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Tony stood back, put his hands on his hips, and tilted his head. “Hang on,” he said aloud, and then backed all the way away to the door of the living room. Again he tilted his head one way and then the other, trying to assesses the display from multiple angles. Yep, the tree was straight, yes, the lights were wrapped around symmetrically with exactly 5.6 inches between the loops, yes there was an equal number of red ornaments to gold ornaments to white, and yes, the top of the tree was exactly ten inches from the ceiling, leaving just enough room for the star.
“Hey, Pete, you ready to...?”
Tony's voice trailed off, as he glanced around the room and found himself alone.
“Pete?”
He could have sworn the kid was right there beside him, hanging his own little mess of ornaments, carefully mixed in with the fancy ones Tony had bought. The shoebox was right there on the floor, but Peter was gone.
Tony hesitated, opening his mouth to ask FRIDAY where the kid was, but shutting it as he walked back to the tree. He crouched to pick up the old Saucony box, feeling the tape around the corners, and re-reading the permanent marker scrawl across the lid: Family Ornaments.
He lifted the lid and found several ornaments still inside: some little picture frames with smiling faces, a tiny clay footprint, a decorated clothespin, a coloured glass ball (not quite perfectly round)... All about what he'd expect. Glancing back up at the tree, he met the gaze of a brown-haired woman and a black-haired man laughing out of a circle of candy canes, Santa hats crooked on their heads.
Tony swallowed hard, gripping the shoebox a little tighter as a feeling of deep inadequacy washed over him. “Shit,” he muttered. But shouldn't he have expected something like this, going by what the books had told him? “You know, I am so out of my depth here.” He pointed at the happy couple in their 2-inch photo, as if the dead could hear him. “And if I mess this up, if I get his first– our first Christmas wrong... Well, then you better haunt me like Scrooge, because I will deserve it.”
He stood for a minute longer, waiting for the fear to subside, thinking of Peter, thinking of where the kid would have been last year in that tiny apartment, decorating a little fake tree with May and Ben, cookies or something in the oven, and probably some kind of music playing– I forgot the music! he thought guiltily. Or would that have made things worse?
“I don't know why it's me,” he muttered, staring down blindly into the box of Parker family heirlooms. “It shouldn't be. I can build robots and create a new element, but I am not the right person for this.”
But you're all he has.
Tony jerked his head up sharply, glancing around the room, up at the ceiling. “Who said that? FRIDAY?”
“Yes, boss?”
“What did you just say to me?”
“I have not spoken to you since you asked me for a chocolate chip cookie recipe.”
“Oh.” Tony exhaled, shaking off the spooked feeling, and gave the little photo hanging on the tree a hard look. “Fine.” If you can build a suit out of metal scraps in a cave, you can find what you need for this, he told himself firmly. He set the box back on the floor, and turned away.
“Boss?” FRIDAY said quietly. “Peter is–”
“Hshh-sh-sh.” Tony flung up one finger warningly. “I can find my own son, thank you very much.” And he could. After six months of dealing with Peter's disappearances and moody spells, he knew where the kid would be.
Tony stopped outside the door, and knocked lightly, only for the wood to give under his knuckle with a soft creak. Still he hesitated. “Kid?” he called through the crack. “Kiddo?”
A loud pronounced sniff was the preliminary reply, and Tony's heart softened at once, the warmth that had begun to settle like a new kind of shrapnel in his chest now swelling to overwhelm the anxiety.
“Can I come in?” he tried.
Another sniff, and then a gulping sob that had Tony pushing open the door before he even heard Peter's choked out, “Yeah.”
The lights were off, and the shades drawn, and Tony tripped over the edge of the rug an ottoman, and a leg of Peter's desk chair on his way to the bed. He squinted down at the rumbled sheets and the dark lump in the middle of them, hearing more than seeing as Peter rolled over away from him.
“Hey, spiderling,” Tony whispered, eyes still adjusting as he sat gingerly on the edge of the mattress. Knowing the kid's super-senses were overwhelmed kept him tense and cautious. “You... wanna talk about it?” Ugh, he never felt like was saying the right thing. But it was the first of the five stock phrases he'd developed that had come to mind. “You know I'm here.”
Peter sniffled, and Tony reached out slow, curling his hand softly around Peter's hunched shoulder. He was trying, trying to offer comfort where an engine or a computer program wasn't enough, though God knew he wished it could be. Peter flinched away from the touch. But only for a moment—only to turn toward him.
“D-dad?” A sob stuttered through the word, that word, still so new, so uncertain, always a question mark somehow, and then Peter's hand came up through the shadows, clutching at Tony's sleeve as he tried to sit up from his tangled blankets.
“Ohh-kay, okay, kid,” Tony muttered around the lump in his throat, catching Peter's wrist, still so new in its strength and sinew.
There was a moment's sobbing struggle, and then Peter was in his arms, breath hot and fast against Tony's neck as he clung on.
Tony closed his eyes, fighting back his own tears, feeling the weight of Peter settle against his chest as he pulled the kid more into his lap.
“It's not- fair!” Peter gasped out. “It's just- not- fair!”
Tony had no answer. He just rested his cheek against Peter's soft curls, swamped by utter helplessness as he patted the kid's back, smoothing wrinkles out of his sweater.
“Why didn't I get th-these stupid powers sooner? Why c-couldn't I have saved them?”
“I don't know, Pete, I really don't know.” And he hated himself for that. He was Tony friggin Stark, he was supposed to be a genius and have half the world at his command. But he truly had no explanation for why any of Peter's life had turned out this way.
Peter's grip around his neck had tightened, and suddenly Tony couldn't breathe, couldn't breathe–
“Heh,” he squeaked out, tugging at Peter's elbow, and Peter released him at once.
“Aw, shit, shoot, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, Mr. Stark–”
Tony sucked in a big gulp of air, and reeled the kid back in.
“Easy, spider-baby, I'm fine, you're fine, it's okay.”
Peter fought him half-heartedly, before giving in and slumping back against Tony's chest, letting out a shuddering sigh. The tears seemed to have stopped. When he spoke his voice was muffled, like he wasn't sure he wanted to be heard. “I wanna go home.”
First came indignation, or maybe some kind of anger. Why was Tony not good enough for the kid? Even after he'd worked so hard, after he'd signed the papers and suffered through the interviews and narrowly escaped throwing a social work out on his ear... Still Tony wasn't getting it right? But then came something else, something tired and sad, and there was no heat in his voice when he said, “I wish you could too.”
Because he did wish that, didn't he? Wish Peter could be safe and warm and laughing at the dining table while he ate that stew his uncle was famous for and talked about school and Ned and the latest LEGO set and whatever he was adding to his computer from his last dumpster dive. Tony wished that too. Right?
But he didn't like to think about that picture without himself in it.
Peter peeled himself away from Tony, but slower this time, and Tony let him go. The kid sat back on the bed, shivering a little as he cossed his legs, twisting his fingers together. He looked older than fifteen in the dim light slipping in through the shades, but sounded so much younger. “I- I'm sorry, Mister– I mean, Dad. I- I'm sorry, I didn't mean to sound ungrateful. I just–”
Tony woke up to the fact that he had been silent for too long, and laid a hand on Peter's knee to catch him. “I know, kid, I know. It's fine.”
For a moment they were both quiet, not quite looking at each other. Peter wiped his sleeve across his nose.
“Gross,” Tony muttered. “Here.” He leaned to grab a kleenex from the box on the nightstand, and pressed it into Peter's hand.
“How is snot any grosser than the alien blood and stuff you get covered in?”
Tony smiled involuntarily at the croaky response, already a practiced exchange. “I'll have you know I've been covered in my own blood far more often than that of aliens.”
Peter wadded up the now-sopping kleenex and lobbed it in the general direction of the trash can by the desk, but he didn't seem to notice that he missed. He met Tony's eyes a little shy, but steadier. “I think I'd prefer the alien blood, honestly.”
“Aw, I didn't know you cared.” Tony chuckled softly, trying to cover how much the words, and those brown eyes, cut into his heart.
Peter swallowed hard, looked away. “I'm sorry if I made you think I didn't.”
Aw, shit. “That...” Tony brought one hand up to rub over his face, suddenly feeling like it was 3 in the morning, rather than the afternoon. “...was not what you were supposed to get out of that statement.”
Peter was twisting the cuffs of his sweater between his fingers, and took a breath as if to answer, only to break out coughing. Tony passed him the water bottle sitting on the nightstand, this one with a big Hunger Games mockingjay sticker on it, as well as smaller stickers of Katniss and Peeta. Gifts from Clint and Laura, he was pretty sure. They'd sent a bunch of things when Peter had first come to live with Tony.
“Drink.”
Peter did as he was told.
“Now, how about we go finish putting the star on the tree, and maybe go over those prep questions for your midterm? Unless you think the tree is done, of course.”
Peter slid off the bed, his knee knocking comfortably into Tony's, and stood, shoulder's rounded, but back straight. He cleared his throat once. “Nah, it still needs some work.”
“Lead the way,” Tony gestured. “I'll send Pepper a picture when we finish,” he added as they stepped out into the hall. “That'll show her that decorating really is just math.” He casually put his arm around Peter's shoulders, and Peter moved closer, shoulder bumping against Tony's ribs.
Tony smiled a little, and that smile grew as they stepped back into the living room where the Christmas tree glowed in multi-coloured lights, all bright and happy, even as the setting sun splashed orange light through the glass wall. Funny how even bad things could result in something that made him happy.
“Um, Dad?”
“Mhm?” He stepped away from Peter, crouching to pick up the shoebox of decorations from the floor, but paused, looking up at the kid. The use of “Dad” still tended to be pretty deliberate, and there was something in Peter's tone...
“Um, will you, uh, will you cometochurchwithmetomorrow?”
“What?”
“I mean, you know, I just thought, because it's Advent, like Christmas is only a week away,” Peter babbled on, “and I think you'd like it, I mean, I don't know, I know you didn't like it the other time, but if you just, maybe– I dunno.” He subsided abruptly, and turned away. “Sorry, it was a stupid idea,” he muttered. “Forget I mentioned it.”
Tony exhaled slowly as he stood, and then, not knowing what else to do, stared down into the box in his hands. He blinked once or twice, trying to focus on something other than the way a fierce No! had almost leaped from his lips.
There was another small ornament he'd missed seeing before; a little silver cut out scene of the Nativity and the manger. Like... like in the stained-glass window in the back of the cathedral where Mom had dragged him for midnight mass, nearly every year. And he remembered sharply how he'd been Peter's age when he came home sick from MIT, sick as a dog despite Rhodey's desperate attempts to care for him, and he'd almost certainly still been feverish on Christmas Eve, and Dad had told him to stay home, but just because he'd said that Tony had forced himself to get dressed, and come with his parents to huddle in the pew and listen to the music and his head had hurt and his chest had hurt, but he'd closed his eyes and listened to the choir singing and smelled the evergreen, and somehow he'd found it easier to breathe.
“Mister Stark?”
Tony looked up startled, blinking into Peter's confused face, then had to clear his throat once or twice as he passed the precious shoebox into Peter's waiting hands.
“Sure, kid.” He turned away, just enough to keep Peter's face in his periphery, pretending to consider the top of the tree. “I'll go tomorrow. It's our first Christmas so I guess that's only fair. I'll call the Leeds after supper. Let them know I'm driving you.”
Peter's astonished smile could have lit up Avengers tower, before it blurred, and Tony had to shake his head, sniff a little.
“Sure hope I'm not allergic to pine,” he muttered, heading for the fireplace, where the fire (thankfully) needed actual tending.
When he turned back around, Peter was once again hanging ornaments with care, seeming intent on his job, but Tony saw the little grin that kept breaking across the kid's face, and he knew quite suddenly that he'd gotten something very very right.
And after Peter had spidered up onto the ceiling to carefully place the golden star at the top of the tree, he came to stand quite close by Tony in the doorway, shoulder pressing against Tony's arm, until Tony sighed, and pulled him into a side hug. Peter said nothing, but he wrapped both arms around Tony's middle, strong and solid, and rested his head somewhere just over Tony's heart, over the scars that would never fade, even if the pain had.
I love my kid, came the thought, and Tony had to bite back an incredulous laugh. My kid. He'd never thought that before. My kid? He sighed again, and then put both his arms around Peter, resting his cheek against his son's hair. My kid.
The star gleamed softly, catching the last light of the sun as it slipped below the horizon, light left in the dark.
“Thanks, Dad,” Peter whispered.
“Sure thing, Pete,” was all Tony could answer.