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“Yeah so yeah that’s what I said!” Peter exclaims, clutching the phone to his ear. “Yeah that’s what I said. Yeah I was there the whole time I helped. I know I’m sorry. I know. I just couldn’t because that would have been broken trust between me and my dad but now you know because he decided that everybody should know now.” He nods and hums and looks very serious. “Yeah. yeah. Yes. Now I am going to tell you everything all the time.”
May snorts, glancing back at him. “Who’s he talking to? The press?”
Tony runs his hand through Peter’s hair. “Ned,” he says, trying not to laugh.
“He called my phone about eight hundred times during the Q&A,” Pepper says, on Peter’s other side.
“It’s very serious,” Tony says.
“Yeah,” Peter says, nodding again. “Yeah he’s a superhero. Yeah cause—no exactly. Exactly. Yes there are lasers. No I can’t go inside of it. Well I could but I would not fit the right way I’d probably just fit up to the tummy. It’s taller than Dad is. Yeah sort of like high heels.”
Everybody laughs at that, from the front of the car to the back where they are, and Tony shakes his head, leaning down and kissing Peter’s hair.
~
Phones are ringing off the hook. They’ve got tons of people outside the house again, and lining the street leading up to the house. Tony hears his own voice on the news over and over again. I AM IRON MAN. I AM IRON MAN. I AM IRON MAN.
He’s glad he did it. It felt right, it felt like—the right thing to do. Usually he’s wishy-washy with decisions and even this one he wasn’t completely sure of but in the moment—in the moment there was no other way to go.
Tony is Iron Man. That’s all there is to it.
Despite that, it feels different, when they get home. Not bad different, just—different. It feels different during dinner and during conversations and every time they look at him, even though everybody here knew what was going on. Tony’s still got the ‘telling May what Obie did’ situation hanging over him, and the phone keeps ringing and ringing and ringing and they can’t even turn the TV back on, but he feels strangely…serene.
He doubts it’ll last, considering the circumstances, considering that May and Ben have to go back home, and Happy and Rhodey don’t live here permanently, and he and Pepper aren’t—open about what’s going on between them quite yet, but—Tony feels…situated. Like he’s where he’s supposed to be. Like what he’s doing is right.
He just loves when the house is full.
And he’s Iron Man. He’s Iron Man, openly, by his own choice, with so many possibilities, so many ways to make a difference.
~
“Monkey you know I don’t encourage this type of thing,” Tony says, following Peter down the stairs at almost three in the morning. “Especially when Auntie May is here to catch us.”
“I just want a carrot or maybe two carrots or maybe three carrots or maybe one of the brownies or—”
“Oh okay lemme just order a pizza—”
Peter giggles and looks back at him. “That sounds good put sausage on it—”
“Okay done it’s ordered,” Tony says, and he grabs Peter up and drapes him over his shoulder. “I got cheesy bread too.”
“Oh you can do it with your mind now because you’re Iron Man?” Peter giggles, patting on Tony’s back. “So cool so cool you gotta teach me that. I need to know so all the delivery men come at one time and become friends and bonus I get tons of food.”
“Okay but it’s a very difficult thing to learn,” Tony says, stepping off the landing and padding towards the kitchen. “And it also requires getting your dear old dad a pair of house slippers because the other ones have mysteriously disappeared—”
“Not so mysterious but maybe it is time for new,” Peter says, giggling still, trying to stifle his giggles because everyone is sleeping.
“Sir there is…”
Jarvis starts speaking but goes all slow and then dies out all together, which makes Tony’s heart sink. He barely has time to react before the light in the kitchen comes on by itself, and there’s a bald man standing there eating a bowl of cereal. He’s tall, wearing an eye patch and a big leather coat, and Tony immediately puts Peter down and shoves him behind him.
A man in their house. A man in their house.
“No need to freak out,” the man says, eating another spoonful of Captain Crunch.
“You’re in my house,” Tony says, freaking out, trying to determine whether he should urge Peter to run or keep him close. He tries to make himself big, like he feels in the suit, and he twists his hands into fists. “I think that warrants—”
“Are you the pizza man?” Peter asks, peeking around Tony’s hip.
“Pete—”
Peter starts to sort of move out from behind him, but Tony tugs him back.
“Should I be?” the man asks. “You expecting pizza? I didn’t see anybody coming. I didn’t know we had 24 hour pizza places around here, but I guess a lot can be done for Tony Stark. Peter Stark especially.”
“Yeah and Dad said he ordered with his mind and I didn’t believe him but now you’re here but you’re eating cereal—” He’s walking out again and pointing at him.
“Pete,” Tony says, through gritted teeth. He’s panicking, and he pushes him behind him again. He has to keep him safe, he has to keep him safe. “No talking to strangers. He broke into—hey, I’m calling the police—”
Normally, he’d ask Jarvis to do that. But Jarvis is disabled and Tony doesn’t have his phone. Should he attack him? Peter’s here. How the hell did this guy get in? Jesus, Tony has to protect Peter—
“You know Coulson?” the man asks. “I’m his boss. Nick Fury, of SHIELD, Mr. Iron Man, nice to meet you. I’ve been calling all day.”
Tony narrows his eyes at him. He adjusts his shoulders and stands square. “Lemme see some ID.”
The man sighs, and puts the bowl on the counter. He holds one hand up, and slowly pulls out a wallet with his other hand. He flips it open, holds it out, and he tosses it to Tony. Tony catches it one-handed, and sees that it’s the same as Coulson’s ID with the same logos and holograms, and it confirms all the information Fury just gave to him.
Tony’s still wary. He’s in his fucking house.
“Okay,” he says, tossing the ID back, which Fury catches without hesitation. “Okay. If I believe that isn’t a fake—why the three am visit? Could have called again tomorrow. I might have answered. We do take meetings. We set meetings up.”
“Coulson told me how that goes,” Fury says.
Peter sighs. “Listen things are different now and it was a difficult time and we were busy but as my dad’s representative I can tell you that now that everybody knows Dad is Iron Man that it is going to be much easier to create meetings because we will not be so busy with secret-keeping and building and things because everybody knows so it’s easy now,” Peter says, walking around and standing in front of Tony. He looks back at him. “Also I’m still hungry and tired so I wanna know if it’s safe to go over there because my head hurts and there’s been lots of bad guys that I shouldn’t talk to—”
Tony clicks his tongue. “I think it’s fine, he has ID—”
“But don’t bad guys also have ID—”
Tony holds tight to his hand. “Yeah, he did break into our house—”
“He hasn’t attacked yet—”
“Yeah, he better not,” Tony says, eyes trained on him. He feels like an animal, like a cat with all the hair on its back upraised. He might as well be hissing.
“I’ll leave,” Fury says, holding his hands up. “I overstepped. I tend to do that, I’m working on it. I just needed to touch base with you, Stark. Starks. Now that you made yourself known, I understand that—you might have intentions to carry on with your—superheroing.”
“That’s right he’s a superhero,” Peter says, as Tony walks him over to the fridge, keeping himself between him and Fury. “He is one. So yeah.”
“I know that,” Fury says, looking down at him, and the two of them seem to carry out an intense staring session for a couple moments as Tony opens up the fridge and fishes out a yogurt. Fury starts moving out of the kitchen and towards the hallway. “But now he’s one among many.”
“Many superheroes?” Peter asks.
“We got flying ones?” Tony asks, handing the yogurt to Peter, getting him a spoon, too. “We got more flying ones? Because I need to make adjustments.”
“SHIELD’s been keeping track of ‘em for years,” Fury says. “And now we want to bring you into the fold. So when you get the time—when your representative can set a meeting,” he points at Peter, and Peter stares. “We would like to invite you to join the Avenger Initiative.”
He’s quiet.
They’re quiet.
“What’s that?” Tony asks, shaking his head.
Fury turns, his jacket billowing, and he heads for the front door. “I’ll let you know in the meeting!”
Tony scoffs. “Wow, wow, okay,” he yells after him. “So that’s how you do it, huh, get me all interested, break in, scare everyone, shut down my AI—I better be able to fix that, by the way—”
Fury just laughs, and doesn’t say anything else, and then he leaves.
He just leaves.
Tony can hear Jarvis starting back up again, and he turns and looks at Peter.
“Was that a bad thing?” Peter asks, eating his yogurt. “He had ID. Government guy like the other guy.”
“Government guys shouldn’t break into your house,” Tony says, shaking his head at him. His heart is still trying to recover. “There’s a child here, there’s a very special child—”
“That’s me.”
“That’s you,” Tony says, shaking his head again.
Avenger Initiative.
“What the hell’s going on?” Happy says, from the doorway, nearly making Tony jump out of his skin. Happy is standing there in his pajamas, with bleary eyes, holding a bat.
“Somebody broke in,” Tony says, walking over and picking Peter up again.
“Uh, excuse me?” Happy asks, his eyes widening.
“It was a government guy like Mr. Coulson but he broke in because he didn’t trust us to actually make a meeting and he invited us, I mean, he invited Dad to be in a super-secret club. But he wouldn’t tell us and he left and so now we have to actually make a meeting. So.” Peter wraps his arms around Tony’s neck and keeps eating his yogurt.
Happy meets Tony’s eyes and starts following them up the stairs.
“Yeah we’re gonna have to do that,” Tony says, trying to quiet his mind, trying not to completely go insane. “And like. Amp up security times—one billion—trillion—for a little while here.”
“You sure it was a government guy?” Happy asks. “Or was he faking? Neither one of you are hurt?”
“We’re fine,” Tony says, even though he sort of feels like he’s having a heart attack. “And yeah he—”
“He had ID,” Peter says.
“Jesus, okay, lemme…” And Happy takes off down the stairs again.
“Hap,” Tony says, watching him disappear around the corner. He rolls his eyes. “Whatever. I’m sure—I didn’t get bad vibes. And I’m always getting bad vibes. And he had ID.”
“He had ID,” Peter says, humming a little bit. “And he was sorta funny and silly. And goofy.”
Tony snorts, walking back into his room. He sets Peter back down on the bed, and Peter stirs his yogurt and stares at him.
“This is not our life now,” Tony says, shaking his head. “Government men breaking into the house. We’re gonna—set boundaries. They can’t just do that.”
“Mhm.”
“I’m serious,” Tony says, hands on his hips.
“He said Avenger and that sounds pretty cool,” Peter says.
Tony climbs back into bed, throwing his arm over his eyes and feeling like he’s sweating way too much. “We can’t think anything he said is cool quite yet because he did break into the house. That’s not cool. Like I said.”
“You need the fan on faster?”
“Yes, please,” Tony says, patting Peter’s back.
Peter stands up, strains a little bit but pulls on the fan cord, and it gets colder. He flops back down and keeps digging at his yogurt. “He did break in but all he did was eat cereal and he showed us his ID and we know him sort of and he sort of said sorry. Sort of in a way.”
Tony sighs.
“Iron Man. Superhero. Avenger.”
Tony smiles, can’t help it, even though some government agent just broke into his house just to steal some cereal and then tease him and leave. He reaches over and ruffles Peter’s hair. “Hurry up and eat so you can sleep,” he says.
“I still want pizza.”
Tony snorts. “Okay let’s just call Fury up and have him bring some.”
“Good idea then we can make better friends.”
Tony moves his arm and looks at him. “I will grab you and tickle you and make you spill your yogurt.”
“It’s your bed messy!” Peter says.
Tony pokes him. “Stop screaming little monster or you’re gonna wake up the whole house.”
“Uncle Happy is gonna wake up the whole house testing his new alarm bells,” Peter says. He scrapes out the rest of the yogurt and gets up and puts it in the trash, leaving the spoon on the bedside table on a napkin. He rushes back over and cuddles back up to Tony, his hand resting on the arc reactor. “The man probably only got in because he’s a government man and he’s super smart and stuff, not as smart as you of course but smart in a different way, and a normal bad guy could not do it. So we should not be scared or messed up about it.”
“Yeah, it’s just…manners,” Tony says. “Considering.”
“Yeah. I love you.”
“I love you too.”
He said it’s not their life now.
But it’s their life now.