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Tony knew professors shouldn’t have favourites. He knew that. But his heart didn’t (or, more likely, it had wilfully ignored that fact) and it had a favourite. Peter Parker had been his favourite student since his very first lesson with him (when he stumbled in, wide eyed and eager, bursting with questions for him) though he didn’t admit that little fact to himself until half way through Peter’s 3rd year. The kid was now in his 6th and Tony couldn’t help but notice certain repeated occurrences that filled him with dread. He wasn’t often, but this time he wished he was wrong. Every year in the weeks approaching when students went home, Peter seemed more subdued than any other time Tony had seen him, and when they all returned to Hogwarts after the summer, Peter would return looking worse for wear.
Dark bags under his eyes, a haunted look in them. And then there was his weight. Every summer, it seemed Peter would lose all weight possible for him to lose. But Tony knew his eating habits, as much as the thought caused him to cringe, and Peter loved food. He was very enthusiastic about it, even when he thought no one was looking, Tony had caught him sneakily snacking often enough in his class to know. Tony liked to think he would have noticed if Peter had some sort of eating disorder. But it wasn’t that. So what was it? Did his family struggle financially? He knew that Peter lived with a foster family since his parents had died when he was young and there was no one else to take him in. Did they need help? Tony wouldn’t mind helping out if that was the case, even subtly since he knew how people got about money.
Tony didn’t want to think about the other option. The other option made him go stiff with fear. He couldn’t even bare to contemplate it but the tallies were adding up and they were giving him an answer he didn’t want to see. As he looked over to the Hufflepuff table though, the denial was wearing away and his heart was dropping. Just then Peter looked up and caught his eye, beaming at him in a way that forced his lips up at the corners into a reluctant, small smile. Peter’s smile got even wider at that and he shot him a tiny wave before he returned to his conversation with Ned again, bringing a stuffed pepper to his mouth hungrily. Tony’s gaze zeroed in on a dark smudge on his wrist and he prayed to Merlin that it wasn’t what he thought it was. The dread deepened. Whenever he had tried needling an answer out of Peter before, the brat wouldn’t tell him anything and more often than not found a way around it that Tony didn’t even realise until long after Peter had gone. But it was getting worse, year after year. Whatever it was that was going on, Tony was finding out this year.
“Mr Parker, please stay behind a moment,” Tony called at the end of the lesson. He could hear some muttering amongst the students and he knew they thought he was keeping Peter behind because of his absentmindedness in the lesson and how he hadn’t been paying attention. And he was, but not for the reason they thought.
Peter was packing up his stuff but as soon as soon as the door closed, he walked up to the desk staring at Tony apprehensively. Tony just smiled at him and Peter instantly relaxed and proceeded at a much quicker pace.
“Hey Underoos,” Tony said. He only ever brought out the more intimate nicknames when they were alone. He nicknamed just about everyone, nicknames were his thing, but he had a select few that were for Peter and Peter only. Just because they knew Peter was his favourite didn’t mean they had to broadcast it to the rest of the school, though he figured they at least had an inkling, what with how much time they spent together. “How was your summer?”
“Good. Fine.” Peter said quickly before hastily adding, “I read your new book ‘Testing the limits of the limiting laws of Charms’; it was amazing! The theory it explained was revolutionary. I think it rivals your book about time and the theories around time travel.”
“Thank you Peter. And, well, if you bring it to me, I’ll even sign it for you. Not many people can claim they have a signed copy of my books.” Tony smirked. It was what they did every time, an inside joke if you will. Peter would bring him his books and he would sign them for him. They had done it ever since the first time Peter had brought him one of his books to discuss it with him, when he had finally plucked up the courage 2 months into his first year to drag in a huge book about charms and one of Tony’s earliest books, stuttering his way through his request to ask him a few things about them. How Tony was expected to refuse was beyond him, when 11 year old Peter had stared at him with wide, nervous, yet hopeful, eyes, in robes too big for him and kept slipping off one shoulder.
“I saw your OWL results. They were remarkable; I’m so proud of you, Peter.” Tony said genuinely and Peter flushed, ducking his head down.
“Thanks Professor Stark.” Tony ruffled his hair fondly and Peter’s flush deepened but his smile grew.
“Did you and your family do anything to celebrate?” Tony asked and almost immediately regretted it. Peter’s smile dropped and he shifted uncomfortably.
“Er, no. Not really. But I went out with Ned’s family and their celebration was celebration enough. You haven’t seen how the Leeds’ party.”
Tony wanted to pry further, to get something that would stop this damn sinking his heart and stomach would pull whenever Peter’s homelife came up, but one look at Peter’s discomfort and he decided to drop it. For now.
“Well, I was serious. I’m proud of you. You continue challenging my best Ravenclaw, just a few marks of difference between you but with all Os, who’s going to pick at you?”
“I don’t think anyone will quite beat Shuri.” Peter grin returning, flush still high on his cheeks but fading the more they talked.
“Probably not,” Tony laughed, “That girl would have given me a run for my money if we had gone to school together. I’m surprised her brother didn’t announce her results in the last Ministry press conference; no one can say that the Minister doesn’t have self-restraint. Though I heard he slipped it into the last Ministry meeting with the department heads. Not that anyone is surprised. But I’m still proudest of you, Pete. Such a shame you aren’t in my house, then I would have been boasting both of the smartest kids in the school.” Not that he didn’t still boast about Peter but he didn’t have to know about that. “Alas, Rogers gets you.” Tony mock sighed. Peter laughed.
“Oh please, you get me more and you know it. I’m pretty sure I’ve spent more time with you than all the other professors put together.”
Tony grinned smugly. It was true after all, and not just because they enjoyed each other’s presence.
Peter had begun seeking him out early in his school career, coming to him for help and with questions. Tony loved his curious, bright nature and encouraged it. It soon came about that Peter came to him with questions about curses and when Tony pried worriedly, Peter admitted that he wanted to be a curse breaker when he was older. Tony understood then why he had come to him.
It was well known that Tony was the best curse breaker the Ministry had ever seen, specialising in dark and complex curses, it was told he had a way about them that others couldn’t emulate. He was so good, in fact, that the Unspeakables scouted him and he spent a good few years with them, building his reputation to legendary levels with his work with curses and time, even creating a new form of time travel, before he took the job as Charms professor at Hogwarts. Many people didn’t understand his choice to do so, but he was happy, and looking at Peter’s bright smiling face in front of him now, he had absolutely no regrets.
“Very true. They can only dream of getting this much of your time. Have you heard that Thor is coming for the career fair? To do a talk about what’s it like in the Aurors?”
“Yeah, and I heard he might even be dragging his Unspeakable brother along!” Peter grinned.
“I worked with him,” Tony said thoughtfully, “Loki is amazing at transfiguration, never seen anything like it.”
“I heard he can apparate soundlessly.”
“He can. He has also been known to do it wandlessly. He is excellent at wandless and wordless magic, the best I’ve ever seen. He is very powerful.”
“Woah! No wonder the Unspeakables are so happy with him; I’m sure they felt the same way about you. They must have been devastated when they lost you. I would have been.” Peter’s earnest expression was too much sometimes.
“Thanks kid. And they were. They still call me in for consultations so it’s not a total loss.”
“Their loss is my gain.”
“It sure is.” Tony ruffled Peter’s hair. “So, you’re going to the career talks?”
Peter shrugged. “Yeah. It will be interesting to get a perspective from people. And I’ll be going with my friends.”
“I supposed not everyone has had their career planned since they could read,” Tony teased.
“You shouldn’t have been so good at writing or working then. After all, it was your work that got me interested in curse breaking in the first place,” Peter shot back.
“Good to know I can take credit for all the world changing you are going to do.”
Peter blushed and ducked his head. “There isn’t going to be any world changing. Just small stuff.”
“Funny, I’m almost certain Steve Rogers said the same thing before he joined the Aurors and took down a major dark segment.”
“Well, I’m almost certain Professor Rogers didn’t take down Hydra alone. He had others and you as well.”
“Well, lucky you; you have me too.”
Peter hid his smile and Tony felt something warm inside his chest, something soft that he wasn’t sure he remembered being there before Peter.
“Speaking of Rogers, how’s Defence going?”
Peter’s face twisted. “Professor Rogers is teaching us how to cast patronuses.”
Tony paused and looked at him. “And this isn’t a good thing?” he asked tentatively.
“I’m having more trouble with it than everyone else,” Peter mumbled. “It took me more than double their time to even produce a wisp.”
Tony frowned. They had had defence before charms today. “Is that why you were do distracted and down today in my class?” Peter flushed guilty and nodded. Tony placed a hand on his shoulder.
“Hey, there’s no shame in not being able to produce one.”
Peter scoffed.
“Would it help you to know it took me years before I could produce one? Even now, I can only rarely do it.”
Peter’s head snapped up. “What? You? Why?”
Tony shrugged. “I didn’t have any happy memories strong enough. It’s not enough to just feel happy. It has to be pure joy; the type of happiness that fills you up completely with warmth, makes you feel like you can do anything.” Peter was listening to him raptly.
“How did you eventually produce one?”
“I made some memories. Not that many, its why I can still only produce a patronus rarely.” Well, and his fluctuating mental state but he wasn’t about to tell his student this.
“What kind of memories?”
“Special times with the other professors, just bits and pieces. Like when Professor Banner perfected the modified wolfsbane and came to me to celebrate, or the annual Yule party we have. Rhodey coming home after a long Auror mission kept him away for months. ” You calling me dad. But Tony didn’t say that last one. Couldn’t.
Students called professors ‘dad’ or ‘mum’ all the time, it was practically guaranteed for each student to do it at least once. So once was almost expected. Twice was uncommon but not unheard of. Three times was surprising. Peter had accidently called him dad 27 times. Not that Tony was counting. Oh, who was he kidding? He almost admitted to using the memory of it to fuel his patronus, he didn’t think he could keep lying to himself. He cherished every single one. He had tried to justify it to himself but he was beginning to think it was useless and letting himself hope. Or, more accurately, hope had forced its way in with a crowbar and he had had no say. Maybe Peter did see him that way. One could dream.
“What was it? The animal?” Peter asked eagerly and Tony smiled at him.
“A crow.”
“That’s so cool.” Peter sighed wistfully.
“What did Professor Rogers say might be the reason you are struggling so much with it? Usually you pick up spells very quickly.”
Peter deflated again. “He said something about darkness that I’ve experienced interfering. Either with the memory or with the feeling or both.”
“Darkness? What darkness?”
“Maybe the death of my parents? They did die in front of me.” Usually, Tony would have taken this completely valid answer and put the conversation to rest. But Peter was terrible at lying, and he was doing it now. Tony stared at him. Why was that a lie? It was a plausible theory. But for Peter to be lying it meant that he had to know for sure that that wasn’t the darkness that was interfering. How did he know for sure? He knew what the darkness actually was. The sinking deepened. He had to confirm it though.
“Do you really believe that? Do you know what the darkness is, Peter?”
“No.” Lie. His heart fell and so did his eyes as they caught on another smudge. Only, it wasn’t a smudge. Of course it wasn’t. Just like the ‘smudge’ on his wrist turned out to be a bruise that was suspiciously hand shaped. Tony spotted the bruise peeking out from Peter’s shirt, on his collarbone. His collarbone, his wrist… where else? And how did he get them? Though Tony was more and more sure he knew the answer to that. Anger was flickering like a candle inside him but he didn’t let it show.
“You know you can tell me anything, right?” Tony began tentatively. Peter nodded, not looking at him. Tony gently lifted Peter’s head with a hand under his chin. “Peter.” He met his gaze. “How was your summer? Really?”
Tony was expecting more redirecting and distracting, maybe some defensiveness, lying, even for Peter to walk out completely. He was expecting a lot of things. What he wasn’t expecting was for Peter to burst into tears. Tony barely stopped himself from visibly startling but he recovered quickly and pulled Peter to him, wrapping him in his arms. Peter’s shaking worsened but his arms came around Tony and gripped the back of his robe tightly.
“Oh, Roo.”
Tony continued whispering reassurances as Peter sobbed into his chest, running his fingers through his hair. It seemed to calm him slightly. Tony nudged him gently until they were sitting on the desk together. He had thought about the desk chair but he wasn’t sure breaking the rules of what was appropriate between student and teacher so blatantly would be a good idea. On the desk, he could still comfort Peter and hold him close without him being on his lap.
“What’s going on, Pete? Please. Please let me help you.”
Peter didn’t say anything for so long Tony began to lose hope he would ever tell him but then he started.
“My – my foster family. They ha-hate me. They think I’m weird. That I’m a freak.” Then Peter broke down again and cried and cried until he had cried himself to sleep, leaning against Tony.
Tony’s heart had shattered with Peter’s admission and his sobs after had spread around the pieces, piercing their surroundings leaving a torn and bloodied mess behind. He picked Peter up and took him into his office, laying him down on the sofa in there and covering him with a blanket he had because Peter often got cold. Merlin, so much of his life already revolved around this kid. How could he have let this happen? Well, not anymore.
Tony made sure he was still fast asleep and comfortable before he wiped gently at Peter’s tear stained, flushed face. Then he went and sat at his desk; his head fell into his hands as he let his own tears fall at last.
When Peter next woke up, Tony (mostly) had a plan, and had ordered Peter’s comfort food to be brought up. As Peter sipped at the lentil soup, Tony slowly, bit by bit, got the story out of him. All the missing pieces to the ones that Tony had been collecting in his mind, they all came together to produce a horrible picture. One with abuse, both physical and emotional. Of starving, isolated summers, cruel words thrown as easily as fists, especially when the path was made slicker with alcohol soaked veins.
“You are not going back there,” Tony said firmly. Peter looked up at him and Tony’s heart clenched painfully at the defeated look.
“What choice do I have? I have nowhere else to go,” Peter said, resigned. Tony tightened the arm he had wrapped around Peter’s shoulders.
“Yes you do. They are only your foster family. You can be removed from them and placed with someone else. Even if they had adopted you, you could still be removed from them.”
Peter’s expression didn’t change. “Who would take me in? There is no guarantee that they wouldn’t be just as bad, if not worse. And who would want to adopt me?” The self-deprecation and pain in Peter’s voice had the words flying out of his mouth before Tony had even thought about them.
“Me.”
But he had thought about them. Oh how he had dreamed about it. Peter, his son, officially.
Peter jerked and stared at him with wide eyes.
“I would. Adopt you that is. Only if- only if that’s something you would want. At all.” Tony felt awkward. He didn’t know how that declaration would be received. Sure, Peter spent a lot of time with him and seemed to like him, sure he had tripped up and called him ‘dad’ a few (27) times, and sure he had once whispered that he wished Tony was his dad when he was exhausted and half asleep that one time, but that didn’t mean Peter wanted to be adopted by him. He was just his teacher. Just as he opened his mouth to do some damage control, Peter’s eyes, which hadn’t moved off of him and were still as wide as dinner plates, welled up with tears.
“Peter-”
“Really?” Peter’s voice was shaking. “Do you mean that?”
“What? The adoption thing?” Tony eyed him warily. Peter nodded.
“Yeah,” Tony sighed. “Yeah, I do.”
“Why?” His voice cracked and so did Tony’s heart. Funny, he hadn’t thought it could break any further.
“Oh, Peter, there are so, so many reasons. You are so smart, but so humble, always ready to help everyone else. You can’t stand bullying of any kind and always step in, even when it sends you to the hospital wing, or to me. You want to be a curse breaker to help people and so there is less darkness in the world, to make the world a better place. You geek out about muggle media and new spells with Ned, and have a crush on the most intimidating Slytherin in the year, possibly the school. You have actually gotten her to like you back. You’re sweet and kind and so, so amazing. So good. Why– How could I not love you?”
Peter breathed in sharply and it was a second later that Tony realised the word he had let slip. But before he could freak out about it, Peter had jumped and thrown his arms around him. Tony felt his heart twist as Peter sobbed, until he took a deep breath and said, “I love you too. I love you.”
Tony’s arms tightened around him as his eyes stung. “Oh Peter.”
“Please,” Peter gasped, “Please, I don’t want to go back.”
“You are not going back,” Tony said fiercely. “Would you – would you like to come with me? Over the summer?”
“Yes,” Peter said empathically. “Please. There isn’t anyone else I’d rather be with.”
“So you wouldn’t mind? Me adopting you?”
“Mind?” Peter pulled back, “I can’t think of anything I would love more. Dad.”
“Okay.” Tony breathed, a smile spreading across his face, a matching one to Peter’s. That was number 28. Warmth filled him, spreading through him leaving pure joy in its wake. “Okay.” Somehow, if Peter was feeling even a fraction of what he was feeling right this moment, he thought that Peter would be able to produce a patronus in the very near future.
The next welcome feast they had, Peter Stark was sitting happily at the Hufflepuff table and laughing with Ned about something or other. He looked healthy and happy. As he should.
Tony figured everyone knew he had a favourite student now but he thought it was justified since he was his son, and he had been since even before the adoption.
After Peter had tired himself out again that fateful afternoon, Tony let him off classes for the rest of the day and he had napped some more before they both went to the Headmistress. It took barely anytime once they had told her for her to agree with them and call the Ministry. Within a month, they had a court date. Peter provided memories, swore under veritaserum that the memories were not falsified in anyway and were his, and answered a few questions, Tony supporting him throughout. It was more than enough. His foster father was arrested and given 3 years in Azkaban as well as a lifelong magical restraining order that will keep him well away from Peter. After that, it took forever and also no time at all for Tony to be able to adopt Peter, officially. He was officially his son. He still couldn’t get over that. He had lost count of the amount of times Peter had called him ‘dad’ now but it didn’t matter because he could hear it again whenever he wanted, though he still cherished every single one like the precious gift they were.
They both had made so many happy memories together over that year, in school as well as over the holidays, that Tony thought that if he produced a patronus with one a day, he would have enough to produce one every day for the rest of his life and still have more left over. Just the memory of his crow and Peter’s labrador playing together, and the smile on Peter’s face when he watched them, was enough.