Work Text:
They would not listen, they're not listening still
Perhaps they never will
- Starry Starry Night, Lianne La Havas / Vincent, Don McLean
It’s been so awful.
It’s bad day after bad day.
It’s hiding in the bathroom during break. It’s the other kids stealing your personal objects in the dorm. It’s being shoved around with the adults not caring at all. It’s being unable to sleep, or even actually cry, through all the snoring at night. It’s knowing you’re here in the first place to “toughen up”. To be a Stark.
Stark men are made of iron.
Iron can’t hurt.
Tony, however, silently releases tears as he hugs his favorite book, about a knight that fights for the little people. He took it from the library on his first day, and hasn’t returned since. Not that the school really cares.
The book is the only thing he can hold onto as he’s reminded he’ll be going home this weekend.
Home…
Is it really?
The nights there aren’t any better. They’re either empty and dead silent, or they’re loud and they smell like alcohol even from afar. He has to be quiet either way.
Tony sniffs, the sound high like there’s a little mouse in the dorm full of loudly snoring boys.
He wants to run away.
(Fly away, even, the same way he plays and “wooshes” with his loyal Iron Man.)
He may be good at meetings, but that doesn’t make them any less of a headache.
The entire time, Tony only craves a cup of black, bitter coffee, so the moment he steps back in the kitchen, he grabs one for himself and feels a wave of relief.
Tony grunts at the headache still, since the meeting was painfully longer than it should’ve been, so he’s really not looking forward to any more surprises.
He’s on the way to his room, to change into something more comfortable…
Except one room is pitch-black.
And not silent.
Before he can prepare his repulsor (as well as the scold he’ll give F.R.I.D.A.Y for not warning him of another presence before he arrived), Tony realizes it’s Peter’s bedroom that is dark. Which must mean…
Despite the oddity of the situation, Tony still knocks on the half closed door softly.
“... Peter?” He whispers.
The reply is just a quiet sob.
It feels like a stab right to Tony’s heart.
Thanks to the hall, he finds someone hidden in the covers like a cocoon. If you don’t investigate it further, it might look like a bunch of pillows stocked to pretend it’s a person.
“Peter?” Tony approaches, slowly, until he turns on the soft lamp next to the kid’s bed. Peter is not facing him, if anything he only shrinks like he’s going to be hit or get yelled at, and Tony wants to cry. “What are you doing here?” The older man asks without sounding demanding. “Did something happen at school?”
The boy remains hidden from Tony, afraid. The latter’s heart aches, but he tries not to focus too much on his own fears. Instead, he needs to help Peter feel safe.
“Pete, you can talk to me,” he reassures the teen. “Did something happen? Are you hurt?” He means it in every sense, mental, physical…
The arachnid sniffs louder.
“... It’s just the same old shit, Mr. Stark.”
Tony expects him to say more, but the kid doesn’t. The former sighs.
“Peter, I just want to help you. You… You don’t have to be scared of me.”
There’s a pause, when…
“I-I don’t want you to be disappointed in me again,” Peter sobs.
Tony is almost sure he can also hear, I don’t want you to give up on me again.
“Kid–”
“I-I know it’s school, okay? I know how much you care about it, and I ran away because I-I’m stupid a-and–”
“Peter,” Tony interrupts firmly, but not angrily, “you come first. Not school, not Spider-Man, you’re always my first priority. And you’re not skipping school because you’re stupid, it’s because you’re hurt. I want to help you with your pain, because you’re my kid, okay? You’re my kid and nothing is ever going to change that.”
The teenager appears to relax, even if slightly. That’s a good sign, or so Tony hopes.
“And there’s a reason you came all the way here, right?” The latter wonders.
Tony’s suspicions are proven true.
“It’s… safe,” Peter sniffs.
“Yeah?”
“Y-Yeah.”
“Then you can feel safe with me too, buddy.”
Peter quiets down now, but not in the hiding way. Tony is patient with him, while hoping the kid isn’t hiding injuries like he’s done before. He’s thankful at least that Peter decided to come here instead of remaining alone in the apartment (since May would only return late at night due to her shift). And even if he’s scared of letting Tony down, he trusts the man enough to be here.
Tony wants to be that person to him, whenever it feels like the world is against Peter.
Slowly, the fifteen-year-old turns around, exposing his messy brown curls and his reddened face. Alright, no purple eyes or any other visible facial injuries. With the blanket not hiding his entire body, Tony can tell there hasn’t been a bad fight. If not for…
“Oh, kid…” Tony’s calloused hands hesitate before touching Peter’s red and blue one. No, it’s not the Spider-Man suit. His skin is red and blue, mixing into an ugly dark purple.
“Don’t worry,” Peter dismisses, cleaning his face with his free arm. “It doesn’t hurt or anything. I didn’t fight anyone, either.”
Tony ignores the statements. “What happened?”
Another sniff. “Bad day.”
When Tony looks up, Peter seems empty.
“I-I dunno, there are days I just… wake up feeling like shit. Everything feels hazy, even when it’s sunny outside,” the boy describes. “I just went on with my day like a zombie. I did everything like usual, but it felt like I was dead inside.” He pauses. “Everyone and everything was too much, but obviously, as the cherry on top, Flash decided to be a huge ass to me again.”
Tony doesn’t usually see this bitter, angry side of Peter. He wonders if the kid even shows it to anyone, because from the looks of it… it sounds so repressed.
“Flash… that kid who picks on you?” Tony asks. Just hearing that asshole’s name makes him feel angry, too. Tony never did anything mainly to respect Peter’s boundaries, but he always made sure to keep an eye on the bully.
“Yeah.” Peter looks down with hatred. Hatred is a feeling Tony never imagined he’d see in his kid’s eyes. “Like, I can handle Flash and his dumb friends, I’ve got years of experience,” he dismisses yet again, and Tony almost wants to gently scold him, but he knows there are a lot more worms in the can. “It was about to end lunch break and I was getting my things for next class, when they decided to throw food at me. As usual. I really wasn’t in the mood, but I got by, y’know. I didn’t care. But then that wasn’t enough.”
Peter’s right fist, the red and blue one, tightens so furiously that Tony fears his nails are going to make it bleed. He tries to hold it steady.
“Flash went all the way to me, because he knew I was feeling bad, and he wanted me to feel worse. So, he was worse, too. He…” Peter inhales deeply, trying to contain his rage. “He insulted Uncle Ben.”
The tears in his eyes are burning even from Tony’s point of view. Peter’s hand is shaking, so he squeezes it with more certainty.
“Of all the things Flash could’ve chosen… he really went there. My parents weren’t enough for him. No, he called Uncle Ben a nobody , an idiot who didn’t know any better when he took me in. Whose only smart choice was when he died so he didn’t need to take care of me anymore.”
Now Tony is the one who boils inside, his eyes seeing red. He wants to summon the Iron Man and chase that fucking punk all over New York City. Well, he’s already wanted to do that, but this? This was too far. This was the cruelest thing Tony has ever heard in his entire life – and believe him, he has heard plenty of things. This one takes the cake definitively.
“I had every reason to punch him right on the face, and I wanted to,” Peter argues. “But… I ended up punching my locker instead, with all the strength I had, with everything inside me. It was so loud that it silenced the entire hallway. No one whispered, no one gossiped… not even Mr. Harrington dared to say or do anything. Flash, obviously, just stared at me with that- that stupid face of his.”
Peter frowns at his hand, like it’s his fault. Now that Tony knows it’s from the locker, he’s pretty sure Peter would’ve broken his fingers if he weren’t enhanced. Though Tony should still check on it later to make sure nothing healed wrong, if it healed at all, for the skin to look like that.
“So… I left,” Peter concludes. “No one stopped me. Ned and MJ weren’t even at school today to see anything. I didn’t want to call Happy, because I knew you guys were busy and I thought you would get mad, so I used the money I was saving to take a cab. B-But it’s fine, it’s okay.”
He’s barely looking at Tony, instead he just looks down in shame.
“Well, at least I didn’t fight anyone,” Peter shrugs. “But I destroyed my locker and that’s probably not going to make Aunt May happy.”
Tony shakes his head. “Kid, that doesn’t matter.”
“Of course it does! I mess everything up, and who pays for it? You and May!”
“You were bullied and depressed, Peter. That’s not your fault.”
Tony wraps an arm around the boy, without trapping him.
“Well, they’re not going to think that,” Peter says bitterly. “They’re going to make me look like the bad guy because I punched my locker. I’m going to be stuck in detention forever, or maybe even get suspended, and I’m going to have to pay for that fucking locker because I couldn’t keep it to myself-!”
“You have been keeping it to yourself, and it’s not healthy!” Tony ends up raising his voice, but not meant to be angry at Peter.
The moment Peter flinches, Tony regrets it and sighs, trying to filter out his own headache from the meeting today.
“Sorry,” he mumbles. He takes a while to think of the right words. “Pete, you’re hurt. Flash hurt you, they hurt you. I know how it feels when nobody believes you. But I believe you, kiddo, and I’m going to do anything to help you not get detention or suspension. I know for sure that May will help and understand where you come from, because she loves you more than anything. We love you.” Tony squeezes him slightly. “We love you, okay?”
Finally, that has the boy look at him back, his eyes glowing with unshed tears. An old pain that has been haunting him for ages.
Tony, on the other hand, keeps smiling for him.
“And Pete?” He rubs the boy’s injured hand with his thumb. Peter’s lips are already trembling. “I hope you remember that Uncle Ben loved you, too. He loved you very much, and he would be so, so proud of you.”
These words break the kid entirely.
In the good way.
Peter cries like there’s no tomorrow, sobbing loudly after holding it back for so very long. Tony just holds him the entire time.
Tony hates imagining the many, many nights Peter must have cried alone, thinking that he’s a failure, that he isn’t loved.
And that has the older man release his own quiet tears, that belong to that boy that wanted to be made of iron so badly, because the world wanted him to be. That little boy Tony hasn’t spoken to in so long.
Tony and Peter get to know now that they can be vulnerable around each other. That it’s okay to be vulnerable, to not be made of iron.
(And finally, little Tony Stark knows he’s not alone.)