Archive of Our Own

What I wouldn't give to be in church this Sunday

Listening to the choir so heartfelt, all singing

"God loves you, but not enough to save you"

So, baby girl, good luck taking care of yourself

We all know how it goes

The more it hurts, the less it shows

But I don't mind, 'cause that's how my daddy raised me

If they strike once, then you just hit 'em twice as hard

But I always knew that in the end, no one was coming to save me

It must be said that Tony Stark has always hated St. Paul.

The proselytizing apostle can get fucked. (And yes, he will be swearing, Mama, because a god that was the word and the word that was with god will understand the precision of language better than anyone, right? There are far worse things than a bad word between Heaven and Hell, dear Horatio, and all that jazz.) Jesus wasn't a homophobe until St. Paul entered the building. Christianity wasn’t that bad until St. Paul took the hatred he once had for Jews and spread it to everyone.

Tony always understood the other saints better. Thomas the doubter. Peter the coward. Judas the betrayer.

The road to Damascus is something that Tony understands all too well, though, it must be said.

A road at the end of the world. A glimpse at the heavens. A reconsideration of your own survival and the path that it took you to get there.

Finding the divine in a place you were not expecting to witness miracles.

The parched nature of a pair of lips that was starving, dying of thirst, stumbling out of a cave and into the sunlight, carrying ghosts on his shoulders. Being caught astray and adrift in the desert, so far from home, but finding one person that would give mercy to the merchant of death.

Changing his ways to become a better man. Not through god, not the god of his mother’s altar, but rather the grace that Tony found in Ho Yinsen and Pepper Potts and James Rhodes and Happy Hogan.

Tony still doesn't believe in god. But on the good days, the bad days, the ordinary days, he sees something in the eyes of other people that he just might be able to build a faith in.

Not in himself, of course. Not in the crunch of knuckles against the punching bag, in the burn of alcohol down the throat, communion turned addiction, but rather in the eyes of the people that he cares about—and, impossibly, care about him in return.

And more than that—it's also in the eyes of the people that he's wronged.

Tony sees the Sokovia Accords and he can never quite get the bite of penance out of his blood. Of confession, of reconciliation, wrapping sacred fingers around his spine and yanking out his tongue.

A rosary of Hail Marys cannot make up for what he's done.

But maybe, just maybe—something else can.

---

Then Tony meets Peter Parker.

Peter Parker, who deserves a better mentor than the man that Tony turned himself into over the years, the man who was willing to build weapons that killed so many, the man that was far more the god of Sodom and Gomorrah, pillars of salt and cities razed to the ground by his own lack of care, than he was anything approaching Newt Testament and mercy and forgiveness.

Peter Parker, who clearly worships on the altar of Tony's reputation, despite the fact that Tony deserves no such prayer, given he is far more lost than Peter could ever dream of being.

Tony Stark, patron saint of the lost cause. Scoot over, St. Jude—you've got some competition.

But Peter Parker isn't a lost cause. He's so much more than that. He is bright eyes and brighter smiles, sunlight carved into pearly whites, all of the hope in the world distilled into the halo of a kid who is trying his best no matter what the world chucks at him.

Tony has no idea how he could ever earn the way that Peter looks up to him. The way that Peter sees something good in him. 

How does Tony Stark live up to the Iron Man that Peter clearly idolizes? How does Tony Stark become the person that Peter deifies?

But then there’s a bad case, on a worse day.

(Tony will later learn that it is the anniversary of Peter’s uncle’s death. Tony knows a thing or two about Death Days, the sort of days where ghosts linger far too close to the surface and demand to be known, to have their voices heard, to hear their echoes named.)

They’re doing stuff in the lab, as usual, because Peter has his internship—a real thing, now, since everything that happened with Toomes and the building and Aunt May finding out the truth about Spiderman and Tony realizing that Peter doesn’t just like to build things, but that he’s good at it. That he has a gift for this sort of thing.

And Peter goes to use the restroom. That unto itself isn’t that notable—hell, with his metabolism, it’s rather expected. Tony doesn’t even notice that he’s gone for a minute, when the lack of Peter’s steady babble finally registers in his ears, and even then he barely shrugs when FRIDAY informs him that Peter is in the restroom.

But then Peter doesn’t return after five minutes, or ten, and sure, he gets distracted easily, he could have ended up wandering any number of places, but after twenty minutes, Tony has to go and check to make sure that something really bad hasn't happened.

But it turns out that Peter’s in the hallway right outside the lab door, dicking around on his phone, as if lab time isn’t important.

Tony arches an eyebrow. “What the hell are you up to, kid? I thought that lab time was important-”

And Tony had meant for it to be teasing. For it to be as joking as usual.

And the kid is normally pretty good at registering Tony’s jokes, or even if he doesn’t catch that it’s a joke, what with his incredibly earnest reads on the world, he is normally one to just apologize and get moving with Tony’s teases and jokes—

What Tony isn’t expecting is for Peter to whip around, eyes red-rimmed, mouth twisted, and for his elbow to shove up against Tony’s chest, pushing him up against the wall.

And for a moment, Tony is frozen. Back in Siberia, the ground cold beneath his broken suit of armor, his father’s elbow against his chest, Captain America’s shield breaking through the faith that Tony had held in the trust of friendship and family and everything that he’d tried to build after he’d flown into a wormhole and seen the end of the world.

It is last year and it is the 1980s and he is not as strong as an enhanced soldier and he will always be a disappointment, a prodigal son not worthy of his father’s legacy, a teammate not worth his title as a hero—

But Tony is brought back to his own body by the registering of a realization: that Peter, even in a moment of frustration, of anger, clearly knows himself better than Tony’s father ever did, even with his super strength, because he doesn't squish or press too hard. Tony, despite having multiple decades on Peter, despite being unenhanced, despite being incredibly fragile compared to Peter’s super strength, doesn’t even feel bruised. 

(And god, is Tony Stark good at reading his own body to figure out such a thing. Whether through self-destructive tendencies or the tendency of people he trusts to betray him, Tony knows a thing or two about bruises and broken bones and surveying his own body to see if everything is still intact.)

Peter didn’t do this in order to punish. To hurt. But merely to get himself some space.

But then Peter seems to register what he’s done, as his eyes go wide, as he gasps, this sharp intake of breath, as he lets go and backs up.

“Oh my god,” Peter rasps, and he is clearly close to losing his mind, his breath going staccato in his throat, his body threatening to fold in on itself.

Before Tony even has the opportunity to reassure Peter, to tell him that whatever he’s panicking about, it's not that bad, that Peter is not a problem, that Tony has dealt with far, far worse in his time than a teenager clearly going through some shit, that Tony knows a thing or two about being a troubled teen with too much brain for his head, Peter crumples to his knees, begging for mercy, babbling apologies.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Stark, please don’t take the suit away, I swear I can control my anger, it’s just—today is a really bad day, and my Aunt’s had to pull so many doubles and I think she might be working herself to the bone and school and work and Spidering is a lot and god, please, please don’t take the suit away again, I swear I can do better—"

The words are rushing from his lips like the River Jordan battering the banks, and Tony remembers the words I’m nothing without this suit, and his own callous response.

Peter’s eyes are pleading. Praying.

And god, but Tony doesn’t know this kid that well beyond the basics of earnest, smart, caring, all the sorts of things that kids with superpowers should be and yet he’s met so many that wield their powers like cudgels against those that they don’t like or have determined are ontologically WrongTM—Steve Rogers case in fucking point.

From the stories that Happy passed on to him, Peter Parker is someone that has grace even when he shouldn’t. Someone who forgives. Someone who tries his best to show mercy.

(Of course Tony was the person that made him snap, though, because that’s just the sort of guy that Tony is.)

Tony knows a thing or two about praying to fathers that don't deserve your devotion. Fathers who demand worship, and so you give it, because you have to, because you don't know how to pray to yourself, because you don't know how to give yourself the grace needed to leave.

He also knows a thing or two about the importance of grace.

There is not much that he can do to solve the issue of the Rogue Avengers. He can’t heal Rhodey’s leg.

But he can let the kid know that he isn’t taking his suit away.

He can be the sort of figure that doesn’t demand, but rather, tries to give.

A snatch of an old prayer sings itself through Tony’s veins. The Confiteor, supposed to be used by the penitent during mass, by every person who has ever sinned:

I confess to almighty God, and to you, my brothers and sisters, that I have sinned through my own fault, in my thoughts and in my words, in what I have done, and in what I have failed to do— 

There is more to the prayer than that, of course. More about the Virgin Mary and the saints and god and the rest. 

But the bit that always hit Tony, when he was a child with a kneeler digging into his knees in between pews in church, with the scars and bruises of his father’s fingers staining his skin, with a hope in his chest that was slowly being torn apart by the pressures that were put on him by Howard Stark and Obadiah Stane and the board alike—

There are so many sins that have buried themselves between his ribs, actions taken by a man who ended up having to suture together a heart of iron, an arc reactor that became a source of renewable energy and the proof, at the end of the day, that Tony Stark really did have a heart at the end of it all.

But it is not God that he needs to ask forgiveness from. Not the Holy Father that he needs to kneel in front of. Not Jesus that he needs to pray to.

No—the only people that Tony needs to beg forgiveness from are the people that he hurt.

And top of the list is the boy in front of him, who he has somehow led to the conclusion that he would ever take his suit away from him again.

When Peter took down the Vulture, when Karen reported to Tony what had happened to the state of Peter’s ribs trapped under that building, when the Rogues left and stayed away and Tony was left to sit in the ache of his failure of faith, he swore to himself that he would never take Peter’s suit away again. That Peter would never be without the protection that Tony stole from him in some desperate effort to not repeat his father’s mistakes, only to become the very man that he’d been trying so hard not to become.

So Tony kneels by Peter's side and cuts through his babbling by wrapping him in a hug.

It’s not something that Tony does very often, the whole hugging thing. He and Pepper are on a break right now, Rhodey’s recovering in PT and Tony is trying to figure out who the hell he is and what the hell he is supposed to be.

Tony knows more than anyone else that no one should hold him as a role model. That no one should look up to him as any sort of saint. 

But what he is determined to be is someone better than his father ever was. To help, to heal, to support, rather than to tear down in order to reshape in his own image.

Peter's breath immediately hitches in his throat. “What are you—" His voice stutters, an uncommon occurrence for someone whose voice normally more closely resembles a rushing river than the stuttering remnants of a drought-ravaged creek. “What are you doing, Mr. Stark?”

“Hugging you, kid,” Tony says, and he knows he's being a smartass, but it's worth it, if it means making the kid smile. “What else does it look like, genius?”

A flicker of a smile. A small upturn of the lips, one of Tony's greatest victories, because that means that the kid isn’t scared of him, because that means that in some still, small way, he isn’t his father.

“I just—" Peter says, and there are tears in his eyes, and Tony is not going to let go. He refuses to let go.

Tony knows that Peter is going to say some bullshit about how it’s his fault, about how he deserves to have the suit taken away, about how he doesn’t know how to accept this, about something something something related to guilt, and Tony is so fucking tired of letting guilt overwhelm good people. 

Tony’s world split in two a few months ago. Everything he built up has been destroyed, Stark Industries weapons turning out to be terrible mistakes that he is still working to reverse the terrible effects of, the Avengers—one of his attempts at building something that can heal instead of hurt—dashed in two when it turned out that the Avengers are dealing as much damage as they are reversing.

He is doing everything he possibly can to rebuild into something better, and he refuses to let Peter feel the same sense of failure that he does, because Peter Parker is as far from a failure as you can get. He is the best of what a superhero can be: someone who tries. Someone who does what they can to do the best for other people.

Someone that Tony can finally put his faith in.

“Listen, kid,” Tony says, “I don’t expect you to be perfect. And I’m sorry, for taking your suit away in the first place. You’re not nothing without the suit. You are much, much more than you’ve ever given yourself credit for. You’ve got the sort of heart that any hero could ask for. And I’m not good at the whole “apologies” thing anymore than I am the “hugging” thing—"

Peter lets out a wet, half-hysterical giggle. “You’re not doing half-bad, Mr. Stark—"

“Oi, you take that back, kid, I’ve got a reputation to uphold—"

Peter is smiling, now, and it isn’t that sun-bright smile, drying up all the rain. It’s more of the sun just beginning to poke above the clouds, a glimpse at something bright that can be.

And that’s all that Tony needs it to be. That’s all that Tony can ask for. Peter Parker, starting to allow himself to be happy.

They sit like that for a few minutes, in each other’s presence, Peter's breathing slowly returning to normal, the shaking of his shoulders subsiding beneath Tony's arm, and each proceeding moment is harder to handle but Tony will do it, for Peter. He will deal with the organ between his ribs that finds it easier to be alone rather than to be vulnerable, that only knows how to be in the presence of others when he has seven layers of charm dividing him from other people's hearts.

But then Peter’s stomach growls and Tony knows that the kids runs through carbs like nobody’s business, his enhanced metabolism churning faster than the speed of sound, and he’s not going to be the one that stops the kid from breaking bread.

So Tony stands and offers Peter a hand. "Let's go order you half a dozen pizzas, kid."

Peter tries to decline. Tries to sputter his way through protests, through pride, through "I'm fine, Mr. Stark, you don't need to gimme anything, I'm fine, trust me—"

But Tony knows Peter by now. Knows a thing or two about Peter and his sense of righteous pride, about his inability to accept charity, but this isn't charity, this isn't altruism, this is selfish, selfish care, because Tony cares about Peter. 

So Tony shakes his head. "C'mon, Underoos," Tony says, pulling out the big guns, wielding them against the kid that he knows hero worships him even when he doesn't deserve it.

Peter is still protesting even as he reaches up and takes Tony's offered hand, but Tony pulls him to the penthouse anyway, because Peter is trembling and skinny and has a metabolism that rivals a super soldier’s and Tony is determined to help.

They continue to talk as they eat, as they break bread, as they share communion, and something about this feels more holy than any mass ever has, this connection between people, between folks that care about each other, that understand each other, because Tony has spent his entire life trying to find people that get him and it can be so hard to find people who understand what it’s like to feel such guilt, people who understand what it’s like to have a brain that races faster than the speed of light, people who understand what it’s like to love harder than your reckless heart can withstand the force of.

Rhodey gets him a lot of the time. Pepper does plenty as well.

But neither of them get him like Peter does, especially not when Peter finally eats enough to feel full and warm and finally tells Tony what about today set him off so badly—and no, it wasn’t something at school, no, it wasn’t something at home, no, it wasn’t something on patrol, it was the day itself.

“My uncle Ben—" Peter swallows. “He died today. A year ago. Right after I’d gotten my superpowers. Because there was a mugger, and I froze, and he stepped in front of me to try and save me—and they shot him. They shot him, and I—" His face crumples. Collapses beneath the weight of his grief.

And Tony gets it. He really, really gets it. He understands Peter all too well, the grief that can send a boy over the edge, when your parents die, when the people you love die, and you're left carrying all the ghosts. 

And Tony knows that he can’t be Ben Parker. That he can’t give Peter that sort of thing. Peter has his Aunt May as a parent and that's good for him. That's what he needs.

But he can be something for Peter.

And so Tony swallows and he says, "My parents were murdered, too."

Peter's brow immediately furrows. "I thought it was a car crash, Mr. Stark—" he starts, and then immediately looks like he wants to eat his own shoe, like he's really stepped into it.

And maybe, a year ago, he might have really stepped in it. 

But a year ago, Tony's relationship with his parents death was a very different thing than it currently is. A scar he hated to look at it, but a scar nonetheless. 

Now, it is a wound, just ready to be doubted, just ready to be touched, just ready to bleed all over everything, because he's never told anyone the truth that he discovered in that cold cave, at the edge of everything.

And Tony has to share it.

Peter is the first person he’s told the truth since Siberia, because he needs Peter to know that he understands, needs Peter to know that the guilt is not his to bear.

Because St. Peter is patron saint of locksmiths. Of keys. Of opening up places that were never open before.

Because Peter is not Paul and Tony is not Paul and neither of them have to live up to the reputations of men that cared more for hatred than for forgiveness or grace.

“You didn’t deserve that, Mr. Stark,” Peter says at the end of it all, all fervent faith, all burning bushes and the fire of belief, and something in Tony that was frozen in a cave in Siberia finally begins to melt.

“Neither did you, kid,” Tony says, “You know that what happened wasn’t your fault, right?”

Peter’s expression withers, his gaze dropping down to the plate full of pizza in front of him, and Tony knows that Peter is having a hard time believing him. That no matter what Tony says tonight, Peter might end the evening still not believing him.

But that doesn't mean that Tony can't try. That he can't help but sit down the proof in front of him, so that Peter can see it plain.

Tony really isn’t good at the affection thing. He never had anyone to teach him how to do it other than in fits and starts, in half-aborted leaps of faith and the ashes that remained after that. People like the original Jarvis, and Rhodey, and even Pepper.

But he remembers, once, after he had gotten punished by his father, when he'd ended the evening with a bruise on his cheek, and his mother had looked the other way, had winced, hadn’t stopped Howard from staining skin with bruises like other kids got—

But then, afterward, she’d pulled Tony into her arms and hummed an Italian lullaby, had prayed over his curls, had cried into his hair, and it wasn't enough, but it was something. God, it was something.

And so Tony reaches out a hand and places it over Peter’s on the countertop. “Listen, we all fuck up sometimes," he says, but before he can continue, Peter interrupts.

Peter’s eyes go wide. “Language, Mr. Stark!”

Tony rolls his eyes. “I'm not Captain Spangles and I'll never be, because I know a thing or two about admitting that I'm wrong and learning. And the truth of the matter is that we all fuck up, but that doesn't mean that we deserve to be punished for it. That the world wants to see us ruined for it. That the people we love deserve to be hurt because of it, or that we deserve to be hurt because of it."

Peter swallows, hard, Adam's apple bobbing, and Tony doesn't know if he believes Tony. If he's going to accept what Tony wants to teach him.

But what Tony is definitely not expecting is for Peter to say, "I'm glad you're not him. That you're—that you're you."

Tony grins, easily tossing out a: "As if there's anyone else that I could ever be, kiddo," as if there isn't a star rapidly expanding in his chest, brighter than the sunlight through any stained glass halo.

---

Hours later, FRIDAY alerts them that May Parker is calling.

FRIDAY’s voice is quiet, only patched through Tony’s earpiece, because Peter is asleep.

Peter fell asleep partially through the movie, and Tony wanted to let the kid sleep, wanted to give him a chance to get some rest, so he hadn’t woken him up. Instead, he’d draped a blanket over Peter’s shoulders and continued to allow him to sleep, because he needs to finally just collapse. To rest. To get the sort of break that his life—between school and the internship and the suit—hasn’t allowed him much of lately.

“Patch her through,” Tony says, and there is something light in his chest as he says it, because Peter is asleep, because there is something in Peter that trusts that Tony won’t hurt him and that means a lot, considering what kind of damage happened to Tony when he himself was unconscious on a couch in this very room. 

(Tony had the couch burned after Obadiah died. What? He can afford a new couch. He can enjoy the destruction of things that only carry ghosts and replace them with something that doesn’t remind him of Obadiah reaching into his chest and stealing away his very life. Of what happens when you misplace your trust in people and your heart is stolen and the Avengers split and you get a fucking burner phone in place of your heart and your best friend’s legs and the trust that you really, really thought was something that you could rely on.)

Peter trusts him, though, and that is something different, Tony wants to believe. Trust not just based in his own faith, but in Peter’s as well.

“Peter was supposed to be home half an hour ago,” May says before Tony even has a chance to say hello, “But I haven’t seen any Spider-Man sightings on the Instant-gram or Twitter or the like, so I’m gonna assume he broke curfew to stay with you.”

“He’s here,” Tony says, “He was tired after school. Had a long day."

He can hear the long breath that May Parker lets out on the other end of the phone, and he realizes, like an idiot rather than the genius playboy philanthropist that he is, that Ben Parker died. Uncle Ben, as in—May's husband.

Some inane part of Tony thinks—I need to have FRIDAY send her flowers. And whatever else you do when it's the anniversary of someone's husband's death and you've semi-kidnapped their only remaining family member.

“Listen,” Tony says, “I can wake him up. Send him home, if you want. But he told me about what today is, and I think you’d agree with me that he deserves to rest.”

May breathes in sharply on the other end. “He told you?”

Tony has a feeling that Peter doesn’t speak to many people about his Uncle’s death. Tony gets it—he doesn’t speak to anyone about Howard or Maria Stark very often. Normally only when he got drunk and weepy before, and since he’s been clinging to sobriety with the vestiges of willpower and his bloodied fingernails these last few months since the Avengers went Rogue and the team parted like the Red Sea before crashing together, the waves drowning everything that Tony had ever built, there hasn't been much speaking of them at all. 

“The kid’s an angel,” Tony says, “He’s not a bother." And he knows he's leaping out on a limb to make such an offer, but he can't help himself but say: "I swear—you can trust me to let him sleep. Happy will take him back to your place in the morning. It’s a Saturday, right?” Tony suspects that it won’t exactly endear him to May to admit that he got little to no sleep last night and isn’t entirely sure on which day of the week it is. “No school tomorrow.”

“I’m not—" May swallows, this audible noise. Peter twitches on the couch, the blanket that Tony draped around his shoulders shifting slightly. Enhanced hearing, Tony thinks, and nearly curses. “I’m not used to trusting him to anyone but Ned’s moms.”

Someday, Tony supposes that he’s going to need to meet this Ed character, if he’s Peter’s best friend and his ‘guy in the chair.’

Tony swallows. “Listen,” he says, “I know that my reputation’s kinda in the gutter, and for decent reason, sure, I’ll admit it, but you can trust me with him. I know I haven’t always been the most responsible guy in the world, but—” Tony swallows. He knows that he shouldn’t be digging himself a hole, that he should be saying something to improve her faith in him, but he can’t do it that easily. He can’t lie to May Parker, not about Peter, not about the boy who just cried in his hallway, not about the boy that has wormed his way into Tony’s heart over the past year. “I wouldn’t do anything to harm him, I swear.”

It’s not enough, Tony thinks. It would never be enough. People trust Iron Man to save their lives, but no one trusts Tony Stark to take care of the things that matter. The people that matter. Pepper is a better CEO, exactly what people want from the Head of Stark Industries, and she didn’t believe in him when it came to being in a relationship. There’s a million and one reasons why they’re on a break right now, and why said break might continue for longer than any other.

There is no reason for May to trust Tony. No reason for her to give him a chance when it comes to taking care of her nephew.

And yet—

“Do you know how much that boy cares about you? How much of a pedestal he puts you on? You’re his biggest hero.” May lets out a small, watery laugh. “Do you remember that Stark Expo that you put on?”

“I’ve put on a lot of them over the years, you’re gonna have to be specific—"

“There was one where there was a kid in an Iron Man mask and blasters and all the like. And he tried to defend you when drones or some shit like that burst through the walls.”

Tony’s breath catches in his chest. Yes, he remembers that. How could he forget? It seems his destiny, to attract stubborn, heroic kids that are far more a Star of Bethlehem, guiding him forward, than his own father ever could have been. Harley Keener, Peter Parker, that kid at the expo— 

Who it seems might not have been some strange kid after all, but was rather a baby spider before he ever got bit and decided to swing.

What made Peter a hero never had anything to do with the spider venom warping his DNA, but something far more intrinsic. Something far more tied to the tissue that runs through a boy’s heart, straight up into the aorta. Something that Tony looks up to himself.

“That was Peter?” Tony asks.

He can almost hear May’s nod through the phone. “And it wasn’t just because you’re Iron Man. It’s because you’re Tony Stark, and long before he was a hero, Peter looked up to you. To Tony Stark. He’s always wanted to be as brilliant as you, and I always told him that he was smarter than you, that he could show you up any day of the week—"

And you were right, Tony doesn’t get the chance to say, to agree with the fact that no matter how brilliant he is, Peter Parker will always shine brighter, because May is steamrolling forward, pressing herself towards her point. 

“That boy of mine—god, he’s reckless. I really wasn’t even that shocked when I found out about the whole spiderman thing, because he’s been too heroic for his own good for so long, because as smart as he is, he doesn’t have a single self-preserving bone in his body. And I know you saved him once, but—"

“He’s saved me too,” Tony says, and he means it in so many senses of the word. Not just his life, like Peter did in Germany, but in more than that.

Tony has really fucked up his relationship with Peter. Fucked up as a mentor. Dragged him into a fight that he wasn’t ready for. Took his suit when he needed it. 

But he wants to try to get better. To be better. To be the sort of hero that Peter can look up to. The sort of person that he can rely on.

If Peter is making prayers, Tony has no idea if he can ever earn that sort of faith, but he can at least try to be better. Can try to earn at least a little bit of that trust. To be not the Star of Bethlehem, but the North Star. As steady as Polaris in the distance, enough for someone to harbor their ship beneath the guiding light.

“Listen, I know that there are so many reasons for you not to trust me, but I promise I’m gonna do right by that boy.” But that’s not quite it, Tony doesn’t think. Not what May deserves to hear. What she needs to hear.

Because the entire world has seen Tony Stark at his most confident, right before he crashes and burns in an alcoholic, self-destructive binge. What they haven’t seen is him vulnerable. Him making an effort, not because arrogance is easier to wear than his suits, but because he cares. He sincerely, truly cares about Peter Parker and his well-being and his future.

“Or, at least,” Tony says, and swallows. “I’m gonna do my best. I can try to earn being someone that he looks up to. And I hope that can be enough for you.”

Tony can hear May’s smile. “Good. I’ll be watching you, Stark.”

Tony feels May’s trust settle on his shoulders, and while other people’s expectations so often feel heavier than a neutron star, her trust feels—it feels like wind. Like something that provides lift, not weight, thrust, not drag.

Tony can propel this broken ship home, he thinks, and it’s something that he hasn’t thought in such a very long time, since he stumbled out of a cave in Afghanistan, a faulty arc reactor in his chest.

“He can stay at your house tonight. You’re right, that he deserves some rest. That boy—he’s my life, y’know? I never really thought much about having kids, but he wormed his way into my heart so long ago that I no longer know what I’d be like without him. He’s half of my heart, Tony. Take care of him.”

It’s just for one night, some snarky, flippant part of Tony’s chest wants to say, because that’s what’s natural to say, natural to be, all sarcasm and nothing sacred.

But he doesn’t mouth off to May, because she matters, because this matters, because Tony has to give more than this. He has to be more than this.

Patron saint of the lost cause. Patron saint of the locksmiths. Patron saint of builders, architects, masons, doubters—

St. Jude. St. Peter. St. Thomas. 

(St. Yinsen, patron saint of the hopeless.)

Tony just needs one prayer to work. One faith to set himself under. 

And believing in Peter Parker doesn’t seem that terrible a faith to believe in.

“I’ll take care of him,” Tony promises, “You have my word.” And he knows that it isn’t worth much right now, but he’s doing his best to make it so.

“Good. Because I know where you live, Mister, and I don’t care what sort of robots you’ve got protecting it, you’ve got nothing on an Aunt when her kid is on the line.”

Tony smiles, and it’s this still, small thing that feels not quite natural on his lips, not the smirk that he normally wears, but still—there is something that almost feels like home curving his mouth. “Trust me, I believe you on that one. You don’t need to convince me.”

“Good,” May says, and sniffs. “Now, it’s been a long shift, and I know that Tony Stark is used to binging the night away with all-nighters, but some of us have shifts in the morning so we need to get some sleep—”

Tony supposes that it should hurt, that May thinks of him like that, but he can’t blame her. Not that much. Not considering his history that has been splattered across the covers of tabloids, staining like blood, for so long.

What does it mean, that May trusted him before she knew: “I’m sober, actually. Have been for a few years, now. Since Ultron and all that fucking mess.”

Tony knows she’s shocked. That anyone would be, given his reputation.

And yet, before she knew that, she believed in him. In the sincerity in his voice. In the fact that even with his history, he could still take care of her child.

It’s the sort of faith that no one ever would have put him before. The sort of belief that Tony wants to earn.

May swallows, this audible sound. “Well, then,” she says, and her pleasant surprise is somehow easy to bear, because it’s followed up by: “I think I can trust you to watch him for one night, Tony. Just—don't be afraid to get some sleep yourself, okay?"

It's the sort of grace that so few have ever given Tony, and it's from someone who has no reason to give it to him, considering the fact that he helped hide Spiderman from her, considering the fact that he's been putting her boy in danger.

And yet—she gives it, anyway, because she believes in him. Because they both care about the same boy.

"Gotcha, ma'am," Tony says, and he doesn't even add on the Aunt Hottie, no matter how tempted he is to end on a joke, a nickname to distance himself, because this is something that matters, and he has to accept sitting in that vulnerability, no matter how much it itches.

After they both say goodbye, May ends up hanging up and Tony turns to Peter. To the boy that has somehow ended up tucked beneath his broken wings. To the boy who believes in him.

God, Tony’s used to responsibility, but usually everyone involved is expecting him to fuck it up.

To have this?

Tony isn’t used to having this level of trust sitting on his shoulders. To having someone put this level of faith in him.

Tony wants nothing more than to toss back a shot. Anything to burn away the guilt and grief souring his throat. To calm his fraying nerves.

But he doesn’t do that. No matter what his fingers are twitching for, there is no alcohol in the penthouse, and like hell he’s going to ask FRIDAY to get him some when Peter Parker is asleep here on the couch, finally relaxed after this draining day.

So Tony takes a deep breath, drops his phone on the side table, knowing that one of his robot kids is gonna come around and plug it in, and then lays down in the recliner and pulls a blanket over his shoulders.

His eyelids are already drooping, but he doesn’t care. He’ll stay here for Peter. He’ll sleep here tonight instead of in his big, empty bed that feels far too vast without Pepper. 

Tony can watch. He can witness. He can be for Peter what Rhodey was for him—a small light in the dark, a reminder that anywhere you look, you can find the stars.

Peter is as lost as Tony is, just as much searching to be found.

And Tony, well—

Maybe he can help with that. Maybe he can be just a little bit of that light.

Tony doesn’t believe in god. He doesn’t believe in angels. He doesn’t believe in demons.

He believes in people. In the sort of prayers that you can seal into adamantium and palladium, into vibranium and alloys made of ache and faith.

He believes in the sort of man-made miracles that can sustain a person. In the idea that a legacy doesn’t have to be one of weapons and destruction, but rather of creation.

And maybe, now, he can start to believe in one more person beyond just Rhodey and Pepper and Happy.

Maybe, he can finally honor the promise he made his own saint, all of those years ago in a cave.

Yinsen, Tony thinks, you would have loved the kid. I know it. I just hope that I can make you as proud taking care of him as you did me.

Tell me how the tables turned

How I've grown from lessons learned

Oh, I'll keep my faith in you

Even on my darkest days

I know that you will never change

Oh, I will keep you safe for all my life

And you will have my heart for all of time

Even on your darkest days

You know that I will never change

—WILD, All My Life