Chapter Text
Prologue:
Visiting kids at the hospital wasn’t something Tony expected to find himself doing in his lifetime, but apparently Pepper and the rest of the world thought he was a role model to smart kids all over the world and that it would be great if he showed up briefly, made kids’ lives that much better and then left after handing everyone there some kind of donation. Just to make people happy.
It was good PR, Pepper had explained.
The truth was, most people wanted heroes and Tony Stark was no hero. In fact, when he showed up to the hospital, the parents gave him slightly disapproving gazes, like they were ready to jump forward and prevent him from scarring their children for life.
He had to agree with them—he didn’t want kids to end up like him, as much as he liked his life. Because whether or not he had everything he could possibly ask for, he’s seen how destructive his life could be, so maybe kids shouldn’t look up to him with wide, adoring eyes and listen to his advice on life.
So instead of talking about his personal life, Tony spoke to the kids about science, trying to make it as simple and easy as possible for the young kids that seemed to not understand a quarter or everything he had to explain. Really, he felt stupid trying to talk to them all about stuff they didn’t know at all, but he was willing to at least try. It wasn’t really for him or for the kids—mostly for Pepper who insisted on this being a good idea.
The nurses in the floor he was on gathered a bunch of kids to sit around Tony in what looked like a small room with colorful walls, tables and chairs. There were paintings all around and many other art pieces created by children that couldn’t really do much better than scribble hopefully. All of those kids had cancer, he knew. Some will survive. Others won’t.
The nurses had told Tony to try and avoid the subject as long as the kids didn’t bring it up, so he tried to just treat them like he would any other child he could tolerate—it was hard, but he could put more than five percent of his dedication into it, so that’d have to do.
He was nearing the end of his little Q&A when he noticed a nurse approaching a kid—maybe six-years-old—that was leaning against an IV pole in the back, seemingly trying to hide. The moment the nurse stopped next to him, though, the kid’s shoulders slumped and he started going away with her.
Tony’s eyes followed the two until they turned around a corner and then focused back on the other kids, wrapping up his meet-and-greet with them so that he could finally get back to his home and tinker some more with his new invention, to perfect it—the Jericho missile.
Waving at the kids and putting his sunglasses back over his eyes, Tony walked back over to the nurses to bid goodbye like Pepper informed him he should do. He stopped in his tracks, though, when he heard voices coming from around the corner. Looking over his shoulder, he checked to make sure there was nobody else around, and then focused on the conversation going on out of his sight.
“We’ve talked about this.”
“I know,” said a young voice. “I’m sorry, Ms. Bray.”
“I think you prefer saying sorry than just listening to me in the first place,” said a woman—probably Ms. Bray.
“No. I was just curious, you know? I’m sorry.”
Tony peeked over the corner to see the back of a woman—a nurse, by the looks of it—and the boy that was taken by her during Tony’s chat with the kids. The boy’s face was visibly disappointed but he didn’t try and escape the woman to get back.
The woman sighed. “I know you are, Peter, but you’ve gotta be careful. You know the doctor told you to stay in bed for the rest of the day at the very least,” she said, somewhat chastising him. The boy’s shoulders dropped and the nurse put a hand on them before she knelt down to be at his level. “Honey, I know you want to see your dad, but… I just don’t think it’s a good idea for you to get your hopes up about this one.”
Tony frowned at that last sentence. Peter’s dad? Who was that? He just showed up to Tony’s small-time lecture.
The boy shuffled his feet a little. “But he’s so smart! And I’m never gonna get to see him again. People don’t just stumble upon Tony Stark in the hospital unless he purposefully comes to them. Which he never does. This is my one chance!”
Leaning away, Tony was certain there was a strange expression on his face because the kid just claimed he was his dad and Tony was pretty damn sure he didn’t have any kids, okay? He would have known had there been a small child that looked… like… Well, maybe he wouldn’t know, because admittedly the kid did look a lot like Tony, but that didn’t mean he was Tony’s, all right? He was just… some random kid.
“Peter…” drawled out Ms. Bray, sounding exasperated, like this chat took a lot out of her; or like she was used to it by now. “When your mom told you about it, she was probably just—”
“She wasn’t making things up!” protested Peter quickly, not even letting the woman finish her sentence. Tony listened to the conversation still, even though he wasn’t so sure he wanted to know anything more at this point. “She wasn’t, she wasn’t, she wasn’t!” He even stomped his little foot on the ground to punctuate his point.
It was honestly adorable, in a snotty-kiddy kind of way that Tony didn’t like.
The woman’s posture sagged even more. “Pete, maybe she just wanted to prevent you from asking too many questions. Have you thought of that?” she said tentatively.
The boy frowned and looked away from her, his arms crossing over his chest; the IV pole still by his side, dripping slowly.
“I loved your mom, Peter,” continued Ms. Bray, “Mary Fitzpatrick will always be one of my best friends, but this is just… she never mentioned Tony Stark before. She never told anyone who your dad was. She just got pregnant and then had you and… I know you want your dad to be here, but I don’t think you going to look for someone you don’t even know is a good idea. Just go back to bed. Please.”
The kid stayed in his place for a moment and then he groaned and muttered under his breath as he walked away, pulling his IV pole after him reluctantly. The nurse exhaled and leaned against a wall, her hand coming up to her head like it was bugging her. Tony just stared at her and then at the distancing kid until he turned around another corner and went out of sight.
This whole thing was crazy and undeniably ridiculous to think about, but as much as Tony wanted to just push it all aside and focus on other things… well, the name Mary Fitzpatrick did ring a bell. The kid looked so much like Tony did as a child, it was almost unnerving to look at.
He was still hoping it was all a mistake—whatever the nurse had to say, that was probably all there was to the story. But Tony could still check, right? What’s the harm in that?
The harm was that the results of everything he tried led to Peter Parker—according to Jarvis’s search—being his son. He was currently eight and was diagnosed three years ago with something called Damnilopcia. Tony has never heard of it before and he didn’t care much about what it meant exactly. All he knew was that the kid had it, it was lethal, and no one has ever survived past the age of nineteen after being diagnosed… and there was no real, effective treatment yet.
Basically, he found out that he had a kid out there that Mary Fitzpatrick—later Parker—hid from him, and that same kid that was so desperate to meet Tony… well, he was dying, and there was no way of saving him so far.
And wasn’t that a depressing thing to figure out, huh?
The thing was… despite knowing the kid’s life wasn’t going to last very long, Tony couldn’t bring himself to go over to that hospital and visit him. He didn’t know the kid. That kid didn’t really know Tony. They could be different enough to make them argue more than bond over whatever they could find. Maybe Peter would take one good look at Tony and decide he was better off without him? Maybe he would bring a bad side out of Tony—something that might resemble Howard too much?
But he couldn’t just leave the kid be without doing anything because another look at the kid’s file revealed that he was all alone. His mother and her husband were gone, died in a plane crash, and there was no other relative alive that could take the boy in.
For now, the money used to pay for the kid’s treatment came from the savings Mary and her husband had, but they weren’t rich and this couldn’t go on for too long before the kid had nothing else. Plus, there was the matter of custody. Right now, the kid was a part of the system, not having a family, but living in a group home.
Well, living in a group home was a bit of a stretch. The kid was basically living in the hospital room. Occasionally he would be let out back to the group home, but his situation always meant he had to get back for more treatment to make his life a little easier. To make him last longer. And, obviously, there wasn’t much the system could give the kid once his own money ran out. So Tony, being a billionaire with enough money to spare, paid for everything the kid needed, staying anonymous through it all.
Pepper was curious as to why Tony was giving so much money to this one kid, questioning his choices over and over again while also delivering the money like she was told to do, but Tony didn’t share the truth with her. He didn’t know what she’d think about Tony having a child. He didn’t know what she’d think about his choice to stay out of the kid’s life.
He just didn’t want to face this truth. He didn’t want to share it with anyone else. Even Rhodey didn’t know, and they’ve been best friends since MIT, all those years back.
So, with the decision to only provide for the kid he never asked for from afar, Tony turned his focus back to the Jericho missile. This was going to blow the military’s mind!
Apparently, it also blew Tony’s mind. Or, well, something like that.
One moment Tony was on his way back home in the ‘fun vee’ with those soldiers, back from his demonstration of the Jericho missile, and then next thing he knew, he found himself in a cave, trapped with a man named Yinsen and forced to recreate the Jericho missile for the terrorists that held the two of them against their will for weeks on top of weeks.
Seeing his own weapons being held by the kind of people Tony would have never given them to sent a jolt through the man. How could it be that something like that happened behind his back? How did they get so much of his merchandize? How was it possible that he knew nothing about it and now had to suffer the consequences?
For the first time in his life, Tony really couldn’t sleep at night, thinking about how much of his work ended up in the hands of the Ten Rings. How much he’s done that actually backfired on his country; on the people he’s been trying to protect.
He missed Pepper. He missed Rhodey. He missed Jarvis. He missed being able to wake up whenever in his room, surrounded by wide windows instead of dark cave walls that kept him locked up. He missed being able to joke around about things lightly, making them seem like they weren’t as important when now all he could do was hope those men wouldn’t realize what he was up to until it was too late for them to stop him.
“Got a family?” Tony asked Yinsen when they sat down to play shesh-besh, taking a small break from working their asses off to pretend to create a missile that Tony would never build for these kind of people.
Yinsen smiled, looking down at the board as he moved his pieces around. “Yes. And I will see them when I leave here,” said Yinsen and then looked up at Tony with wide, interested eyes, even though Tony was fairly sure the man already knew what to expect from Tony. “And you, Stark?”
Appraising the man sitting across from him for a moment, Tony thought back to that little boy in the hospital that was caught sneaking away from his room to see Tony against the doctor’s orders. The little boy that was told Tony was a bad influence. The little boy that didn’t seem to care and just wanted to see his father and instead only got money from Tony, though he probably didn’t even know who the money was from.
If Tony died in this cave, Pepper probably won’t continue to fund Peter’s treatment, not knowing the truth about the boy. Which meant that Tony just had to get out and return to the kid’s life, because he had to make sure the boy survived for as long as possible.
But nobody knew about that. Not the public, not his friends. Tony kept this secret close to the vest and now Yinsen was looking at him, expecting to hear the predictable ‘no’ in response to his question, but how could Tony lie to the man he was stuck with? This man has been stuck here for a long time, and he still saved Tony’s life the best he could while being stuck inside a dusty cave. Tony owed this man his life even if it would likely end very shortly.
Still.
“Nah,” said Tony with a slight shrug, trying to play it off like it wasn’t a problem that he was alone.
And he knew he could be less alone. He had Peter. He had a son out there. Sure, the kid was dying, but he was still alive. Or maybe not. God, Tony didn’t even think about the fact that the kid could have died while he’s been stuck in this shithole. What if Tony got out only to find out Peter’s disease got the better of him? What if the kid was already gone?
No, he couldn’t think like that.
Yinsen nodded once. “No?” he repeated and then hummed and looked back down at the board. “So you’re a man who has everything”—he looked back at Tony, smiling a little. Tony returned the gaze—“and nothing.”
He had Peter.
Tony lifted one corner of his mouth but didn’t say anything.
Yinsen might die here with Tony—especially if the plan didn’t work—but there was just too much unknown about Peter for Tony to share the kid with this man. He trusted Yinsen, and he was going to try and save him the best he could, but Peter was something else. Despite never actually stepping up to be the kid’s father in the last few weeks before Tony got kidnapped, Tony still felt this need to protect the child. This impulse in him that urged Tony to make sure the kid was all right even if Tony wasn’t.
This urge to be the kid’s dad despite not asking for any of this in the first place.