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Tony Stark is confused.
Which is something he’d usually be at loathe to admit because, obviously, he’s smart as fuck. Smart as fuck people don’t get confused.
But he is. Confused. And smart as fuck.
“What the hell was that?” He asks Rhodey, who’s sitting next to him in the passenger seat of one of his ‘gaudy’ cars (Rhodey’s words not his). It’s become a Thing, capital T, for Tony to drop the Spider-Kid off at school on Mondays, after he has him over for the weekends. They spend 48 hours straight avoiding their responsibilities and building slash blowing shit up in his lab with music playing at a deafening volume in the background.
He’s a 10/10 mentor, really.
Rhodey comes with them to school occasionally, because for some reason he thinks it’s absolutely hilarious that Tony’s gone and found himself a mini Iron Man to shower with helicopter parent-ly love, once again his words not Tony’s. And really, it’s the other way around. Peter’s the one that clung on to him like tiny humans tend to do with big, amazing humans like him. Tony is just unenthusiastically dealing with it. Totally.
Peter loves when Tony drops him off. The first time it happened, Peter had him ‘casually’ pull up right next to a greasy haired kid who proceeded to kind of collapse the second the kid stepped out of the car, loudly saying “Bye, Tony!”.
But today, he does something that befuddles the fuck out of him.
He asks him to drop him off a block away from the school.
Drop him off a block away? Tony isn’t (that) old, he knows what that means. That’s something kids do when they don’t want to be seen with the people dropping them off, he’s not some balding middle aged dad who plays embarrassing pop songs at maximum volume! His hairline is great! Why the hell would the kid want to be dropped off a block away?
“Why?” Tony asks. He can’t keep the offense out of his voice. Peter turns red and looks at his knees.
“Well, see, Mr. Stark. The thing is.” And then he clamps his mouth shut, looking nervously over at Rhodey, who grins. Tony whips around, facing him. “You’re in on this!” He accuses. Rhodey just turns his palms up and shakes his head. “This is all Peter, man.”
Tony stares at Peter who’s staring at Rhodey, betrayed.
“Well?”
“There’s this.” Peter falls silent again and Tony’s done with whatever internal teenage angst-y conflict he's going through right now. “Spit it out kid,” He sighs, “we don’t have all day.”
“There’s this girl…”
A girl. Tony can do this. He’s great at girls.
Tony raises his eyebrows at Rhodey, who doesn’t look as surprised as he feels, which, what the hell? Does he know already? Peter is supposed to come to him with all this, not the rip off Iron Man that hangs around them like a leech.
He mentally blows Rhodey an apologetic kiss. He loves him, really, he’s just upset Peter didn’t come to him first.
“Okay…” Tony says, prompting him to go on.
“AndIthinkyouhangingaroundkindaruinsmyimage.”
Tony blinks. He replays the sentence in his head. He blinks again.
“Me hanging around ruins your what?”
“It’s just, I’m already the lamest guy in our grade,” Peter laments, “and you dropping me off and telling me to get enough Vitamin D and to eat my veggies in front of everyone doesn’t really improve my chances with her.”
Tony doesn’t know what to think. He doesn’t know what to say, which is mildly concerning because he always knows what to say. He catches Rhodey’s eye, and his friend promptly bursts into very un-Rhodey-like giggles. Peter looks scared.
“I’m Tony Stark.” Tony says slowly. “If I tell you to eat your veggies, that’s cool. I’m cool.”
“Cool people don’t say that.” Peter says, and then immediately looks mortified.
“Well.” Tony manages. “Okay.” He leans into the backseat and opens the door for Peter. “Time for school.”
Peter looks nervously at him. “Have a good week, Mr. Stark.” He says, and scampers away.
Rhodey snickers. “He thinks you’re embarrassing.”
Tony reasons it would be immature to slap Rhodey ‘round the head. He does it anyway.
Rhodey slaps him back and they start shoving each other and great, now they’re two middle aged uncool men getting into a fistfight in a bright orange car parked a few yards away from a high school.
He tells this to Rhodey who rolls his eyes. “You’re the uncool one, not me.”
“Shut up.”
Rhodey, curse him, follows Tony into his house.
“I’m going to tell Pepper what happened.” He says, and Tony threatens to lock him in his lab forever. “Not a word, James.” He warns. “Don’t you dare tell anyone about this.”
He paces up and down the length of his lounge, deeply disturbed. “I’m cool.” He says, still miffed. “People would literally pay me to tell them to eat their veggies. I’m Tony Stark. ”
“Tony Stank.” Rhodey advises. Tony clenches his jaw. “Why haven’t I kicked you out yet?”
“Because you love me.”
Tony, unfortunately, can’t argue with that.
Peter doesn’t think he’s cool, that’s fine. That’s totally okay, not a big deal. Tony’s never cared about what other people think of him, growing up in the limelight does that to you. He’s not bothered about this, not at all.
And yet, he finds himself Googling How to be cool.
And then immediately comes to his senses and closes the tab. And clears his history and hacks into the StarkNet server and deletes it from there too, just in case.
Lunch is excruciating. Pepper orders this incredible egg drop soup, but Tony can’t enjoy it at all. He can’t believe a fucking teenager thinks he’s uncool. He’s not uncool, he literally invented cool. If anyone’s uncool, it’s Peter.
“Okay,” Pepper sighs after Tony huffs out loud for the fifth time. “What is it?”
Tony startles. He looks up from his uneaten soup, at Pepper. Pepper is pretty. She’s also cool.
“Am I cool?” Tony asks her.
She blinks. “Um.”
Tony gapes at her. “Um.” He parrots. “You said ‘um’. You don’t think I’m cool.” He gets up, too agitated to sit still, and begins to pace.
“I never said you weren’t cool.” Pepper says, exasperated. “I wasn’t expecting that question.” She frowns up at him. “What brought this on?”
Tony glares at the floor. “You still haven’t answered my question. But if you must know, Peter thinks I’m uncool. As if he’d know what constitutes as cool, he’s fucking twelve!”
Pepper stifles a laugh, and Tony groans, face-planting onto the couch.
“It’s really not a big deal.” She says, still laughing. “Everyone is out to get me.” He replies, words muffled by the sofa.
Tony is a lot of things, but a quitter is definitely not one of them.
So when Saturday morning rolls around and Peter climbs out of Happy’s car, fresh faced and eager to learn or whatever, Tony is ready to wow his young prodigy with his coolness.
“Hey Pete!” He chirrups, slapping him on the back which causes Peter to sort of fall over and bangs his head on the window. Happy glances out of the car.
“All good!” Tony mouths, grabbing Peter around the waist and trying to hoist him up. It’s proving slightly difficult, seeing as he’s kind of unconscious at the moment but he manages to drag him inside. In the elevator, Peter comes to.
“What happened?” He asks, clutching his head.
“Funny story,” Tony begins, “you tripped.”
Peter frowns. “Really? Cause I thought-”
“Nope, you tripped.” Tony says firmly, examining his nails. “And what’s up with that anyways?” He asks.
“What’s up with what?”
“You passing out from a tiny head bump, Spider-Man?”
Peter turns scarlet and clamps his mouth shut.
“Oh, so it’s a thing?” Tony asks, curious now. “Explain, Parker.”
Peter heaves a long suffering sigh, rolls his eyes and stares at a spot on the ground next to his feet. Tony nearly sheds a tear, Peter is just like him. Howard would’ve hated the kid. The elevator reaches his penthouse, and Peter tries to rush out but Tony grabs him by the collar collar and drags him over to the kitchen.
“Nuh-uh kid. Out with it.”
Peter goes through the eye rolling and huffing and stomping his feet and “Mom you’re ruining my life!” motions again and then opens his mouth to speak.
“So Ned and I were at this party on Halloween, right?” He starts and Tony has to take several deep breaths because this just cannot be good. “So we were just chilling, you know, and some guy comes up to us and hands both of us a drink and I’m like no way dude I have no idea who you are, stranger danger and shit right? But then Brad-”, he spits out the name like it’s some kind of dirty word, “just takes one of them and downs it and MJ is like, right there and she had her eyebrows kinda raised like she was impressed by him or whatever and so I take one because Brad doesn’t seem like dead or whatever and my Peter Ti- my sixth sense was kinda okay and it wasn’t awful but on the way back I tried breaking a tree ‘cause Ned bet me a buck I couldn’t and like it didn’t even splinter a bit but I broke my hand I think so I was like oh shit whoever gave me the drink probably was magic or something and then I passed out and-”
Peter pauses, taking a breath. Tony, on the other hand, seems to have lost the ability to breathe and has taken a seat, trying to process the large slew of information that was just thrown at him.
“And then Ned took me home and-”
Tony holds his hand up, stopping him. “There’s more?” His asks, voice cracking.
“Yeah?”
Tony pinches the bridge of his nose and wonders if it would scar Peter too much if he jumped out of the window without his suit on.
“Let me get this straight.” Tony begins, looking up at Peter. “You drank something that a complete stranger gave you because you,” he pretends to check his notes, “wanted to impress a girl?”
Peter nods nonchalantly like that’s a completely normal thing to do and Tony kind of wants to die.
“I thought you were smarter than this.” He says quietly. “You need to start being more careful. You of all people should know that. What would’ve happened if someone near you got attacked and you wouldn’t have been able to stop it? If you got attacked and something would’ve happened? I’m incredibly disappointed in you, Pete.”
Peter looks down at his feet, nervously this time. “I’m really sorry.” He whispers. Tony sighs and opens the fridge, pulling out some cheese. “Sandwich?” He asks Peter, who nods slowly like Tony might pull another guilt-trippy speech if he says no.
He starts toasting the bread. “We’re going to figure out how to get your strength back, don’t worry.” Tony tells Peter after some time. “I’ll make a few calls, maybe Bruce-”
“Oh no, I got it figured out!” Peter interrupts. Tony raises an eyebrow. “I went over to Dr. Strange’s place yesterday. He gave me this gross potion and called me an idiot. And now I’m slowly getting my strength back so that’s cool.”
Tony tries to stay calm. “Okay. Cool. Yeah. Sure, he can do magic and shit. Boring, whatever. I’d like to see him discover a new element in like, a day. I bet he wouldn’t be able to make a super-suit out of a bunch of scraps of metal in a literal cave. But sure, yeah, go to him first. I bet he’s way cooler than me. He probably made you a balloon animal.”
He slides a bewildered looking Peter the finished grilled cheese and makes a (well deserved) dramatic exit.
Peter follows him into the lounge and sits next to him. “Your toasties are way better than anything Dr. Strange makes.” He says through a full mouth, and Tony ignores the way he finds it completely adorable that Peter calls them toasties.
“Whatever.” Tony grumbles, and then awkwardly pats the kid on the head like he’s a puppy. Which he basically is.
The rest of their weekend goes normal (or however normal two superheroes with above average IQs blowing shit up can get). Tony lets Peter help with the initial designs of a new self-piloting StarkJet, they eat diabetes-inducing amounts of Stark Raving Hazelnut Sundaes and watch movies until 8 in the next morning. Tony tries not to cry when he finds a half deflated balloon dog in Peter’s backpack and actually cries at the end of You’ve Got Mail and makes Peter swear on his life to never tell anyone (Rhodey).
So much for trying to seem cool.
Rhodey calls him ten minutes after Tony drops Peter off at school.
“You’ve Got Mail, man?” Rhodey asks. “Really?” Tony ends the call.
He changes back into his comfy tracksuit (which Pepper refuses to let him wear outside of the house) and wanders outside, bored. It’s always so suddenly quiet when Peter leaves, and it leaves Tony feeling a quiet kind of sad. Back before Afghanistan, Tony used to drown his sadness with an excessive amount of alcohol. Now, he’s got more locks on his cabinets than bottles in them and no coping mechanisms left.
He jogs around his backyard for a bit, telling FRIDAY to play his playlist, but the music feels too harsh and the bass is jarring, he feels the beginnings of a headache.
He goes back inside, feeling more miserable than ever.
“I am too old to listen to ACDC.” He says out loud. “Music has no age, sir.” FRIDAY tells him, and Tony starts laughing because what else can he do? He lays down on the floor, tells FRIDAY to play some age appropriate music and laughs even harder when she starts playing 50’s blues.
“Shut up.” He tells her, and immediately feels bad.
Pepper knows at once that something is wrong because she’s the smartest person in the whole world. She comes home to Tony fast asleep on the floor in the middle of the foyer and takes her heels off and curls up next to him, quietly waking him up.
“Hey, Pep.” Tony mumbles. Pepper smiles softly at him. “Hi, Tony.” They kiss, slow and lazy, like they’ve got all the time in the world, which Tony hopes to hell they do.
“How was your day?” She asks, carding her fingers through his hair. Tony shrugs, letting his eyes fall shut. “Pretty average.” He replies. “Dropped Pete off, answered a few emails, went for a run, took a nap.”
“Yeah? Mine was pretty normal too, kinda boring.” They cuddle up for a bit, Pepper’s weight grounding him, his breathing matching hers.
“I love you.” Tony tells her. Pepper smiles. “Love you too.”
“We should have sex.” Tony says, and Pepper blinks. “Okay.”
“And you should go off birth control. If you want.”
Pepper sits up slowly, staring at him. “You do realise what happens if I go off birth control, right?” She asks. Tony opens his mouth to say something smart and witty like ‘Duh’, but Pepper cuts him off.
“A baby.” She says. “A human child that we have to take care of. An entire life in our hands.”
Tony nods patiently. “Yes Pepper, I passed fifth grade science.” He says and she rolls her eyes. “I think we’re ready for a kid. Have been for a while, right?”
“I…” Pepper trails off, thinking. “I mean, sure?” She looks skeptical, and suddenly, Tony is nervous. Pepper would be a great mom, Tony is more sure of that than anything. She’s been ready to parent for a long time, he knows she wants kids. It’s him that’s the liability here, he’s the one causing hesitation. Not for the first time, he wonders if he’s holding Pepper back.
She could be great, Tony thinks. Greater than she already is.
“Be quiet.” Pepper says. Tony startles. “I didn’t say anything.”
“I was talking to your brain.” She says, tapping his forehead. “I could hear you yelling around in there. Talk to me, Tony. Why this, now?”
Tony shrugs, playing with loose strands of Pepper’s hair. “Dunno. I guess just, with Peter and stuff. Gets kind of lonely around here when he’s gone.”
Pepper makes a soft sound of understanding. “A child isn’t something we should use to fix something, though.” She says delicately. “Do you want a kid because you want a kid or because you want something to fill up the time when Peter’s not here?”
Tony scoffs, offended. “I’m not my dad, Pepper.” He says. “I might not be a great person but I’m not going to start having kids for my own personal gain.”
Pepper nods quickly. “I know that, honey.” She’s quiet for a second. “And who told you you’re not a great person? You’re Tony Stark.”
“Yeah, well. Apparently that doesn’t mean much these days.” Pepper rolls her eyes fondly, lacing their hands together.
“Not Tony Stark, the brand or whatever.” She says. “Just Tony Stark. My husband. Somewhat cool guy, makes good grilled cheese, really bad at Monopoly but insanely good at Go Fish, mostly because he cheats. Ever heard of him?”
Tony laughs. “Nope. I do know this one other guy though, incredibly cool and handsome and amazing at every single board game ever. He wins all of them.”
“You’re going to be a great dad.” Pepper tells him. Tony feels something warm building up in his chest, getting bigger and bigger until it threatens to explode out of him.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“You too.”
“I’m going to be a great dad?”
“The best. I’ll even get you a little mug, with #1 DAD written on it.”
“I love you.”
“Yeah same. We should have sex now.”
“Pepper and I are trying to have a kid.”
Peter screams and throws the screwdriver he was holding at Tony, who ducks and swears, banging his head on the worktable.
“What the fuck, kid?” Tony exclaims, massaging his head. What is it with him and Peter and minor-but-very-painful head injuries?
“Why are you talking to me about your,” he drops his voice to a whisper, “sex life?”
“Why are you hiding under the table?” Tony asks incredulously, rolling up a stray paper and swatting at him. Peter climbs out, red faced and looking nauseous.
“Look, I’m all about sex-positivity,” Peter begins, “but there is a line, Mr. Stark. And that line has just been crossed. Like a lot.”
Tony stares at him. “I literally just said that Pepper and I are trying to have a kid.”
Peter screams again and covers his ears, and Tony resists the urge to strangle the kid.
“When you eventually end up having a child, please do not traumatize them the way you have traumatised me.” Peter says very seriously. “I think I may need therapy. No, actually, I think it’s best if I just-” He mimes choking himself, letting his tongue roll out of his head.
“How old are you, ten?” Tony cries, throwing his hands up. “I hate tweens.”
“I’m seventeen!”
“Then act like it!”
“Fine! I am very pleased that you have decided to copulate.” Peter shudders. “I’m going to go stick my head in the oven now.”
“Stop joking about that!” Tony scolds.
“Calm down, Dad.” Peter grouches. “It was just a joke.”
Tony freezes. “Was that a dad thing? Did I just do a dad?”
Peter winces. “The phrasing. Ouch. But yeah, I guess?”
“I will have you know that I’ve done several dads.” Tony informs him, and Peter looks like he’s about to faint. “But that’s not important. Holy fuck, I’m basically a dad.” He grins down at his worktable, at the car seat he was working on. “I’m going to be the best fucking dad ever.”
Peter looks down at the carseat too. “What is that?”
“It’s a car seat!” Tony says proudly.
“Huh.” Peter says, examining it closer. “I thought it was just a very large bomb. Maybe lose the tiny repulsors?”
“Yup, was just about to get on that.”
*
Pepper runs into the lab with a positive pregnancy test on the first Monday of November. Tony drops a very expensive shipment of vibranium and rushes over to her, proceeds to lose his shit, and bursts into tears.
They call Rhodey, who immediately drives over and starts fretting about the house, pointing out every single corner of the house that needs to be baby proofed and stressing about the stairs.
“Tony and I were thinking,” Pepper says slowly, “that we might move to the countryside. Somewhere a little quieter so the baby can have a normal childhood. We don’t want them to grow up in the public eye.”
Rhodey suddenly looks like he’s about to cry.
“You guys are going to be amazing parents.” He chokes out, and grabs them both into a bear hug. Tony protests and grumbles, but holds on to Rhodey as tight as he can.
“Also,” Tony says after they’ve separated, “we want you to be the baby’s godfather.”
Rhodey really does start crying then, but it’s a lot more dignified than the explosive waterworks that Tony went through down in the lab. Tony still makes fun of him for it, because what are college roommates turned supersuit buddies turned has-been-heroes for?
*
Pepper is a literal goddess. She is wonderful and amazing and pretty and smart and incredibly brave.
Tony reminds himself of all of this as he drives to Queens in the middle of the night to buy his wife sardine bread. He is buying her whatever food she wants, whenever she wants, because she deserves it and she’s carrying their baby and pregnancy looks painful as fuck.
But seriously, what the hell is sardine bread? And why the hell is it only available in one tiny store in Queens which for some reason refuses to deliver to a lakehouse in the middle of nowhere about 500 miles from it? Rude as hell.
“You have arrived at your destination.” FRIDAY says. Tony stares at the silent, sprawling graveyard in front of him. “Evidently.” Tony says sarcastically. He gets out of the car and looks around, looking for a food truck or a stall or something that looks like it’d sell sardine bread.
“Hello?” He calls, giving up on his eyes. Nobody replies.
“Hello Boss.” FRIDAY answers.
Ten minutes and a newly developed but very deep hatred for graveyards later, Tony is back in his car, calling Peter.
Is it a good idea to call him at 3 am on a school night? … No. Does Tony particularly care? Yes actually, he’s feeling a very inconvenient amount of guilt at the possibility of waking up the kid, he barely gets enough rest as it is, but Tony’s got a pregnant lady back at home who has a fierce temper and would probably (definitely) kill Tony if he doesn’t come back with a loaf of New York's finest sardine bread. Tony prays Peter is already awake, doing homework.
“Mr. Stark?” He sounds half asleep, confused. Tony swears quietly, vows to make sure Peter gets a full eight hours each night on their next weekend.
“Hey, Pete.” Tony says quietly. “Sorry for waking you up.”
“I was already awake!” Peter protests sleepily.
“Yeah, of course. Listen, what do you know about sardine bread?”
After Tony hangs up, he drives over to Peter’s apartment. He told Tony he’d take him to the sardine bread place, ignoring all of Tony’s protests about him needing sleep. They were, truthfully, halfhearted protests though. It’s been a while since Tony has seen the kid. When Pepper passed the three month mark, they packed up and moved north, settling down in a peaceful house overlooking a lake, setting it up, making it ready for their little girl. His weekly visits with Peter turned into twice monthly visits, and the spontaneous outings completely stopped.
He parks outside of the Parkers’ apartment and gets out of the car. He doesn’t have to wait for long, two minutes later a blur of red and blue barrels out of the building, throwing his arms around Tony.
Tony hugs him back, unsure if he’d ever want to even consider letting go. Damn, he missed the kid.
“Hi Mr. Stark.” Peter mumbles, voice muffled by Tony’s shirt.
“Hi Spider-Man.” Tony replies, plucking at Peter’s suit.
“Yeah, I thought it would be less weird for Spider-Man to be walking around with Tony Stark in the middle of the night than a random kid from Queens.” He explains.
Tony agrees, hugs him a little tighter, and lets go. “Hi.” He says again, yanking Peter’s mask up so he can see his face.
“Um, knock before you enter?” Peter bats his hand away and pulls the rest of the mask off himself. Tony pats his cheek. “Get in the car.”
They drive back to the graveyard and Peter insists on playing these loud, obnoxious songs that give Tony a headache but the kid enjoys them so he tolerates it.
“We’re here!” Peter chirps. “Thank god.” Tony mutters, turning the music off. They climb out of the car and Peter stretches, his bones cracking like fireworks.
“You need to drink more milk. Eat some almonds.” Tony tells him. “Wait, I think I have some cashews in my bag…” He rummages through his tote bag, looking for his emergency snacks. He started carrying this bag around almost everywhere after Pepper got pregnant, it’s a serious lifesaver. Snacks are important.
“Here they are!” He says, holding up a ziplock baggie of cashews. “Why are you laughing.”
Peter covers his mouth trying to hide it, but he’s burst into a fit of giggles.
“Am I missing something?” Tony asks. “Is this a millennial thing? Are cashews some sort of innuendo?”
Peter keeps laughing. “I am going to punch you.” Tony promises.
“You’re such a dad.” Peter says and Tony grins.
Peter does not know what sardine bread is. His completely idiotic and insane idea is to break into the graveyard. Tony, also being idiotic and insane, lets him. Peter jumps over the fence and fiddles around with the lock for a second, breaking it and swinging the gate open.
“I should've brought the suit.” Tony grumbles. “I hate having other people doing things for me.”
“Dude, you’re Tony Stark. Everyone does everything for you.”
“Dude, shut up.”
They walk past hundreds of gravemarkers and there is still no sardine bread.
“What exactly is our game plan here?” Tony asks, weaving around a headstone. Peter shrugs. “I dunno. Maybe someone left some sardine bread on a grave as like, an offering?”
Tony stares at him. “You are so weird.”
“Are you sure there’s even anything here?”
“Yes!” Tony protests. “Look, I talked to the guy on the phone. He said he doesn’t do deliveries outside of a ten mile radius but I could come and pick it up.”
Peter thinks for a second. “Call him again?”
Tony calls him. They hear a ringing noise, somewhere to the left.
“Okay, no.” Peter says, suddenly pale. “I’m not buying shit from a corpse, not again.” He turns to leave but Tony tugs him back to his side. For the sake of his own health, he elects to ignore that sentence. He does not need to have a sudden blood pressure spike because he’s trying to figure out why the hell his idiot mentee is conducting commerce with a dead body.
“Come on.” Tony says, pulling Peter with him. They make their way over to the source of the ringing, Peter clinging onto his arm and flinching every two seconds.
The ringing stops, and it’s suddenly eerily quiet. Tony and Peter look at each other.
“Hello!” A chipper voice calls.
Tony lets out a high pitched scream and stumbles backwards, but Peter grabs him before he falls. “Dude.” Peter says, pressing his lips together to stop himself from laughing.
Tony chooses to ignore him, staring instead at the small man that has suddenly emerged from behind a headstone.
“You must be Mr. Stark!” He squeaks, holding his hand out to shake. “I’m Bartholomew.”
Tony shakes his hand. “That name is longer than you are.”
Peter snorts.
Bartholomew seems to have not heard him. He reaches into the messenger bag and pulls out a fresh loaf of sardine bread, and Peter immediately recoils, gagging. “God, that smells awful!” He gasps, covering his nose with his hands. Tony can’t smell anything, but he feels awful for the kid and his hypersensitivity.
“Right, I’ll take that.” Tony gingerly grabs the loaf. “What do I owe you?”
Bartholomew says, “Fifty dollars.”
Peter emerges from behind his hands, looking outraged. “Fifty dollars? Are you serious?” Tony waves him off, but Peter continues. “That is such a ripoff! What even is sardine bread anyways? And why are you in a graveyard, man? That’s so weird, like so weird.”
Bartholomew ignores him, looking at Tony expectantly. Tony sighs and turns to Peter. “Do you have a fifty?”
Peter stares at him, incredulous. “You’re - you’re asking me?”
“Do you really expect me to carry a wallet around with me everywhere?”
“You are so entitled.”
“Big words for a twelve year old.”
“Shut up.”
Tony raises his eyebrows. Peter freezes. “I mean - I didn’t - I…” He trails off, looking terrified. “I’m just going to be quiet now.”
Tony is conceitedly pleased. As much as he loves the fact that Peter is comfortable enough around him to joke around and be himself, it doesn’t mean he doesn’t miss the overeager fanboy that would rather die than tell him to shut up.
“Great idea.” Tony says. He turns to Bartholomew. “I don’t have fifty dollars.” He tells him. “I do have a watch?” He takes off his watch, dangling it in front of him. “It’s more than fifty dollars. Keep the change.”
Bartholomew considers the watch for a second. He looks at the sardine bread like he’s pained to be parting with it. He looks at the watch again.
“Deal.” He squeaks, takes the watch, turns, and leaves.
Peter looks at Tony. “That was odd.”
Tony glares at the sardine bread. “You were not worth all this trouble.”
“And now he’s talking to bread.”
Tony pretends to slap Peter ‘round the head. “Can we just… pretend the last two hours never happened?”
Peter nods firmly. “What happened in a random ass graveyard in Queens stays in the random ass graveyard in Queens.”
*
Tony isn’t ashamed to admit that he’s totally out of his depth with the pregnancy. Biology, admittedly, isn’t his strong suit and the idea of an entire human growing inside someone’s body honestly terrifies him.
He’s (kind of) come to peace with the fact that he can’t control everything about this, can’t fiddle with a wrench, get FRIDAY to do a quick scan and speed up the process, get the kid out already.
But god, the wait is driving him crazy.
“Come out already!” He whisper-yells at Pepper’s bump in the middle of the night. “It’s a day after your due date, little lady. I’m getting kind of impatient here.”
Pepper grumbles and swats at the general direction of his head. She’s gotten increasingly more irritable as the days go by, and Tony can’t blame her. Having an entire human being growing inside you and leeching off of your life supply life a fucking parasite for almost a year… give him a maniacal purple man that’s fixated on mass genocide any day over that.
Tony hums a little tune to the baby and imagines the kid dancing around in her womb juice, and giggles to himself.
Pepper aims another swat at Tony’s head, and doesn’t miss this time.
“Owww…” Tony complains. “I changed my mind, Morgana.” He whispers to Pepper’s belly. “Stay in there for as long as you can. Mommy’s scary.”
“Don’t fucking encourage her.” Pepper scolds, resting her hands on her stomach. “And we are not naming her Morgan.”
Twelve hours later, Morgan H. Stark is born. She’s small and pink, and she kind of looks like a string bean. She’s wrinkly and her eyes barely open, and Tony is so in love.
He cries when he holds her for the first time, and Rhodey doesn’t laugh at him. Then Morgan is passed to Rhodey and she falls asleep the second he settles into his arms, and his eyes start looking a little watery around the edges. Tony returns the favor, doesn’t mention it.
The first few days are a whirlwind of appointments and FaceTimes and making sure Pepper is alright and not taking his eyes off Morgan for a second. She’s already slightly bigger than she was when she came out for the first time, and Tony is already wishing time could slow down.
“She’s three days old, Tony.” Pepper says when Tony tells her this.
“Three days?” Tony shrieks quietly. Morgan is asleep in a little yellow crib next to their bed. Pepper refused to let Tony paint it red and gold, and Tony refused to let Pepper paint it green just because he was mad about his Iron Baby Crib design being turned down. They compromised on yellow.
“How has it been three days already? It feels like just yesterday we were having glorious, glorious, unprotected sex.”
Pepper stares at him. “I’m going to bed.”
“Let's have another baby.”
“Let’s not.”
The first time Peter meets Morgan is the day she turns a week old.
“Oh my god.” He says as soon as he walks into their room, zeroing in on the little pink lump in Tony’s lap, his eyes widening to the size of literal saucers.
“Hi Peter.” Tony says in a high pitched voice, carefully waving Morgan’s little arm back and forth.
“Oh my god.” Peter repeats, dropping his overnight bag and rushing over to the bed.
“She’s so tiny.” He whispers in awe, leaning down and offering her his finger. She wraps her fingers around his hand and he looks devastated.
“Oh my god.” He says again. “She’s perfect.”
“Tone it down kid,” Tony says dryly, “you’re giving her a complex.”
“I don’t care.” Peter says immediately. “I would die for her. I would jump in front of several trains for her.”
Tony kicks him with a sock clad foot, careful not to dislodge Morgan’s weirdly strong grip from Peter’s finger. “Shut up.”
Peter ignores him, carefully examining her face. “She kinda looks like you.” He says, a goofy grin on his face. Tony blanches. “Why would you say that.” He says flatly. “She looks like a giant toe.”
“Stop it.” Peter sounds genuinely offended. “She’s perfect.”
Tony sighs, looking down at the tiny, wrinkly human in his lap. “She is.” He agrees, running his hand over the few tufts of hair on her head. He tugs Peter’s shirt, pulling him towards him and wrapping his free arm around his shoulder. He doesn’t say anything because fragile masculinity or whatever (but mostly because he has a big ass lump in his throat the size of fucking Alaska and he doesn’t think he could talk if he wanted to), but Peter returns his awkward half hug, resting his head on his shoulder.
“I love you guys.” Peter says, his voice slightly muffled.
“Love you too.” He gives Peter a squeeze, smiles down at Morgan.
“My kids.” He says softly. He can feel Peter smile into his shoulder.
And if Tony’s lockscreen is a picture that Pepper took of him, Morgan, and Peter all curled up together, fast asleep, then that’s nobody’s business but his.