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“Dad! Dad!” Tony exclaimed as he ran down the hallway as fast as his little legs could take him, clutching his newest project tightly in his hands.
“Go away, Anthony I’m busy.” His dad said waving the small child away without looking up from his work.
“But, dad.” Tony whined and proudly held the project out in front of him. “I finished my circuit board!”
“Well it should’ve been done a year ago. Now get out I’m busy.”
“Can you please look at it?” The boy begged, attempting to give his best puppy dog eyes, though his father wasn’t even looking towards him.
“No, it needs improvements anyway. Run along.” Howard said, waving him off once again.
Reluctantly and with a sigh of defeat Tony moped out of the lab back towards his room. While passing through the kitchen he saw Jarvis, doing whatever Jarvis does, and his face immediately lit up.
“Jarvis, look what I made!” Tony said triumphally holding out his circuit board.
“Wow, look at that, young sir.” Jarvis said kneeling down so he was more Tony’s height. “That’s amazing! Did you do it all by yourself?”
“Yep!” Tony grinned brightly for a moment before his face fell. “Dad said it needed improv-improvements though, so I’m gonna go fix it.”
“I think it’s absolutely incredible, young sir.” Jarvis said, giving the boy a soft pat on the shoulder.
“Thanks, Jarvis!” Tony replied and walked out of the kitchen back to his room.
***
“Dad, look!” Tony said, shoving a paper in front of Howard’s face.
“Get that out of here Anthony I’m busy.” Howard scolded, pushing Tony’s hand that was holding the paper away.
“But dad, I got a 100 on my test. Look!” He said and moved the paper back in front of Howard.
“I told you, I’m busy.” Howard said raising his voice and this time shoved Tony away a little harder. “It should be a higher grade anyway.”
“Bu-but Ms. Cardo said there was no extra credit.”
“I didn’t ask for an explanation, I told you to get out!” Howard yelled shoving Tony towards the door with such force the boy almost fell over.
***
“Hello, sir.” Tony said into the phone. It was his third time attempting to call and he finally decided to just leave a message. “Just thought I’d tell you I was accepted into MIT, so uh yeah, that’s all, bye.”
He never got a call back, not even a message.
***
“Rhodey, are you sure it’s okay with your family that you come to my house for Thanksgiving?” Tony asked worriedly as he zipped his backpack.
“Tones, I promise they said it was okay, I want to go with you.” Rhodey replied giving Tony a pat on the shoulder.
“I’m giving you one last chance to back out. My family is extremely dysfunctional.”
“Tony, I promise I’m going for you, not your family.” Rhodey said, giving Tony a soft smile.
“Okay. Thank you Rhodey.”
~
“Hey, Jarvis.” Tony greeted, when he walked into his house. “This is my friend Rhodey.”
“Good evening young sir, and welcome sir.” Jarvis said with a nod in Rhodey’s direction. “Would you like me to take your bags?”
“It’s okay, Jarvis, thank you though, I think we’ve got it. Come on Rhodey I’ll show you my room.” Tony said, leading Rhodey towards the stairs, and if the words ‘if it’s even still there’ were left unspoken then no one had to ever know.
When Tony closed his bedroom door he let out a sigh of relief tossing his backpack to the corner.
“You can just put your stuff wherever, if you want you can get your own room, but if you’d rather stay in here then that’s fine too.” Tony said sitting down on his bed.
“It doesn’t matter, Tones, whatever you want.” Rhodey said, taking a seat next to him. “Are you okay? You seem tense.”
“I’m fine.”
~
The next day Tony and Rhodey sat at the table for Thanksgiving dinner.
“I’m sorry no one is here yet, they said they’d be here.” Tony apologized.
“It’s okay Tony, you can’t control when they get here.” Rhodey replied giving his friend's hand a reassuring squeeze.
After waiting and nibbling on bread (thanks Jarvis) for almost 15 minutes, Maria came into the room sending Tony an apologetic look, and the teen let out a shaky breath.
“You alright Tones?” Rhodey whispered.
Tony shook his head. “He’s in a bad mood.”
Rhodey couldn’t even get out a reply before Howard stomped into the room. Tony visibly tensed and with one more quick squeeze to Rhodey’s hand let it go, folding his hands in his lap. Jarvis and a few others brought the food out not long after.
Dinner was filled with silence besides the sounds of utensils scraping against the plates. At some point Howard slammed his fork down on the table causing Tony to visibly flitch and Rhodey reached over giving Tony a reassuring squeeze on the leg.
“How’s school going for you, Anthony?” Maria asked it was the first word spoken all night at the table.
“It’s going well.” Tony replied trying to keep his answer as short as possible.
“And you?” Maria asked, nodding in Rhodey’s direction.
“Very well Ma’am” Rhodey responded.
“Are you at the top of your class, Anthony?” Howard asked.
“Yes sir.”
He only got a disappointed hum in response.
~
“Remind me to never have kids.” Tony groaned as he flopped onto his bed after dinner followed by Rhodey who did the same.
“Why?”
“Because Stark men don’t make good fathers.”
***
“Tony what would your father say about shutting down the weapons manufacturing? Isn’t this ruining his legacy?” A reporter yelled.
He wanted to scream at them, he wanted to scream at himself, he wanted to scream at Howard. His father would be disappointed in him, it wasn’t like he was proud of anything Tony did. Hell he’d be disappointed even if Tony didn’t shut down the weapons manufacturing. And the legacy. What legacy? A legacy of killing innocent people? A legacy of building up a company based around weapons that killed so many? No, this wasn’t going to be Howard’s legacy that he was going to follow. He’d create his own with- with he didn’t know what yet. Clean energy sources? But it wouldn’t be with weapons. It wouldn’t be people in his company selling weapons under the books, killing thousands. It would be his own legacy, one that he would create on his own. One that would be better for the world.
“I don’t know what he’d say.” Tony replied. That was a lie he knew exactly what Howard would say. “But I’m creating my own legacy because I want to do something better.”
***
Tony drank a lot after the battle of New York. Like a lot, a lot. He’d get nightmares, escape down to the lab, and drink his thoughts away. Sleep didn’t really exist for him anymore. When he did sleep, it was never peaceful, full of that black hole, that army he saw, or riddled with his times in Afghanistan where he was tortured and beaten. And if drinking didn’t help, he’d get mad. He would throw and break almost everything in his sight, trying to get the voices and the flashbacks to stop.
Knowing he was an angry drunk sometimes, just made him shut down even more. He was no better than Howard, it was why he never, ever, wanted kids, he would be just like Howard. He was destroying himself and he knew it, but they needed to stop and it was the only way he knew how.
***
When Tony met Peter Parker, he came into the kid’s life for Spiderman. However, the more he got to know the kid (ie listening to all the voicemails he’d left Happy) the idea that Tony was ‘only in his life for Spiderman’, and to ‘protect Spiderman’ was quickly thrown out the window. So he did what he knew (and did) best: avoid the situation like it wasn’t there.
That actually worked for a bit. He’d keep tabs on the kid and not much else, he refused to do anything that could possibly allow for them to get closer. Why didn't he want to get close? Well that was simple, his so called friends had abandoned him, Pepper left, and quite frankly he only trusted two people at this point, he couldn’t afford to lose another person. And if he felt some urge deep within himself to protect the kid, that the kid was his responsibility, well he flatout (as much as he could) ignored that, knowing he would only cause more harm to the kid if he was in his life, and never told anyone that was also a reason for not getting close.
He honestly wasn’t even sure why he felt so responsible for Peter. Maybe it was because he was swinging around Queens in a suit that he made special for the kid, and he didn’t want the kid getting killed, or maybe it was the fact of how sweet and innocent the kid was and how excited he was to send Happy a voicemail everyday after patrol, even though Happy (and himself, though he wouldn’t admit that to anyone) was clearly ignoring him.
(Rhodey kept saying he cared a lot about the kid. “576 web shooter combinations Tony. 576.”
“I want him to be prepared.”
“Prepared is 10 maybe 20 hell we’ll ever say 50. 576 is helicopter parent level.”
“Woah I’m not his parent and I’m most definitely not a helicopter parent.”
“ Stop denying it Tony.”
“ I’m not!”)
***
“If you even cared you would actually be here.” Peter shouted at him, and for some reason hearing that made his heart hurt.
Did the kid really think he didn’t care? Then again what reason would the kid have to believe that he cared? He wanted to scream at himself, he sounded just like his father before, even though the kid was just trying to help and he knew that, but he was scared, and this is why he wouldn’t make a good dad, because he gets scared and he yells exactly like his father. (Though Howard just yelled, there was never any reason for it).
Tony stepped out of the suit and the look on Peter’s face hurt him more. “I did listen, kid. Who do you think called the FBI, huh? Do you know I was the only one who believed in you and everyone else said I was crazy to recruit a 14 year old kid.”
“I’m 15.” Peter mumbled.
“No this is where you zip it alright?” Tony said, raising his voice. Exactly like Howard would do. “The adult is talking. What if somebody had died today? Different story right, ‘cause that’s on you. And if you die, I feel like that’s on me.”
But he cared, he cared a lot, and he didn’t exactly know why, but the kid, god the kid, he wanted to protect the kid. He cared about the kid, and he wanted Peter to know this, but he sure as hell wasn’t doing a good job at making that known.
“I don’t need that on my conscience.” Tony said, of course, he seemed to be making it about himself again, but it would hurt if the kid died, he cares about the kid, he doesn’t want anything to happen to the kid.
“Yes, sir.” Peter replied. “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry doesn’t cut it.”
“I understand, I just- I just wanted to be like you.”
“And I wanted you to be better.”
Peter was already so much better than him, so why did he not see it? He had a good heart, he wasn’t drinking his life away, all he wanted to do was help people, he was so much better than Tony. Why couldn’t he see that?
***
After the Vulture fiasco, Tony quickly realized that somehow (he honestly still wasn’t sure how this was the case) he was doing more harm than good by staying out of the kid’s life, so he pushed his pride aside (Rhodey just said he was finally accepting his feelings and nothing else) and offered Peter an actual internship. The kid would come over on Wednesday’s and Friday’s to work in the lab with Tony on anything and everything they wanted to work on.
At first it was just suit upgrades, then that quickly turned into Peter helping him come up with new designs for the company. He learned a lot about Peter on lab days. For one Peter had super metabolism, so he scheduled snack breaks into their day to ensure Peter was getting everything he needed. The more time he spent with the kid the harder time he had denying the fact that he started seeing Peter as his son.
(“Just admit it Tones, you’re the kids dad now.”
“No I’m not Rhodey be quiet.”)
After about a month, Friday lab days quickly became lab day and movie night, and it was less than a month after their first movie night that Peter stayed the night at the tower, in which Fridays then turned to Peter staying the weekend. With Peter being around more often (not that he minded one bit) his denial just weighed down on him more.
***
“Incoming call from KAREN.” Friday spoke through the lab turning off the music. “Pull up the kid’s vitals and put the call through.”
“No, KAREN I said don’t call Mr. Stark.” Peter said through the phone.
“Why didn’t you want to call me kid?” Tony asked, trying to keep the panic out of his voice when he saw Peter’s heart rate and blood pressure were through the roof.
“It’s nothing, Mr. Stark.” Peter reassured but it wasn’t really reassuring.
“Yeah, sure, it’s nothing. Then you mind telling me why your heart rate and blood pressure just skyrocketed?”
“Well, not really…”
“Peter.” Tony said softly yet firmly. “If you don’t tell me, I’m gonna take the suit and fly out to you, pick your ass up and drag you back to the tower. So wanna try a different answer?”
“I- uh may or may not have gotten stabbed…”
“You got stabbed?” Tony exclaimed in shock. “That’s it, I’m coming to get you.” Tony rushed out of the lab tapping his watch and letting his suit form around his body and FRIDAY redirected the call to the suit.
“No no, Mr. Stark it’s okay I can handle it. I’ll just, ugh, swing by the tower.”
“There is no argument here kiddo, I can’t have you bleeding out in an alleyway. I’ll be there in 5.”
“Mr. Stark, really it’s okay, I’m fine. Ow.”
“Kid I’m coming to get you and that’s final, and stop moving around. Did it hit anything major and is the knife still in?”
“Well the knife isn’t still in the guy pulled it out as I webbed him up, and, ow, KAREN said it didn’t hit anything major.”
~
About half an hour later Peter was sitting in the tower medbay while Tony cleaned and dressed the wound.
“Alright kiddo, since you don’t have school tomorrow, I’m calling your Aunt-”
“Please don’t tell Aunt May I was stabbed!” Peter begged.
“I won’t tell her you were stabbed if you listen to what I’m going to say next.” Tony looked up at Peter who gave a nod. “I’m going to call your aunt, tell her you had a rough night on patrol and are going to stay the night. Then you and I are going to eat dinner-”
“Wait you haven’t eaten dinner yet? It’s 11pm.”
“Of course I haven’t eaten dinner yet. Anyway, you and I are going to order food and eat dinner, wait have you eaten dinner yet?” Tony asked, cutting himself off.
“What? Of course I have.” Peter replied with a nervous chuckle.
“Okay, so you haven’t eaten dinner either, so ha,” Wait, no that’s not the right response. “Pete, you have to be more responsible than that and eat before patrol. You have a super metabolism.” He scolded, but there was no real heat behind his words, only a hint of worry. “Anyway dinner, and we’re going to watch a movie. Then tomorrow we’re going to take it easy and you won’t be patrolling until that has healed.”
“Okay, I can live with that.” Peter said with a nod.
“Wait that’s it? No protesting about me depriving you of patrol?” Tony asked, very confused, Peter would normally put up some sort of fight (that he never won) that he had to go on patrol.
“Well you said you would tell Aunt May otherwise and I’d rather not deal with that lecture. You already lectured me the whole flight over here, I don’t really want another one.”
“Okay that’s fair. What do you want to eat?”
“Shawarmas?” Peter asked.
“Shawarmas sound great kiddo.” Tony said and did a motion with his hands, telling FRIDAY to order the usual. “Alright up you get, come on.”
Tony and Peter made their way to the living room, Tony supporting most of Peter’s weight the whole way there with protests from said kid, but they quickly stopped with the threat of telling May. Their food was delivered not long into their first movie (Back To The Future Part 1 per Peters request) and they both ate in silence while they inhaled their food.
They watched the rest of the movie and at some point Peter had curled up against Tony (who had tensed up at the initial contact then quickly relaxed at the sight of the puppy eyes staring up at him), and in response Tony wrapped an arm around the kid and threaded his fingers through his soft curly hair.
And when the kid fell asleep Tony may or may not have called Rhodey telling him he was absolutely screwed and was done denying the obvious to himself, that he was no doubt acting like a dad and saw Peter as a son (not that he would ever tell Peter though).
***
“Hey dad,” Peter said, not looking up from the Stark Phone prototype he was working on. “I’m hungry.”
Without missing a beat Tony replied. “Hi hungry, I’m dad.”
That caused Peter to look up from his work and at Tony with a slightly confused yet very amused face.
“Did you just make a dad joke?” Peter asked as Tony snapped his head up to look at Peter.
“Did you just call me dad?” The man questioned with a raised eyebrow.
“Uhhhh I mean-”
“Don’t worry about it kiddo I may or may not see you as a son so we’re all good.” Tony said casually, then a moment later realized exactly what had come out of his mouth.
“Wait, Mr. Stark are you serious?” Peter squeaked.
“Ah ah none of that Mr. Stark crap, we are officially in dad territory now and there is no going back.” Tony said with a bright smile causing Peter to smile as well.
“So dad, what do you want to do for lunch?” Peter asked, the smile never leaving his face.
“I don’t know son, what do you want to do?”
***
One night Peter had stumbled into the tower, freaking Tony out to no end.
“Peter, what the hell?” He asked once he learned that Peter had gone to a party and had a few drinks. “What the hell were you thinking? Do you know how wrong that could’ve gone? Do you realize that you don’t know how your body would react to alcohol especially after the bite? Someone could’ve kidnapped you or taken advantage of you. That was dumb Peter really dumb.”
Once the words left his mouth he immediately regretted it. He could see the tears forming in Peter’s eyes and his lip was trembling. That was the last thing he wanted, to make his kid cry.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Stark. I really am. Can we please talk about this in the morning?” Peter asked slurring his words , his voice breaking.
Hearing the kid call him Mr. Stark again broke his heart, he’d screwed up. “Just go to bed, kid.” He said and he tried to sound soft, he really did, but it just came out sounding mad.
He tried to apologize as Peter walked down the hall to his room, but the words were stuck in his throat. God he messed up big time. He’s no different than Howard ever was, he just yelled at his kid for god sake. Peter’s probably scared of him now for all he knows.
Tony locked himself in the lab the rest of the night pacing and stressing. It took all the fight in him to not get a drink himself, but that would really make him no better than Howard. When the voices started getting worse, he did the only thing he could think of, call Rhodey.
“Tony it’s 3 in the morning. Why are you calling?” Rhodey asked groggily.
“I screwed up Rhodey. I screwed up bad.” Tony said frantically.
“What are you talking about? What happened?”
“I yelled at the kid. I got mad and I yelled at him, but I didn’t mean it. I was scared, and I think he started crying and I didn’t even apologize and now he’s in his room probably crying because I made him cry. I’m no better than Howard ever was.”
“Woah, woah, okay Tones slow down a second. First off you are so much better than Howard, you are better than he ever was, okay you’re an amazing dad, you are nothing like Howard okay? Get that straight first, you are better than Howard, you are nothing like him alright?” Rhodey said clearly more awake now.
“O-okay.”
“Second, where are you?”
“The lab.”
“Okay that’s fine. Third, what exactly happened? What did the kid do that made you mad?” Rhodey asked.
“He went to a party and he showed up here drunk, and it- it just reminded me so much of myself and I don’t want him to turn out like me, and-”
“Tony, slow down okay?”
“But Rhodey I just started yelling at him, and I didn’t even give him a chance to explain.”
“Listen to me Tony, Peter is going to turn out perfectly fine alright? What you’re going to do is leave the lab, go to the kitchen or wherever you keep his spider-kid pain meds, you are going to grab one, get a glass of water and put it next to his bed for when he wakes up in the morning. If he’s awake then you can apologize to him and if he’s not, when he gets up in the morning apologize then. And then you can talk to him about whatever you need to talk about, be it the dangers of alcohol or how you don’t want him to go through what you went through, or whatever. You will have a conversation with him, but in the morning okay? It won’t do you any good to see him drunk, it will only make you mad, and it will upset him that you’re mad.”
“Platypus, he called me Mr. Stark, not dad, he was really upset, and what if-” Tony was practically in tears at this point.
“Tony, listen to me. Stop talking for a second and turn your brain off. I can hear you over thinking. Yes, he might have been upset, but you don’t know if it was because of you. He probably called you Mr. Stark and not dad because his brain is out of whack right now. Tones, that kid loves you so much and I know you love him too. Nothing will change his mind. So go take care of your kid and please for the love of god try and get some sleep.”
“Okay… thank you honeybear.”
“I love you Tony. Take a deep breath.”
“Love you too.”
When Tony hung up the phone he was still worked up to say the least, but he did what Rhodey told him to do. He grabbed pain meds for Peter, he got a glass of water and he set it on the kid’s bedside table. Peter was sound asleep when he went in, but he apologized anyway (he knew he would still have to apologize in the morning), and pressed a kiss to his head and combed the stay curls away from his face.
~
Tony didn’t sleep much that night. He was plagued with worry and his mind wouldn’t be quiet, and it took all of him to not go to Peter’s room and sit with him to make sure he was okay.
Eventually when he decided it was late enough in the morning (8am), he crawled out of bed, made his way to the kitchen and immediately downed a cup (it was two) of coffee, before getting started on breakfast, which consisted of his go to hangover foods that he learned worked best over his years of Rhodey and Pepper taking care of him. He made some avocado toast (“This is really good Pep where did you learn about this. Thank you by the way.” Tony said one morning after a long night of drinking. “The cafe I go to has it.”), some maple brown sugar oatmeal (because who eats plain oatmeal?), along with a fruit smoothie (or a few).
As expected Peter got up around 9:30, trudged into the kitchen, mumbled a few thank you’s and a lot of sorry’s, and avoided all eye contact.
“Listen, kiddo.” Tony started when Peter was about halfway through his breakfast. “I’m sorry for yelling at you last night. It really freaked me out seeing you like that and it just reminded me a lot of myself. I know that’s not an excuse for yelling, but seriously Pete, I’m sorry, and I love you.”
Peter looked up making eye contact for the first time all morning and spoke in a soft yet clearly a hangover voice. “I’m sorry, dad. You shouldn’t have to apologize, you have every right to yell at me, what I did was dumb. I love you too by the way.”
“We still have to talk about it you know.”
“I know.” Peter looked down at his plate then up at Tony again clearly wanting to say something else, but hesitated.
“Whacha thinkin’ over there spider baby?” Tony asked, tossing a blueberry in Peter’s direction which he caught.
“You’re nothing like your dad you know.” Peter said softly looking back down. “I know you think you are sometimes, but you’re not. You are so much better than him. You’re a really good dad in my opinion.”
“Thank you bubbas. That- that really means a lot coming from you.” The man said, trying to hold back tears. “Did Rhodey tell you to say that?”
Peter shook his head. “No, but I’ve heard you talk about how bad your dad was and I just wanted you to know that you’re an amazing dad.”
“I love you so much kiddo. You know that?”
“Yeah, I love you too dad.”
***
Tony had never wanted kids, that was until he met Peter. He had said it time and time again in his life, that he wouldn’t have kids, he would be a terrible father and would turn out like his own, but sometimes life has different plans. His father never once told him that he loved him or he even liked him for that matter, and he never once said he was proud of Tony. He never expected that a nerdy spider kid from Queens would make him change his mind, and become such an important part in his life, and he made damn sure that kid knew how much Tony loved him, and how proud he was of everything he did.