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Tony gets the call at 1 p.m., standing in the middle of several piles of bits and pieces of the car he decided to restructure today from scratch. He briefly checks with F.R.I.D.A.Y. and his mood lightens when she tells him that, no, Peter is not in the suit and he was, for once, home in time for his curfew last night.
“Hey kid,” he greets him, squatting down to work on the new rims he wants to install. “What gives?”
“Mister Stark?” He sounds subdued even though he’s clearly trying to go for the more upbeat voice that’s usually inherent to his very entity. Once more, Tony thanks the heavens for making him responsible for a terrible liar. “Can I come over?”
He’s tightening the screws on the rims – black on black, very classy – and nods. “Sure you can, buddy. Something the matter?”
“What?” Peter seems surprised that he would ask, though, considering he keeps insisting that he’s a great liar he might actually be surprised. “No, no,” he says distantly, “I’ll be there in like half an hour?”
“Fine with me, do you want Happy to –“
“No.”
“Oh-kay,” he leans back, “Have you had lunch yet?”
“A little.” At least this time he sounds adorably sheepish and there might even be a smile in his voice. Small victories.
“Alright, I’ll find something edible,” he grins into the phone, deliberately keeping his voice more upbeat, as if he’s compensating Peter’s usual attitude, “Take care, and see you soon, bud.”
The phone just clicks off and now that’s weird because Peter never hangs up the phone without going through at least 3 goodbyes. Well, he’d just have to wait and see.
He gets up with a grunt and more cracking in his knees and hips than he remembered going down with and wipes his hands on the towel tugged into the waistband of his jeans. He gives a sniff at the black thing and unceremoniously drops it to the ground to deal with later. Or have Dum-E deal with it.
“F.R.I.D.A.Y. where’s my phone?”
“Back pocket.”
“Good girl.” He pulls it out and starts typing a message to May, slowly making his way to the elevator.
Pete alright? He asked if he could come over. Said yes. OK with you?
“And send,” he says and pockets the phone with a flourish. “Now, F.R.I.D.A.Y., do we have anything edible? No veggies, please, the kid needs comfort food.”
“There’s instant Mac’n’Cheese in the cupboard,” she replies amused.
Peter comes in dragging his feet on the floor, mask listlessly in one hand and head hanging low. In short, the picture-perfect happy child with definitely nothing wrong. He makes a valid effort, though, when he sees him and smells the macaroni, to smile and for a while the food truly does seem to lift his mood that, according to May, has been kind of bummed all day.
They eat in a comfortable silence and Peter dutifully helps him clear the table and put the dishes away afterwards. They talk a little afterwards in which he seems more or less fine in Tony’s completely unprofessional opinion. After a while he grabs his backpack and excuses himself to his room to finish some homework and, for lack of anything better to do, Tony takes off to his lab.
“You know,” he tells him just before he can vanish around the corner, “If you want to talk or just want some silent company, you know where to find me.” He doesn’t get an answer but he likes to imagine there’s somewhat akin to a grateful nod.
Or whatever. He definitely has no clue what he’s doing.
He’s here. Had some pasta. He texts May and then gets back to his car. However, not before instructing F.R.I.D.A.Y. to keep him updated should Peter need him and leaving the door to the lab open.
About an hour later in which he has managed to screw on all rims and re-check the brake pads on all tires, F.R.I.D.A.Y. pipes up.
“Peter has just emptied out his backpack and is currently cursing. Should I initiate the Potty Mouth Protocol?”
“What?” Tony’s startled because of all his ridiculous protocols, somehow, he never thought that Peter would trigger this one. “Is he hurt? Did he break anything?”
“No, he just seems rather upset. Initiate?”
“No,” he sighs, “Leave him be.” If the kid needed to say a few not-so-nice words to feel better who was he to keep him from it. “Just tell me if he hurts himself or breaks anything.”
And with that he goes back to focusing on the car’s interior, in hopes that Peter would either just let it all out and be done with it or come to him for help. He’s pretty sure that focusing on anything has never been this hard. And he includes all board meetings he has ever attended in his calculation.
Turns out, that Pepper was right – again – and patience does pay off occasionally because only 10 minutes later Peter comes trudging into the lab. He’s dressed in one of the oversized hoodies that used to be Tony’s, his hair is tussled and his eyes are red from either crying or rubbing.
Without any introduction or waiting for Tony to look at him, he plops down on the couch in the corner of the room with his hood pulled over his eyes. “I’m so annoyed.”
“Okay,” Tony says. He quietly puts down his screwdriver and walks over to the couch, sitting down at the other end of where Peter is sprawled out. “What annoys you?”
Peter huffs. “I don’t know. Nothing. Everything.” He flails his arms around helplessly and then uses the ball of his thumb to press down on where Tony suspects his eye socket is underneath his hoodie. “Today just sucks, y’know? I got up and I had so much planned that I wanted to do but nothing worked out. I couldn’t focus on my assay and I couldn’t even finish my stupid math homework and then aunt May came in because she made some food and her existence just bugged the hell out of me.” He pulls his hood even further down until it covers his entire face. “That’s why I came here. I thought maybe a change of scenery would be good and May doesn’t deserve me being annoyed at her and I’m never annoyed when I’m here.”
“But you’re still annoyed,” Tony guesses.
“Yes!” Peter yaps and, with one swift motion sits up on the couch. “I tried to get back to my homework and then my pencil broke off and I couldn’t find my stupid eraser and I don’t know how to get my homework done because my brain just refuses to work. It’s so busy with being bugged about everything and I’m so mad at myself for being so mad at everything.”
He inhales sharply and drops back onto the couch. “I hate everything.”
Tony waits a couple of heartbeats. “Do you want me to acknowledge your problem and help you burn down the world or try to get your mind off of things?”
“You can’t because my mind sucks,” he grumbles into his hood but pushes it up enough so he can skeptically watch Tony with one eye. “But if you’d like to try… I’m completely resigned to my fate and my only other option is spending my life as a bitter, old person that starts shushing kids at playgrounds and reports people hearing music to the police for enjoying life.”
He bites back the laugh and awkwardly leans forward to pet Peter’s head, a gesture he seems to be taking surprisingly well considering his overall attitude. He doesn’t break the contact and he even closes his eyes to lean into it.
Tony smiles.
“Have you ever built an engine from scratch?”
Peter blinks his eyes open and assesses him. “No. I helped uncle Ben out once when our car wouldn’t start and he didn’t want to pay for the shop.”
“Do you want to build an engine from scratch?”
“Is there a possibility to mess that up?”
“Yes,” Tony nods, “But mess it up more than I have messed up in here? I doubt it. If you want to accidentally blow up something this is the place for it.”
Peter thinks about that for a moment, his posture slowly relaxing into the couch. He pushes back the hood fully and cocks his head to the side, looking up at Tony who’s still sitting next to him. “Would you help me?”
“Only if you want me to.”
“Yeah,” he bops his head, if not happily than at least less annoyed, “I’d like that.”
“Then come on up, Spider-boy,” he stands up and holds out a hand for Peter which he grabs without another moment of hesitation. He pulls him into his side. “Let’s make that annoyance go boom.”
“I don’t think that’s how anything works, Mister Stark,” Peter complains half-heartedly but follows his mentor to the left-overs of what once used to be a fully functioning car. He pauses and considers. “But can we try anyway?”
“Let’s make a deal. If you get that engine running you can blow something up.”
Peter grins, for real this time, “Deal. You have no idea what you’ve gotten yourself into, old man.”