, she wouldn’t, you think? I don’t know, it’s just…”
Harley smirked. “She's been looking at you all night, kid. I guess you don’t look completely repulsive in the tux.”
Peter blushed just a bit.
“Besides,” Harley’s voice took on a more serious tone. “That speech you gave, the one where you asked Steve if you could call him Pops, I mean, that slayed, Pete.”
Peter took a sip of his water. “Well, it was all true.”
“I’m just saying,” Harley slapped him on the back, “she’s cute, and it’s not like you’ll ever get any other play with those ears, so I’d get on it.”
And with that, Harley was off, presumably to attempt to con the bartender into giving him some alcoholic beverage or another. His seat, however, was quickly occupied..
“Hey kid,” Tony said. “That was quite a speech.”
Peter shrugged, blowing off the compliment. “I meant it all.”
“Oh, we know,” Tony chuckled. “It’s why your Pops is washing his face in the bathroom because splotchy super soldier is not his best look.”
After the pair emerged from the storage room that day, they explained to the whole team (and Peter) what was really going on.
“So, wait,” Nat raised an eyebrow. “You’ve been dating? For months?”
“We’ve been something,” Steve clarified.
Bucky cleared his throat. “And then I showed up?”
“It got -” Steve started as Tony interrupted him.
“Tony and Steve are going to try to make this work, which is really no one’s business but ours and Peter’s.”
“Bullshit,” Clint replied, and all the heads in the room whipped to look at him.
“I didn’t move my ass to the middle of nowhere to not be family with the people I’m living with. Fuck you, Stark, but of course it’s our business.”
Tony looked shocked for a minute and then nodded. “I stand corrected by Barton, which is, you know, never going to happen again, and I’m almost afraid to move now, in case we opened a tear in the time-space continuum.”
Bucky bit back a smile and quirked an eyebrow at Steve. “Really, Rogers? This guy?”
Steve smiled warmly at Tony. “Yeah, Buck, this guy.”
They kept working at it, with the support of their family, and about seven months after that day, Tony and Peter took a walk through the woods that surround the compound.
“I mean, you’re good with it, right?”
Peter shot a look at Tony. “I assumed you guys were married when he came with you that day to pick me up.”
Tony started laughing. “Of course you did.”
“So, when?”
“For the ceremony? Well, this weekend? Rhodey’s gonna officiate. Just have to make sure Harley can get down from Dartmouth.”
“Can I invite friends?”
“Do you mean can you invite the girl you keep talking about that I’m not supposed to have noticed but you forgot your father was a genius who keeps track of all such details and therefore you can never get one over on me?” Tony said, entirely in one breath, like he spoke without commas.
“What’s her name?” Peter responded.
Tony gaped for a few seconds. “So, yes, but all your pals have to sign the NDAs to come on property.”
Peter choked back a laugh, but knew better than to comment and changed the subject. “Do I get to know how you proposed?”
Tony stopped walking. “Is it okay if I say no?”
Peter moved to stand in front of him. “Of course it is, I was just curious, but it’s you and him, it’s fine.”
Tony paused for a moment before pulling Peter into a hug. “I got you outta that house that fast because I was really afraid you’d accidentally break something and end up in a government control center, but I got you out of that house at all because I knew you were special and I just figured I wouldn’t fuck it up that badly since you were already pretty grown. You, Underoos, continue to exceed all expectations.”
Peter let a few tears fall before he sniffed. Tony had told him a few times why he’d become a Stark over the years, but it never failed to make him feel so chosen that he couldn’t quite process it. “You too, Dad. You too.”
When Tony had asked Peter to be his Best Man, Happy and Rhodey had told him that they’d help him with the speech. Both men knew Peter hated public speaking and it was a kind offer, but Peter told them he had some things he’d like to say.
“Oh, there he is,” Tony said, directing Peter’s attention to the doorway of the living room where the reception was being held. One of the benefits of having a massive house? Not needing to rent other spaces for family gatherings.
“Pete, that was,” Steve crossed the room to them and simply kissed the top of Peter’s head and sat down on his other side.
Peter nodded, accepting Steve’s thanks.
“So, what happens now?” he smiled at Peter.
“Whuddya mean?” Peter quirked a confused eyebrow at Tony, as if to say your husband is a weirdo.
“Well, what happens when the spider boy has two dads?” Steve grins.
“He’s being sappy, I’d just go with it,” Tony stage-whispered.
“I don’t know, Pops, what happens when the spider boy has two dads?” Peter replied dutifully.
“They all live happily ever after,” Steve grinned, while his husband and son just groaned.