Chapter Text
It started with a phone call, a call that set off alarm bells with the newly pardoned Avengers, not that Tony would know for quite some time.
The Avengers (both remaining and Rogues) found them selves altogether in the same room for only the second time since the Rogues had been pardoned. They were in a meeting discussing new training and asset distribution, the conversation stilted by the still present tension between both groups.
Now, Tony might have been instrumental in the getting them pardoned, but that didn’t mean he forgave any of them, or forgot anything that happened between them. Most of the time he still felt numb over the events of Siberia. He could hardly fathom how one of his best friends, someone he had trusted most in the world, had been capable of leaving him for dead. He couldn’t move on when Rhodey was still in the throes of learning to walk again, with the help of Stark prosthetics. He couldn’t forgive when none of them could see how they had been in the wrong, how they had hurt him.
But he knew the pardoning was necessary. The world needed the Avengers. All of them. Everything was changing, events were being set in motion and the future needed the Avengers in it to protect it. No matter the personal cost.
But while he knew the world needed the Avengers, that didn’t mean he did. He had Pepper. And Happy. And Peter. He needed to protect them from whatever the world threw at them, which meant bringing the Avengers back together. It also meant keeping the Rogue Avengers far away from anything to do with Peter.
Peter had partially moved into the Avengers Compound a few months back, after May had spent four consecutive night shifts in the hospital and Peter had nearly bled out on the carpet floor from a stabbing on patrol gone wrong.
Tony and May had agreed that they couldn’t let that happen again.
So they had compromised, May would have weekends and any odd day that she wasn’t on a night shift and Peter would spend the rest of his time at the compund. It was far from ideal, what with the extra travel for school and the added stress of avoiding the Rogues when coming in and out, but Tony had volunteered Happy to drive him to and from school and Peter predominantly stayed within Tony’s wing of the compound so had yet to actually see the other Avengers.
Ned had flipped out when Peter had come into school and whispered to him in Chemistry about the transition. It had resulted in a detention for Peter from Mr Harris but it was worth it.
So here’s where Tony’s problems began.
He was sat in amongst the recently pardoned Rogues, the seating arrangement was Pepper’s idea to ‘foster and re-build old relationships’, so he was currently sat in-between Clint and Steve and opposite Natasha.
Rhodey, unfortunately for Tony, had begged off attendance due to physiotherapy and Tony hadn’t wanted to post-pone and bring more attention to the still present consequences of their so-called ‘Civil War’.
His phone vibrated.
The buzzing interrupted the Clint and Sam’s negotiation of gym and training equipment, causing attention to turn to Tony.
“Stark, I thought we booked your valuable time,” Sam huffed, jokingly. “I mean, it only took us two weeks.”
Tony glanced at the Number ID to see Peter’s smiling face flashing from his home screen. He immediately felt concerned, checking his watch, he confirmed that it was only 14:30pm. Shouldn’t Peter be at school?
Worried, Tony moved to rise from his seat and answer, the excuse tumbling from his lips, “It’s work, I’ve got to-“
Steve questioned, curious but intentionally not accusatory, they were still working to repair old relationships, after all, “Tony, why would work be phoning? Pepper organised this meeting for all of us, and anyone else would phone Pepper not you. What’s going on?”
“It, er, it is actually Pepper. Probably an update, or something, I’ve just got to-“
He pressed accept, still giving the passive ‘I’ll be just a moment’ spiels to the other Avengers as he left the room.
As he exited, he pulled the door closed for privacy.
This, however, didn’t stop Steve and Bucky’s super-powered hearing from accidentally overhearing the one-sided conversation.
“Hey, is everything alright?” Tony’s voice sounded genuinely worried, which piqued their interest, was something wrong with Pepper?
“I thought I said you weren’t supposed to phone when at s-“
Steve and Bucky gave each other confused looks, Why would Tony say Pepper shouldn’t phone him?
“Oh, so you won’t be staying here tonight?”
“No. It’s fine! You are still coming over to stay this weekend though, right? Pepper will be in Japan then, so I’ll be by myself.”
That gained the concern of the two sitting in the conference room; Tony had just told them he’d been talking to Pepper and now he was talking to this unknown person about coming over to stay over when Pepper wasn’t around.
It was almost reminiscent of, well, Howard.
Before Howard met Maria, he would have several women on the go and lie to them about when and where the others would be. But Tony wouldn’t do that, would he?
They exchanged knowing looks, an interaction that wasn’t lost on the other members of the team.
Clint kicked them, his head gesturing towards the door. “You’re listening to something that us mortals can’t hear. What’s going on?”
Steve strained to make out more, hushing Clint as he did, saying, “We’ll tell you later, just-“
“Glad you let me know, I’ll see you this weekend.”
It was the last part of the exchange that sealed the deal for both super-soldiers.
“I love you too.”
Tony was having an affair.
****
They were gathered in a coffee shop down the street from the compound, they being: Clint, Steve, Bucky, Wanda, Natasha and Sam.
“What?!”
“I don’t believe it.”
“Bullshit!”
Each of them turned to look at Clint. His declaration having been the loudest and most vehement.
“Well, it is! I don’t believe that after everything, Stark would just go around and cheat on Pepper. The guy has like, what, two friends outside of the Avengers which are Happy and Pepper.” Clint counted the names on two of his fingers, holding them each out as if to make a point. “You’re trying to tell us he’s actually cheating on one of the only other people in his life? I’m not his biggest fan but I’m calling bullshit.”
“Language.” Natasha chimed in, unhelpfully, earning a glare from the Steve.
Steve responded, firmly denying the accusation. “We’re not saying he’s definitely cheating-”
“That’s not what I heard.” Clint chimed.
“-we’re just telling you what we heard.”
There was a moment of uncomfortable silence, as they all pondered what to do with the information. At the end of the day, they all liked Pepper. If the conversation Steve and Bucky had overheard was genuine, then Tony might be cheating on her.
If that was the case then, what next? Did they tell her and risk any and all progress they’d made re-building their broken friendships? Did they say nothing and become complicit? If Tony truly was cheating on her, maybe he just wasn’t the man or team-mate that they remembered him to be.
Natasha mulled, before breaking the silence. “Why don’t we just do some investigation?”
At their blank looks, she elaborated, “If he’s truly hiding some mystery woman then we’ll find evidence of it. We could always try looking up phone records and find out who he was talking to. Maybe there’s a reasonable explanation.”
“Reasonable explanation for ‘I love you’?” Sam retorted, emphasising ‘I love you’ with sarcastic quotation marks.
“I’ll do it.”
It was Bucky’s turn to be on the receiving end of the groups look.
He shifted uncomfortably. “Pepper was nice to me. Even after everything that happened with Stark, she always asked if I was okay, or if she could do anything to help with my rehabilitation. So I’ll help you. I won’t be part of hiding him cheating on her. I won’t.”
If Bucky was in, then Sam was too. From there, it wasn’t too hard from there to convince the others to help. They’d agreed to investigate on a couple of different fronts: they would look into the phone records and any monetary connections that could rule out cheating. They would invite themselves over on the weekend and find the woman at Tony’s, maybe catch him in the act and expose him.
They, also, agreed not to tell Rhodey or Vision; the Avengers were worried they would tell Tony of their suspicions, or worse, both already knew and didn’t care enough to stop him.
****
Unaware of the investigation that his actions had started, Tony had been doing his best to do as much as he could to throw the Avengers off the scent for his weekend with Peter. But they seemed only to be getting more and more interested.
“Hey, Tony, what you doing this weekend? We’re planning to get some shawarma, you want to come?”
The nonchalant question from Natasha had set him on edge. He hoped, vehemently, that she hadn’t noticed.
“Er, well I’ve actually got plans with, um, Rhodey this weekend. But thanks.“ Tony lied, unwittingly flagging the attention of the Rogues.
“Both Saturday and Sunday? All day, both days?”
“Yeah, it’s a special weekend. To, um, celebrate 6-months of physio.”
I’m going to Hell. Tony definitely wasn’t proud of that lie, out of all the ones he could have told, but it’d been enough to make the questions awkwardly ebb off.
The questioning, however, had succeeded in making him more paranoid about keeping Peter hidden.
He’d begun to organise events that Peter and he could do outside of the compound. Maybe a trip to Europe would be nice for a weekend? After all, Peter’s only trip outside of the US was to Berlin and look how that’d ended.
No, that was too flashy. Maybe he could take Peter to that new science exhibit he’d been going on about?
From the closed elevator, as it began to go down a level, oblivious to the eavesdroppers, he phoned Peter. “How do you feel about going to an exhibit this weekend?”
****
It was a couple of days later on a Friday. And a number of things had become apparent to the Rogue Avengers.
Firstly, the original phone call wasn’t a one off. On numerous occasions Tony had excused himself for phone calls citing ‘work’ or ‘Pepper’ as the excuse, however, the conversations themselves indicated otherwise. The hours of the calls, also, were questionable; they varied from midday, evening and sometimes odd hours of the day or night.
Secondly, Tony always answered. No matter if they were having a team dinner, training or even in his lab, he answered. One time he even answered when Pepper was in the room next door. The audacity of it, indicated to them that it must have been going on long enough that he was becoming lax at hiding it.
Upon reconvening, they each shared their findings.
“I’ve got a potential name.”
At this everyone, except Clint, clamoured over to Natasha, each as interested as the next about who might be enough to draw Tony away from Pepper.
Spinning around the laptop, Natasha revealed the picture of a woman. A brunette, in her late forties and a heart-warming smile and naturally very beautiful.
“She’s pretty, for a home wrecker.” Clint remarked snidely, “What?” He raised his hands apologetically when the others gave him disapproving looks, “Come on, if she’s ruining Tony and Pepper’s relationship, then she is a home-wrecker.”
“Her name is May Parker,” Natasha continued as though she hadn’t been interrupted, “And home-wrecker or not, she and Tony have, according to phone records, been phoning regularly for nearly a year.”
Natasha clicked onto the next screen and up popped images of May Parker’s phone records and bank statements. Something which, Steve noted, couldn’t have been obtained strictly legally.
“She’s been receiving money from him the last three months, as well as so-called ‘gifts’.”
Bucky spoke up for the first time in the meet-up, “What kind of gifts?”
“Well, so far, from what I can see money. And two sets of new Stark Phones and Phone contracts. And-“ She changed slides to show a recent photo from May’s Facebook page,”- jewellery.”
The photo showed May smiling at the camera. She was wearing a chained gold-pendant, one which was clearly new and to a trained eye worth far more than most houses in New York cost.
“It looks like the pendant was a present. She couldn’t have bought it on a nurse’s salary and it doesn’t look like she has anyone else in her life that would be able to afford such a present.”
Taking over from Natasha, Clint pressed the ‘next’ button. It was seamless enough that Sam actually wondered if they’d practiced the presentation. “Natasha gave me the name a couple of days ago and I’ve done some research of my own. I have been watching the Parker home from a nearby roof the past few days.”
He pointed out a photo of the Parker home, with Tony’s car out front, it was fairly obvious that despite the extravagance of the car compared to those around it, the car had been chosen as one of Tony’s ‘incognito’ cars. It was less flashy than those he normally drove in.
“This was taken two days ago. Tony left the compound about midnight on Wednesday.” The slide he’d chosen showed May Parker answering the door, casting a furtive look around, before closing the door. “He, er, stayed for a couple of hours and then came back home.”
This new revelation didn’t look good for Tony. They all knew it, but none would come out and say it. It was pretty damning evidence.
Natasha followed on, the next slide showing traffic camera footage. “From what I can gather, he has been to her house at random times of the day or night for nearly a year. Often times it’s when Pepper has been away, sometimes she hasn’t been. It’s to the point where, I think even her nephew has gotten to know Tony.”
“Nephew?”
Sam questioned, looking at the new photo showing a teenage boy answering the house door and being completely unfazed to see the Tony Stark on his doorstep.
Answering his question, Natasha said, “Nephew, one Peter Parker. He’s 15 years old. Was taken in by Ben and May Parker after his parents died in a plane crash. May’s husband, Ben, died a few years back during a robbery gone wrong, the poor kid apparently saw everything.”
“Shit, that’s rough.”
“Yeah.” Sam shared Clint’s sentiments, but tried to avoid being derailed. “But if even the kid isn’t surprised Tony’s there, then this is worse than we thought.”
Steve interjected, wanting to offer any potential alternative information that could refute the growing evidence against Tony. “Look, they could just be friends, good friends. Maybe it was a birthday present. And maybe they just talk so much for a number of different reasons. We don’t know anything for certain.”
He closed the laptop Natasha had open, not wanting to see any more against Tony.
“Steve,” Wanda started, “You were the one who thought this to start with. Is there really anything that just been shown that proves otherwise?”
Steve shook his head, wearily, and moved to sit down.
He rubbed his temples, trying to fight the growing migraine. He hadn’t wanted this to be true. In fact, he’d mentioned it to his team with the hope that they would be able to provide an alternative explanation, anything that would explain it.
“Hey, man, it’s okay.” Sam had sat down beside him, settling a hand on his shoulder comfortingly. “Look. It’s Friday, right? Well, if Tony is really having someone round and cheating then all we’ll have to do is find a reason to get into his personal rooms and find them. We’ll find out the truth.”
All this running around behind Tony’s back was hardly fostering a new found trust, but if this was the only way they’d be able to find out once and for all if Tony was cheating, then this was what they’d do.
****
Tony was excited.
The weekend had arrived and he was, finally, going to see Peter again.
It had surprised him, the last few days of solitude, how much he had grown used to Peter’s presence. When Peter had moved in, he had worried it would be too much; that he wouldn’t be able to handle it or wouldn’t be as good as Peter’s Aunt at looking after him.
But he needn’t have worried, looking after Peter had become as easy as breathing. It was something he looked forward to, something that got him out of bed in the morning. Not that Pepper didn’t. But Peter had given him a new sense of purpose; he was more driven at work (super hero and otherwise), it was all done with the purpose of giving Peter a legacy.
So yes, Tony might say he was excited. He was made even more excited by the news that May had got the Friday and Saturday off and would be deigning to join them for a family night. Peter was thrilled by the idea.
The moment Happy pulled up, into Tony’s private garage, the car door was flung open and Tony found himself with an armful of teenager.
“Hey, kiddo!”
Peter pulled back, smiling happily at Tony. “Hey, Tony.”
They had finally moved on from the ‘Mr Stark’ phase, though it had taken some time. Tony was glad for it. But in the long run, he was hoping for a more permanent change, one that he was going to need May’s blessing for. Dad.
“Tony Stark, are you going to help with all these bags?”
Ruffling Peter’s hair, he moved around to give May a hug. “Good to see you too, May.”
Playfully huffing, May returned the hug. “It’s been too long. I hope Peter has been behaving himself when he’s been here.”
“He never does anything else.”
Tony moved away from the hug, only to turn to Happy. Happy gave him an unimpressed look. “Well, I’m not hugging you.”
Laughing, Tony reached to grab a couple of the bags from the trunk and lift them inside. He was sure he’d built robots to do exactly this, but he didn’t know where in his labs those would be.
They carried the bags and Peter’s books into Tony’s personal living area.
Peter immediately went to dump his bags in his room, while Tony showed May to one of the spare rooms down the hall.
“So, it’s about 5 O’Clock now... I can order us some pizza and we’ve got a selection of films to watch. Peter wanted a family movie marathon. Is that good?”
May smiled, “Sounds wonderful.”
“Good. We’ve got a science exhibit tomorrow, I booked out the entire place for us.”
Peter squealed from his room in excitement, shouting to Tony about how amazing it was going to be. May rolled her eyes at the enthusiasm. She couldn’t quite remember the last time she felt this content, this happy. It had certainly been a long time.
Now she was so happy, she could burst, and it was all because of Peter. Peter and Tony. As she watched them talk science to each other, she found herself eternally grateful that Peter had found someone who encouraged his interests, someone who looked after him when she couldn’t, someone who love him like she did. Someone who was like a father to him.
That’s what she saw when she looked at Tony and Peter. A Father and Son.
****
“So, it’s settled?”
“Yeah. Natasha still has clearance to get into Tony’s personal living areas, in case of emergencies. So Saturday morning, we’re going in. We’re going to find out what’s really going on, once and for all.”
****
May awoke early, to an empty household; her work as a nurse meant she wasn’t really able to stay in bed longer than 8 hours without a large amount of anxiety, while Peter was a teenager and didn’t get up before midday on a weekend - other than to patrol or go to Ned’s - and Tony had such an odd sleep schedule, May was unsure if he ever slept at all.
As a result, May found herself alone, in her pyjamas, pouring herself a bowl of cereal in Tony’s personal kitchen that Saturday morning when the elevator let out a loud ‘ding’.
Completely blindsided, May could do little more than drop her spoon before virtually all the Avengers came out of the elevator at once.
May immediately stood up.
The Avengers looked a mixture of livid, upset and disappointed at seeing her. Considering she’d never met any of the Avengers before, she had no idea why they were looking at her like that, but she didn’t plan on finding out.
“Tony!” May shouted out towards Tony’s room, hoping that her voice or Friday would help wake him up.
“You must be May Parker.” Bucky looked up her and down, unimpressed.
“How do you kno-?!”
Her question was interrupted by Tony sprinting into the kitchen, his suit already half forming around his pyjamas. “May, are you alr-?!”
Stumbling after him, was a disheveled Peter, who also looked panicked at his Aunt’s shouting. “Aunt May?!”
They both came clattering to a halt, seeing the half assembled Avengers Team in front of them.
There was a beat of silence.
Steve, taking charge, spoke first. “Tony, what is going on here?”
Trying to act nonchalant, Tony responded, “Hey, Cap. What brings you to my humble abode?”
The look was ruined slightly by the clanging of his armour as a metal pad from his repulser fell uselessly to the floor.
“I stood up for you!” Clint, unable to take the awkward tension and having grown angrier by the second at Tony’s attempt at feigning ignorance, blurted out. “I told them that you wouldn’t be doing this and yet here you are!”
Tony felt fear seep through his bones; they had finally found out about Peter, about Spider-Man, he hadn’t done enough to protect him and now the Rogues were rightly angry at him for bring a child to a battleground. If he was them, he would be too.
He raised his hands, placatingly. “Look, I know I should have told you and I know it was wrong but I was trying to do the right thing.”
Bucky chipped in, looking murderous, “How could you lie like that?! Go behind everyone’s backs, behind Pepper’s back, and do this?!”
“To start with, Pepper didn’t know but she does now, I swear.”
“You’re trying to tell us that Pepper is okay that you’re cheating on her. That’s some bull, right there!”
“Wha-?” Now Tony was confused, what were they talking about? “What are you talking about?”
May, who had moved to stand beside Peter, shielding him from sight, looked at the scene in front of her and suddenly it clicked. They had become angry when they had seen her there, standing in the kitchen in her pyjamas. They weren’t angry about Peter, or Spider-Man, they were angry about her.
“Tony, I think... I think they think we’re having an affair.”
“What?!” Both Peter and Tony turned to stare incredulously at May, dumbfounded. For geniuses, they both were incredibly dense sometimes.
The Rogues gave each other confused looks. They were a lot less confident, and angry, than they were a few seconds before. If Tony wasn’t having an affair, then what on Earth was going on?
Being the chosen scapegoat, Steve hesitantly asked. “Aren’t you?”
Immediately, Tony started laughing. The kind of laugh that has you doubling-over, clutching your stomach. It was actually more painful than he remembered. He looked over at Peter to see the disgusted look on his face and creased up again.
May took over, clearly Tony wasn’t in a fit state to reply just yet. “Tony and I aren’t having an affair. Why would you have thought that?”
“Maybe the fact that he’s been contacting you and visiting your house on a bi-weekly basis for the last year? Or the fact that he’s been sending money and gifts to you? Or, the fact that you are in his personal quarters having spent the night here while Pepper is gone and Tony lied about it?!” Clint’s diatribe picked up speed towards the end, but the speech seemed to have got through to Tony, as he’d stopped laughing and seemed a little more somber than when they’d first started out.
“Wait.” Bucky, couldn’t help but voice everyone else’s confusion, along with his own. “If you aren’t having an affair, how do you know each other? What is she doing here? What is the kid doing here? And what were you apologising for lying to us about?!”
Everyone’s attention turned back to May, Tony and Peter.
Tony’s mouth was open, but he was frozen and no sound was coming out. It was like he didn’t know what to say, or do.
“He-He was lying about me.” Peter’s voice came out small and quiet.
With all the Avengers attention on him he felt small. He could normally brave it out, when in his suit; he could blind them with cool tricks and fast words, but here, in his Hello Kitty pyjamas, and bare face he felt frightened.
“Pete, no, it’s fine. You don’t have to say anything. It’s none of their business.” Tony turned to look at Peter and hated how meek he looked. He placed his hands on Peter’s shoulders, ignoring the Avengers behind him, and spoke quietly to Peter, even though he knew the others could here him.
“If you aren’t ready, we don’t have to tell anyone anything, okay kiddo? Why don’t you go get dressed? Your Aunt and I will be in in a minute and we can all go out to the exhibit like we planned, okay?”
Through his talk with Peter, the Avengers were examining their interaction, fascinated. They had never seen Tony act so patient or caring towards someone other than Pepper or Rhodey. He was acting maturely and.. maybe even fatherly.
After an encouraging nod from May, Peter trailed hesitantly towards his room.
“What was that?”
Ignoring Clint, May and Tony had a silent communication. They had discussed telling the other Avengers before, when they had first been moving into the Compound, but decided against it; May didn’t trust them. They had, also, considered the Personal Intern route, like before, but didn’t know how to explain that whole ‘Intern living in Tony’s personal quarters’ thing. They hadn’t got any further than that, but from May’s expression he knew she was about to give her own excuse, he just didn’t know what.
Her expression said ‘trust me’ and he did, so he nodded.
“Tony knew my sister-in-law, Mary. He knew her fifteen years ago, before she died. Last year, Tony found out about Peter and reached out. He offered money and gifts, he visits a lot and invites us over because... because Peter is his son.”
Jaws dropped around them, disbelief across their features, Tony only hoped his own face didn’t reflect their expressions. He looked at May, searchingly, asking her non-verbally, ‘are you sure you want to do this?’
May smiled at him, it was hardly a lie. It was just a stretching of the truth, a truth that the other Rogues had no right to either way.
Tony felt a mixture of fear, excitement, pride and love well-up in him.
I guess I’m a dad now.
He wondered to himself how Peter would take the news.