Chapter Text
I people-watch on the way back home
Envious of the glimmer of hope
Gives me a break from feeling alone
Gives me a moment out of the ego
I used to feel so invincible
I used to feel there was a world worth dreamin' of
-Sam Fender, People Watching
Listen, Tony Stark knows what people think of him, which is to say: they stopped thinking much of him at all the moment that he stepped down from being the head of Stark Industries and retreated to be a recluse who only heads Stark Industries R&D.
After all, why would they?
When they do speak of him at all, it’s about tabloid photos and stories that haven’t had much truth to them for nearly a decade. They all talk about the narcissistic Tony Stark, the lush, the slut, the fact that he was driving the company into the ground until Pepper took over, the fact that he has been wasting his life away ever since, the fact that Pepper is the person who makes sure that the Avengers have their weapons and their armor and their funding.
(Sure, some people might know that Tony does the armor and the weapons for the Avengers—especially Iron Man—but they don’t know who the silent avenger is behind the gold-and-red helmet. And they never will.)
It’s impossible to erase the reputation of one Tony Stark from the entirety of New York City’s collective memory, impossible to buff out all of those scars that he left in the city’s fenders and bronze statues, but he is less known nowadays. All it really takes is a pair of sunglasses and a baseball cap to allow him to slip between people—or, hell, just not wearing a full designer suit, but rather a leather jacket over an undershirt made out of a fabric synthetically designed to stop the glow from beneath.
Listen, everyone knows about the arc reactor, but they don’t know the story of why it was developed in the first place, and they never will, because no one knows that Tony Stark is Iron Man and no one ever will.
Thus, no one looks up as Tony enters this hole-in-the-wall local coffeeshop that he’s never been in before.
Tony doesn’t get out much these days. To be honest, he was only outside of the Tower today because FRIDAY wouldn’t stop bugging him with statistics and studies about the importance of Vitamin D and social interaction and wouldn’t stop blaring random noises in his ears and interrupting his AC/DC with bubblegum pop music until he told her he would leave and take a walk.
(Damn his stupid, sentimental self for giving his AI personalities. He should have made them yes-men and that’s it.
…Yes, that would have bored him to tears and he knows it. Well, them’s the brakes, he guesses.)
The barista behind the counter looks bored, and she’s the only employee here. There’s only one customer, tucked away in a table in the corner.
Perfect. Quiet. Anonymity. Nothing more.
Tony almost lets in a sigh of relief as he takes in the place. The barista clearly doesn’t want to interact with anyone and he can understand that feeling quite a lot these days, ever since Obadiah Stane ripped the arc reactor out of Tony’s chest and he started pushing away everyone in his life because clearly it was safer to be alone than it was to let anyone in. The decorations are nothing exciting, mostly hipster-chic seafoam green paint and ‘50s tiled floors and some 60’s and 70’s rock and hippie-chic vintage posters and photos up on the walls.
But the customer?
For some reason, that catches Tony’s attention.
The customer’s a kid. A teenager, looks like, though a bit on the young side, with a hoodie and a jean jacket on his shoulders, one under the other, a bright red hood poking out from under the denim collar, and his clothes look a bit threadbare, a bit ripped, but one glance at the book in his hands, next to his very beat up smart phone, a book titled A Course in Complex Analysis, Riemann Surfaces, and Laurent Series Expansion.
And Tony is…intrigued.
And that’s more than he’s felt about anyone or anything in a long, long time.
Even superheroing has become far more an exhausting, bruising, aching chore of duty rather than something he cares about.
Everyone in the Avengers hates the real Tony Stark, and maybe they have cause to. Maybe when they see him at obligatory galas held for the Avengers to make their smiles and charm stockholders of the company that funds them, they can smell the alcohol bitter-hot on his breath. Maybe when they see him stumbling out of press conferences, just as aching, just as hammered, because it’s the only way he can stand being in other people’s presence nowadays, much preferable to the cool, dark, solitude of his penthouse where the only people who enter are his beloved AI.
Maybe they’ve only seen videos of him, sixteen-years-old and black-out drunk, stumbling through MIT parties that he might have been a bit too young for, but hey—he was Tony Stark, and when a twenty-one-year-old junior kissed him, when he lost his virginity and barely remembered it the next day beyond flashes of pleasure and the way that he heard the woman bragging with her friends about bagging the Stark boy, when Tony Stark was bigger than life and thus bigger than any sort of trauma that might have clung to him like a second skin, he was fine. He was MIT’s shining star, and other people loved him (or at least he thought that they did- he learned far, far too late that there was only really one person at MIT who cared about him, and he wasted Rhodey’s friendship too much over the years since then. It’s no wonder that Rhodey hasn’t contacted him since. It’s a good thing that Rhodey hasn’t reached out to Tony since- or that Tony has reached out to him- because Rhodey likely has a far better life nowadays that he’s not picking up after a reckless teenager with too little concern as to what fires his footprints sparked in the oil on the water).
There is a lump in Tony Stark’s throat when he sees this kid—clearly in his young teens, not a day over fifteen—studying something that would not have been out of place in a young Tony Stark’s hands—reading the sort of book that he once would have loved to get his hands on years ago, before he learned the hard way that science was only ever meant to be funneled into the interests of billionaire megalomaniacs or superhero egomanics.
It’s been so long since Tony read research with that level of enthusiasm, paging through the book, jotting down notes in a banged-up laptop. It’s been all holograms and top-of-the-line processors nowadays, the sort of thing that is shine and innovation and his father’s shadow cast darkest in the brightest of stars.
But the kid is sipping his way through a coffee—pure black—that has gone long cold, Tony can tell, as he charges his beat-up laptop and his phone and reads his book, and Tony’s not going to attempt to be a human being and socialize without providing to make up for his own presence, so Tony goes and orders himself a coffee featuring extra expresso (ignoring the barista’s wide, almost judgemental eyes) as well as a hot chocolate—Tony might have been pounding back coffees in order to make it through his first year of college, but some part of him is capable of being something of an adult, no matter what people think about him, no matter what people expect of him, fuck all of those expectations—and plops it down in front of the kid.
The kid’s head jerks up and his eyes go wide.
There is something about him that looks positively rumpled. Shocked to see Tony. Maybe even confused, or repulsed.
Tony immediately regrets his recklessness. He should have known better than that. Giving a kid a drink as an opening salvo to a question about what the kid’s opinions on Riemann are never would have been a good idea, and he should have known that.
Everyone who looks at Tony Stark only sees the mistakes, sees the reputation for bad decisions and how he nearly ran Stark Industries into the ground and nothing more than that. And while stakeholders speak with him at galas due to expectations and money and the like, there’s no reason why a random teenager off of the street is going to want to talk to the disgraced son of the illustrious Howard Stark, still a shining beacon enshrined in New York history.
And so Tony knows that the best course of action is to leave the kid to his studies and go back to his sad, lonely penthouse—
But then the kid opens his mouth and says, “Oh my god, you’re Tony Stark,” nothing but giddiness in his voice, and Tony gets it, he thinks, Tony Stark is someone that people like to get money off of, Tony Stark is someone that people like to schmooze before turning around and heading back around to their real partners or loyalties, leaving him high and adrift with only the memory of intimacy or connection.
“Yeah, I am, kid,” Tony says, and even he’s surprised to hear that his voice has no edge to it. If anything, it’s amused. Not the proper sort of manners that were drilled into him at a young age, the sort of thing that you’d expect out of the man who oozes confidence as a mask and never shows anything beneath the surface, but rather something almost genuine. It’s enough to catch him off-guard, if he wasn’t quick at thinking on his feet. (A skill that he developed and crystallized hardcore in a desert in Afghanistan, when it was either be flexible or die trying.) “And you are?”
“Peter Parker, sir,” the kid says, and for some reason, his cheeks are flushed, almost as if he’s…excited to meet Tony, and only a lifetime of media training stops Tony’s jaw from dropping clear off of his face and straight down to dig itself six feet under the tile flooring in here.
Because when was the last time that someone seemed genuinely excited to see him?
It’s one thing when a kid comes up to the Avengers after a fight. When they ask for the signatures of all of the Avengers and Iron Man passes off a scribble that could never be identified as any one specific name as his signature.
(And Tony isn’t even sure if people realize that there is a man inside of the Iron Man suit or if they just think that Iron Man really is a robot or an android or something of the like. Hell, there are even bets being placed on websites about whether Iron Man is secretly Iron Woman- and that, at least, is good.)
“And lemme tell you,” Peter says, and it’s like a river rushing over a waterfall, the sheer rush of words that come out of his mouth at mach-speed as he says, “You’re kind of my idol.”
And for one bizarre moment Tony thinks the kid’s somehow talking about The Other Guy, even though Tony Stark has never emerged from the armor anywhere but in the privacy of his own lab, nursing his bruises and his wounds in a place where the only people who know the truth are his robots and his AI, both of which are built up with so many firewalls and biometric barriers that it would literally take Tony’s dead body to get through them. There’s no way that some kid in the middle of Queens could ever push through all of those passwords and barriers, even if he is more clever than most—
And it seems as if Peter Parker, this random teenager in threadbare clothes, is far more clever than most. Not because he knows that Tony is Iron Man, nothing of the sort, but between the book and what he says next, he might be one of the most brilliant kids that Tony has ever met.
“Your work with renewable energy and the harnessing of fusion type power in the palladium core of the arc reactor, sir? That is amazing, Mr. Stark.”
It seems as if it is Tony Stark’s fate for this afternoon to be gobsmacked for the first time in a long, long time, because it seems that Peter is excited about Tony’s accomplishments and not the Other Guy’s.
Because yeah, sure, no one in the world knows that the arc reactor is inside of Tony’s chest, just that it’s in Iron Man suit’s reactor, but they know that he developed the technology. That he is the brains behind the armor, because he’s as much a war profiteer as his father, because he’s nothing more than a calloused, haunted man whose heart needs a machine to keep it from dying.
(Tony can only imagine what the world would think if they saw the arc reactor within his chest. If they’d realize that it’s proof that he doesn’t have a heart at all, that he is nothing more than cold metal keeping shrapnel from shredding apart the aorta that would keep everyone else going.
The tabloids would have a fucking field day with that one, so he’s never given them the ammunition.)
But as Peter’s talking, voice giddy, it’s hard not to be carried forward on the ripples of Peter’s relentless enthusiasm.
Once upon a time, Tony Stark loved math. He loved physics and engineering and the way that it felt to adapt theory into praxis, getting his fingers calloused by the mechanical tinkering as much as he exercised his brain with the theoretical calculus of the thing.
But for so long, all of that has been slowly eroded away from him, weathered away by the demands of work and the betrayal of the people he trusted and the expectations and pressures of the board. Tony has become so tired of the subject he once loved for so long.
But when Peter speaks, voice rushing over the conversation like a babbling brook, asking questions about conduction and renewable energy and fusion and possible conductive issues, Tony actually finds himself sitting down at the table across from the kid and responding, bouncing the kid’s questions back like a ping-pong match.
Tony doesn’t pull off his sunglasses, not this time, but he finds himself pulled into Peter Parker’s orbit.
He can’t reveal proprietary technology, but Peter seems far more interested in the theory than the praxis of the arc reactor, and when he does move to praxis, it’s to mention that that sort of renewable energy could so easily be used to deal with the rolling blackouts that New York City can get during hurricane (and nowadays, supervillain) seasons, that Queens could really use some stability and an arc reactor on an increased scale would be great.
And it's so easy to get lost in a way that Tony never would have dreamed was possible just a few hours ago. To let himself just be pulled along by the riptide of conversation barreling them into the depths.
---
By the time that Peter leaves at the end of the afternoon, almost looking reluctant to do so, Tony realizes that they’ve been talking for longer than he’d been expecting.
And isn't that a strange but welcome realization to have.
Someone enjoyed talking with him, and he enjoyed talking to that someone.
When the hell was that the last time that that happened?
---
Tony goes home to his dark, empty penthouse, where no one else has lived for so long, where he doesn’t have to handle social interaction.
And he’s exhausted.
It’s one thing, to speak to shareholders or speak at press conferences.
No one there expects anything of him. Being on autopilot, every suave word leaking out of him like he perfected back in the ‘90s and 2000s, is the sort of thing that he’s meant to do, and if he fails, if he stumbles, well—
They expect him to fuck things up. They expect him to get drunk and hook up with someone and embarrass the company and retreat into his carelessness, Great-Gatsby-style.
And even if he hasn’t hooked up with anyone in ages—not since Pepper, and even she was the only one since the arc reactor went in (and even she didn’t know that he was Iron Man, just that he’d adapted the same technology that kept him alive to power the superhero’s suit)—he has gotten drunk enough times for people to believe that it’s true. That Tony Stark is nothing more than the playboy billionaire who wasted his genius on warfare and weapons and wooing the ladies.
(God, the tabloids don’t even realize that he’s bisexual. What a rip. They could have made such a creative cocktail of bullshit out of that juicy piece of information.)
But Peter Parker?
Today, in that coffeeshop, he believed in Tony. In the fact that Tony Stark is a genius with something to say. Something to invent. That Tony’s brain actually matters for something other than to just be pickled in bourbon and donated for the sake of science when he inevitably dies of liver failure.
He is a shadow of his former self, isolated, alcohol-burnt, bruised from battle, scarred from solitude, but the other alternative is actually handling the sour taste in his mouth that comes from hanging with superheroes that could so easily pry out his arc reactor with their super strength—
So Tony digs out an old scarf knitted for him long ago and slings it around his neck and pulls out the bourbon—the good shit—and goes to take a sip before bed, to soothe himself to sleep, and he does take one sip, but—
It feels…bitter in a way that it didn’t before.
And he finds himself unable to take another.
---
Tony emails Pepper when he wakes up for the first time in ages. For the past half decade, their only real exchanges have been her emailing him stuff to sign off on or brief encounters in the middle of board meetings. Since they broke up and he handed the role of CEO off to her, copper wiring has gleamed far more in his eyes than the flash of her copper hair.
She’s doing a good job of things, he thinks, better than he ever could, but he also thinks about Peter’s suggestions about renewable energy and helping those who don’t have the sort of powers that Tony does, and some part of him that once ached to become better thinks I could be doing more than this.
Tony might be rusting on the concept of superheroes, on the idea that some super strong guy in a spandex suit could save the world (to the point where nowadays the only thing actually keeping him holding on is what he saw through that wormhole all of those years ago, that glimpse at something that no government could handle on its own), but the idea of maybe using his technology to help people on the more local level?
After what happened in Sokovia, after what has happened in Lagos and so many other places, Tony can’t help but think that maybe Peter Parker has a point.
Tony Stark isn’t a good man, but maybe his technology can be used for better things.
So he emails Pepper the suggestion regarding maybe carving out a section of R&D for renewable energy and generator development.
He doesn’t check his email over and over again waiting for a result, just like he doesn’t check his text messages to see if Rhodey has sent anything, just like he doesn’t care if he’ll ever see Peter again.
---
Tony is exhausted from fighting inside of the Iron Man suit.
Iron Man is the Avengers’ silent hero. Effectively, due to not having a voice from inside of the suit, more of a sidekick than anything else.
Tony Stark is not someone who is silent. He is not someone who takes orders. He is someone who gabs, and seduces, and embarrasses himself—
But the Avengers need Iron Man, and Tony Stark isn’t willing to put trust into them. He isn’t willing to see how they’ll react to finding out that Iron Man was never a good guy, was never a superhero beyond the armor and the actions, that the man that they have spent so long disparaging as selfish and stuck-up is the man on the inside of the armor, that they will dismiss Iron Man just because he's Tony.
So he doesn’t talk in the middle of battles. He doesn't reveal even a single word, even through a voice modulator.
But this time around—
God, this time he was tempted. So very, very tempted.
Because this was the first time that Spider-man swung into the festivities.
Spider-man’s energy on the field is infectious in the sort of way that threatens to undo Tony Stark.
Sure, he’s not as clever as Tony or Peter, that sharp spark of genius replaced instead by pop-culture references more geek than true nerd, but he does babble when they fight, referencing the sorts of films that made Tony fall head over heels in love with science and technology as a kid, the sorts of films that gleamed with their grit, the industrial feel of Blade Runner, the retro-future space western feel of Star Wars, the sand, the mechanics, the things that made Tony fall in love with robots and the internal engines of spaceships and what it feels like to be a robot to everyone else but to have a beating heart beneath the rusting armor.
(When he was dying of palladium poisoning last year, he had to figure out how to synthesize an entirely new element on his own.
He had no one in his corner. No one to hold his hand.
And there were moments when he almost thought—
Why am I doing this? Why am I working myself to the bone to save a ghost?
Who would miss me if I left? Would Rhodey even notice? He hasn't been stateside in a year and a half, he doesn't know about Iron Man, what is there to even care about?
It is a bitter revelation to have: I have no one left in my life who would care.
Eventually, rationality had kicked in—the world does need Iron Man, and maybe some of the potential renewable energy projects he’s been working on—but the bitter taste had lingered in his throat. The knowledge that there is no one here that truly cares about him.
Sure, his will states that his things will be split between Rhodey and charities, with his shares of Stark Industries split between Pepper, Happy, and charities again, but—
Who cares about Tony Stark specifically?)
By the end of the fight, Tony’s body felt as battered as if the Hulk had decided to run him over.
Nowadays, the Iron Man armor feels more a prison than an avenue of escape. Like more of a mask than a way to show some sort of good in him that might have once existed.
Tony swears that there was once a time when it didn’t feel like it was squeezing him whole. Like it wasn’t devouring up every part of him that ripped itself out of that cave in Afghanistan and swore to actually try to be good.
But nowadays, the armor silences him. Keeps his mistrust tucked in tight.
The only time that he has at all felt even remotely like he was allowed to speak without a filter, without a gag, was in that coffeeshop with Peter Parker.
So yeah, when the battle ended, he’d headed for the coffeeshop.
It’s later in the evening, this time. Like nine o’clock, right before closing (Tony had found this shop back in the day because of its later hours, but even the most dedicated local coffeeshops have to give their two employees some time to get some rest, right? Not everyone can pull all-nighters to the extent that Tony can).
So Tony’s a bit shocked to see Peter there again, this late at night.
Peter is bundled up in just as many layers as last time, shirt under hoodie under denim jacket, backpack clutched tight to his side, but this time, it almost feels like Tony’s seeing a bit of himself reflecting back at him, because Peter also looks tired, eyes a bit red-rimmed with exhaustion, and there’s something in Tony that crunches, just a little bit, in sympathy. He knows a thing or two about being young and pulling all-nighters, about ignoring curfews, about rebelling in the small and large ways alike.
So Tony does the same as last time, a hot chocolate for Peter—the kid doesn’t need a coffee again, not this late at night—but Peter’s brow furrows when Tony sets it in front of him.
So Tony jumps to the chase: “Listen, kid, I don’t care how much you crave the caffeine, I can be at least a little bit responsible and not hand the teenager the smoking gun.”
(Maybe Tony should watch his language around the kid. Eh, the kid’s not his responsibility. Nothing is, anymore, save weapons and armor and the very things that he once promised himself he would stop doing when he got back from a cave in Afghanistan that nearly swallowed him whole.)
And of course the kid's protest is as smart as it was last time: “I’m pretty sure I have ADHD so it wouldn’t even have the same biochemical effects,” Peter says as he takes the hot chocolate, and that’s something that is almost undeniable. The speed at which Peter ran his way through topics last time, jumping from point A to point B to point G quicker than most could ever get to point A in the first place, speaks to either ADHD or some sort of enhancement.
(And honestly, Tony would not be shocked if it was both.)
Tony arches an eyebrow. “Then why were you drinking it last time?”
Peter shrugs. “It’s one of the cheapest items on the menu.” His lips turn upward at the corner, this small, devastating smile as he admits: “And it’s warm.”
And it’s warm.
Tony isn’t wearing a designer suit this time, but he knows that his clothes aren’t exactly cheap.
And he doesn’t know what this kid’s home situation is, but it clearly can't be the best in the world, if that's the sort of thing he prioritizes, cheapness and warmth, that sad little smile on the corner of his lips as he does so.
But Tony doesn't ask why. He doesn't ask what's going on at home.
He wants the kid to have, god—
This coffeeshop is a place where Tony can go to get away from everything. So why can't he give the same grace to Peter?
But they're interrupted as a news report about today's battle comes on over the tv station over Peter's head. While Spider-man is covered as a vigilante, the Avengers get glowing reviews, and god, Tony can't stand it.
"Those Avengers are so overrated," Tony says without thinking about it, as he does so often, rolling his eyes as he does so, and he really should have thought about saying such a thing in front of the teenager who has only ever lived in a world saved by heroes.
Peter flinches, jaw dropping open like Tony’s just insulted his parents. “They’re heroes, Mr. Stark,” Peter protests, the sort of hope and naivety in his voice that Tony knows that he never carried himself.
Tony shrugs. “They’ve all got egoes the size of skyscrapers—and trust me, that’s coming from me. They all think that because they’ve got all the power in the room, that lets them do whatever they want.”
Tony has seen the way that they talk about him when they think he’s not there. The way that they sneer his name. The way that they judge him, as if they get to judge him, as if anyone gets to judge him, except—
Yeah, he knows, they’re right, in many ways, because Tony isn’t a good guy, never has been, no matter how much Peter is impressed by him, but also...
Listen. Tony Stark’s human. There’s some amount of muscle and organ tissue behind the armor. Between the chinks in the shield, he’s got a beating heart, aorta and ventricles and veins and arteries, and there is some part of him that does want to be loved. That wants to be—
No one will ever love Tony Stark, he’s sure. That’s not going to happen. His father taught him the hard way that when a kid grows up Isaac-obedient beneath Abraham’s weighting sacrificial knife, you don’t believe in god. You don’t need to, when the only god you’ve ever known is the father whose shadow you kneel before.
But maybe—trust? Or, at least—not someone judging him from the outside before they get to know him?
Someone, anyone, that sees him beneath the reputation and the gleam of the alcohol bottle and the videos of him getting hammered in college and just—
Tony doesn’t want to be Iron Man for a reason.
But is there anywhere that can see Tony?
---
By the end of the evening, when Tony gets up and goes to leave, when Peter goes to disappear out of the cafe and back to wherever he lives, Tony comes to the realization that he’s okay with being Mr. Stark.
The way that Peter says it makes Tony feel less like the product of the slaughterhouse floor and almost like there is a version of his life where he isn’t defined by being the reputation and the ache and the shrapnel aftermath of Howard Stark and Obadiah Stane. Sure, Peter might be keeping him at arm’s length, but he respects Tony in a way that Tony doesn’t know if anyone else ever has.
When Tony leaves, Peter leaps to his feet to say goodbye, to shake his hand—and it’s clear that the kid has never had an etiquette class a day in his life, he doesn’t know how to grasp someone’s hand at the proper angle, but the enthusiasm is rather endearing—but as he moves, there’s something stiff in the movements.
Peter's free hand twitches, as if to go to his side, and Tony knows a thing or two about what it looks like when you’ve over-exerted yourself.
Now, Tony has no idea if the kid is stick-thin or has secret muscles from a secret gym life. The kid wears so many layers, after all.
---
Tony is soaking in his jacuzzi-bath, musing over the bottle of bourbon sitting on the giant tile sidebar to the bath.
His ribs are bruised from the battle. He is soaking them to see if the heat might leech away a bit of the pain.
But honestly, what’s dragging him down is a lot less to do with physical pain as it is to do with having to deal with what comes with being an Avenger.
Steve Rogers was once again today being a dick set in his ways about the possible Accords showing up.
Tony doesn’t have a horse in this fight, not when no one even knows that he’s a possible combatant. To the irony of anyone who might think that they know him, he gave up a voice in this argument a long, long time ago.
(To sacrifice a choice for safety. For privacy. For the right to decide who gets to see the truth at the center of him. No one ever would have predicted such a thing about Tony Stark, and yet, here he is.)
He knows he’s not a fan of enhanced people requiring themselves to be registered and their identities turned over. He knows better than anyone that people should have to choose to risk their lives like this.
But once they do—
Tony knows what people with enhanced power can do. The damage they can cause. The way that being a superhero, an Avenger, can lend credence to any god complex you might have about yourself.
Tony Stark hates being surrounded by gods. By people who think themselves to be gods. By people who think that because they have powers, and capes, and Save The Day, that makes them better than anyone else.
Tony is perfect fucking proof that being a hero doesn’t make you better than other people. He knows that he’s not better—he’s not even close to being as good as other people. He was corrupted a long time ago, and he can’t make up for the shit that he’s done, even if he does his best to utilize his tech for the right reasons.
The thing that caught Tony today, though, was Steve Rogers mentioning on the battlefield—one in Russia instead of New York, and thus, no Spider-man here to hear his comments—that he didn’t know if Spider-man could be trusted because no one really knew his intentions, because no one knew his true identity.
(Iron Man, as always silent within this armor, that fucking casket that still reminded him of flying out of the coffin that was that cave in Afghanistan, leaving behind Ho Yinsen as a ghost instead of a friend that he’d really believed he could have, had not said a word. But the dig, intentional or not, had stuck within and festered.)
Thor had chimed in with an agreement, as he’d never understood the need for secret identities when he has never been anything other than the Son of Odin, and even the new recruit—Steve Rogers' friend Sam Wilson, aka Falcon—had agreed.
Tony doesn’t think that anyone has invited Spider-man to officially join the Avengers. To be honest, he’s kind of glad that it hasn’t happened. That Queens just gets to have its friendly neighborhood superhero.
For all that Tony doesn’t trust superheroes—himself included—Spider-man seems like the rare person that seems to be trying to do good, still rescuing cats from trees and escorting old ladies across the street and all that. Sure, J. Jonah Jameson thinks he’s nothing more than a vigilante, but Tony knows a thing or two about defamation.
It’s been a long time since Tony believed in heroes.
But maybe, just maybe, this time, with Spider-man—he could.
And when he goes to take a sip of bourbon—
Tony finds himself staring at the bottom of the bottle of amber liquid. Into all of that ache.
Bourbon’s supposed to burn away all the ache, especially the good shit that he has around the place.
But when he thinks about Spider-man, when he thinks about Peter—
There is something in Tony that isn’t strong enough to take the sip, even though he knows that he wants to burn away all of that thoughts that drag, all of that grip of gravity dragging him down, even though he knows that he needs it to not dwell.
Tony wants to sleep. And yet—he sets the bourbon down and stares at the ceiling.
---
Tony ends up falling asleep in the bathtub and he very much regrets it in the morning—his joints are not what they were in college- but he doesn't touch a fucking drop, and that has to be worth something, right?
---
Tony is aching, today, from that ill-advised sleep in the bathtub. He's too old for this shit in the same way that he was once too young for it.
He doesn’t want to be Iron Man. He doesn’t want to be a hero.
But thankfully, there aren’t any international emergencies today. Not even local ones.
Normally, he’d be begging for a distraction, but now—
Now, he can head down to the coffeeshop. It’s been a few more visits since that one where they talked about superheroes, and they’ve discussed faster-than-light-travel and solar energy and arc reactors and the second law of thermodynamics, and it's almost become routine, at this point.
And on a day like today, when he's aching, when he doesn't know what to do with himself, what better thing to do than go to the coffeeshop? Than to see Peter?
This time, Tony is there waiting, an old scarf around his neck—striped red and blue by a college roommate with a penchant for knitting and breaking Tony's heart, but that's neither here nor there—with a hot chocolate and a pastry for Peter, because the kid’s looking skinny, always is, when the kid arrives.
The kid barely blinks, though, scarfing down the hot chocolate and the pastry, and the kid seems to have heard something trickling down the pipeline about how Stark Industries is working on generators and possible distribution throughout the city as a “test case” for charity work—all Pepper’s side of things, all that logistical stuff that Tony always sucked at—because he’s gushing about the work, even throwing a couple of suggestions of his own into the mix as to the possible solutions for power-scaling the size of things to help them fit better in generators and the like, and Tony can’t help but say, because he has no tact, not with Peter: “You’re really invested in all of this, kid.”
Peter shrugs. “Not all of us come from billionaire families, Mr. Stark.”
It’s the sort of thing that could so easily sound like a dig, like every snide comment Avengers have made about Tony Stark, full of himself, spoiled, slutty, everything that a hero, in their minds, could never be.
But the way that Peter says it, it doesn’t so much sound like judgement so much as a gentle reproach that he might not even realize he’s doing, especially since Peter’s voice is almost artificially casual as he says, “Some of us are orphans.”
Tony swallows. “I know a thing or two about that, kid,” he says.
Peter’s gaze darts up to his, some sort of surprise widening his eyes, but there’s still some sort of caution.
So Tony opens up, just a bit, like he hasn't with anyone since Rhodey. "I know a thing or two about having to grow up without your parents, with guardians you didn't expect—"
But Peter cuts him off with a shrug. “Foster care’s not that bad,” he says, and his tone is casual, but his face is pinching, and his fingers are closing close and tight around his mug of hot chocolate, and Tony knows a thing or two about the masks that you wear when you don’t want other people to know what’s going on behind the scenes. When you don’t want people to know that you’re this close to falling apart, that you’re holding yourself together with strands of spider silk instead of steel ropes.
And Tony knows a thing or two about ghosts. About the lonely winter nights. About a life lived separate from anyone else. About not being able to find a home, no matter how far you fly, no matter how deep you dig.
Rhodey is on the other side of the world and Tony hasn’t seen him in ages. Pepper broke up with him years ago, and for good reason. Tony put distance between him and Happy, established the sort of professional distance that no one would think to cross in their right mind unless they wanted to deal with the rather un-fun and mildly depressing aspects of their boss.
But Peter Parker managed to subduct all of that, slipping beneath the plates of Tony’s armor like tectonic plates sliding beneath each other.
Because Peter doesn’t have a home. He doesn’t have people.
Because Tony has been picking up on a lot of warning signs over the last few meetings. Things that didn’t quite line up. The clutching of the backpack tight. The layers of clothes. The tiredness. The fact that no curfew seems to be in place.
Tony knows a thing about slipping through the cracks. He did it on purpose, and he had the choice to do it—but Peter likely didn’t.
There are hollows within them both that crave some sort of human connection, someone that will cradle your heart close, someone that can remind you of what it’s like to be alive.
At least—Tony thinks that’s something that Peter wants. Something that led Peter to keep showing up at this coffeeshop, keep talking to Tony, even if Tony isn’t stupid enough to think that there’s more to it than scientific fascination and a craving for warm, sugary drinks.
For so long, Tony has been so alone. The brain behind the armor, the heart buried and tucked away tight behind the sunglasses and the face, so many layers of mask between them that he could not begin to tell you where they all begin and end, what is flesh and what is ferrous.
He lives in the stratosphere, completely alone.
He always has.
But now, for a moment, he is back down to earth, and with someone that might, perhaps, in some small way, understand what it’s like to be so lonely.
And sure, the kid might not know a thing or two about being a superhero, but he’s smart, and he’s clever, and he’s a survivor, with a brain too big for his head and a heart too big for his chest.
And more than anything—
Nobody gives a damn about him.
Tony knows that feeling. He has made bedfellows with that ache, the sort of pain that goes all the way through the body all the way to the gut, where it sits and festers and rots you from the inside out.
“How do you feel about me being a foster parent?” Tony offers, even though he’s never done anything of the like.
Tony knows, the moment that he throws it down on the table, the moment that Peter’s eyes go wide and his jaw drops, are you insane written across his face in big red letters even if he doesn’t say a single word, that it’s too much. It’s too big.
No one would ever want Tony Stark as a father figure. Who is he even kidding?
Tony Stark grew up at his father’s knee, learning the exact way that a son is meant to be crushed beneath his father’s boot just so that he can fit the mold that he is expected to.
No one trusts him. No one cares for him. No one wants him around. All anyone ever wants is Iron Man, and they don’t care for the man that may or may not be behind the armor.
And yet—
It has been so long since Tony came even close to letting someone in. In letting someone even a little close.
And this feels like a taste of the recklessness he once had, but there’s something incredible about it that fills his lungs with air.
So Tony backpedals and offers: “Okay, then. How about just…a room to stay in?”
Peter’s brow furrows, and for the first time, Tony sees true suspicion in his gaze. The way that his shoulders square back. The way that his spine straightens. The way that Peter had been comfortable with him before in a way that so few others are, in a way that Tony now aches to see gone.
To Peter, he thinks that there must be a catch. Of what sort, Tony couldn’t begin to guess what the kid has been through, who he’s had to deal with, and Tony is more than aware of the fact that he isn’t the world’s best landlord (even if the price is now and always be absolutely zero dollars for Peter), but what he’s offering—
Tony just wants the kid to be safe, and have a place where he can be warm and feel comfortable enough not to clutch his backpack so tight to his side, and maybe feel stable for once in his life.
Because this kid—he’s brilliant. Bright as the stars. And Tony wants to do anything to make it so that he can shine.
Because listen—Tony knows a thing or two about the spotlight and the way that it burns. He’s been hiding from it as much as he can for nearly a decade.
But this kid shines from within. A fucking nebula, waiting to birth a star.
And Tony wants to do something good for once in his life. Wants to make something out of the pile of money and the Tower for someone who deserves it.
Peter swallows. “What if I’m something you can’t handle?”
There's something so painfully teenager about that. About the stubborn determination. About the awkward hesitation as you reach towards a hope you've never had before.
About the self-doubt.
But as someone who has only ever been a burden meant to be handled by agents and publicists and personal assistants and one Obadiah Stane until things all went wrong, Tony can't think of anyone less a burden than Peter, so painfully earnest, full of brilliant ideas and so much heart that Tony can hardly remember if he was ever even close to that.
Tony snorts. “Trust me, kid, I know a thing or two about being a troubled teen.”
A tiny curve of the mouth upward, a sort of camaraderie that Peter might not have expected to have, and—score.
“What if I turned out to—I dunno—be committing crimes or something on the side?”
Tony shrugs. “I’d tell you that we don’t have shovels in the penthouse, no real point to having them that far away from the ground, but being a genius billionaire with a personal lab, I’m sure I could still easily find a way to bury the bodies. Maybe a bit of hydrochloric acid, who knows.”
And Peter finally relaxes, just a bit, and takes a deep breath. “Okay, then,” he says, “I guess…I can make this work. But if something goes wrong—I can leave.” It comes out more of a question than a statement, the way that his voice lilts upward at the end, more I can leave? Than I can leave, but Tony just nods in agreement.
“It’s not a prison, kid, I swear. Just me trying to help.”
And Tony gets why the kid wouldn’t believe that of him. Why anyone wouldn’t believe that of him. Wouldn’t trust that Tony could provide that.
So Tony’s just going to have to prove himself, and for the first time in years, he’s actually motivated to do so.
Because while he hasn’t cared for years what people think of him, when it comes to what Peter thinks, well—
There isn't much that Tony Stark wouldn't do for this kid.
---
As Tony goes to take the kid pack up his stuff, there is a flush of humiliation in the kid’s cheeks.
He won’t let Tony actually see within the block of buildings. He makes Tony park at the road before scurrying in, faster than a spider or a rat.
As curious as Tony is—and god, if he was a few decades younger, he definitely would have let curiosity kill that cat—he knows what it’s like to be a teenager and want space. To need space and never be trusted to fill that space without being questioned about it.
But he does have FRIDAY look up what this area is.
“Abandoned warehouses, boss,” FRIDAY says, and Tony doesn't know what his foster situation is—or what it's not, and thus led to the absence that Peter had to fill himself—but honestly, this is just more proof of the fact that Peter is too good for Tony’s corrupting influence. That he is stronger than Tony ever has been.
(That there is something in both of them that points to a survivor. A boy living in an abandoned warehouse. A man escaping into the desert from a cave in Afghanistan, only kept alive by an arc reactor developed by him and another engineer.)
Peter comes back to the car, backpack stuffed full, a garbage bag at his side, and the kid deserves so much more than that, he deserves the world—
And his shoulders are drawn in tight, clearly like he expects Tony to have some sort of snide comment, and like hell Tony is going to do that to this kid.
This is one thing that he can’t fuck up.
(Tony ignores that he knows that inevitably, he is going to fuck this up. That he has always fucked everything up. Because Peter Parker needs him not to, and so he won't.)
So Tony says, “Nice haul, kid. Wanna grab a cheeseburger on our way back to introduce you to mi casa? Maybe discuss some of Goldbach’s conjecture as we go?”
Peter’s shoulders slump just slightly, relaxing just a bit, and his smile releases itself from the cage that it’s been stuck in since the moment that Tony invited him to move in.
And yet—
Some of the tension in his shoulders remains, and Tony doesn't know what it's gonna take to relax that bit out.
But he's determined to do whatever it takes to find out.
---
Some problems can be ignored or avoided.
But some problems are like a leaking AC unit drip-drip-dripping itself through your life.
They don’t fix themselves unless you pay attention to them and actually grab out the tools to fix them.
Otherwise, they just build up, over and over again, until they explode.
---
A year ago, man named Skip Westcott entered an urgent care with complaints over getting shoved by his foster child. Attacked him out of nowhere, he said, and there was a black mark in the child's record entered because he wasn't there to speak up for himself.
A year ago, Peter Parker ran away from his foster home and onto the streets, where any leaking AC unit would be worth it if it meant not staying under that roof.