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There’s always a split second between Tony grabbing his coffee mug and actually lifting it where Tony remembers, way back somewhere deep in his mind, that the last time he picked up that mug he finished it off. He knows it. He knows it before he even gets the mug to his lips and is disappointed, but it still doesn’t properly register most of the time.
He knows it, so when he picks up the mug that should be empty and it’s not, it completely breaks his concentration. Gone. Utterly obliterated by the fact that he’s apparently invented a mug that never empties.
It’s even still hot.
“Are you going to keep staring at it or are you going to drink it?”
Peter’s watching him when Tony looks up, elbows on the desk and chin on his hands, like he’s been there a while. “Not sure,” Tony tells him. “Could be toxic if Dumm-e was the one who refilled it. Could be a trap, if it was magically refilled— who knows who it was then!”
Tony stares at it a second longer. “Yeah,” he says, “I’m going to drink it anyway,” and Peter laughs.
“You’re safe,” he says. “It was me! Uh, it was I? Anyway. You’re welcome.”
“And you’re amazing,” Tony says. “What would I do without you?”
“Perish,” Peter says, and then giggles to himself; Tony doesn’t want to know.
It’s good coffee when Tony takes a sip. Peter knows how he likes it by now. “Well,” Tony says, “that’s all there is to it then. You can’t ever leave me.”
“Good thing I wasn’t planning on it,” Peter says, and Tony really hopes that’s true.
Tony’s fought a lot more than Peter. Peter might have his tingle and the ability to take more hits and a frankly freakish level of flexibility that Tony absolutely appreciates outside of battle— wait, that’s not— look it’s not his fault for getting distracted by that thought.
The point is, Peter might have more natural advantages, but Tony has more experience. So it’s only natural that he should try and keep an eye on Peter during fights; it’s not just paranoid overprotectiveness. Not just.
Peter’s mostly broken him of that habit.
And Tony does a good job of it, if he says so himself. Doesn’t even really have to think about it that much, this general background awareness of where Peter is at any point purely habit. A much better habit, right?
He hadn’t thought about Peter thinking along the same lines.
“Tony, left!”
He doesn’t even think before he dives in the direction Peter shouted at him. Tony doesn’t see anything, hasn't had anything register on the HUD, there isn’t— Ah. Fuck.
God, he hates magic. No wonder he didn’t pick it up. “Thanks, kid,” Tony says as he blasts the thing out of the sky. “What would I do without you, huh?”
Peter swings by him and perches on the edge of a building for a moment. “Have to watch your own back,” he says, and Tony manages to refrain from saying that that has been the story of his life so far. “One day I’m going to keel over from the stress of trying to keep you in one piece and then what?”
Tony’s never heard that before. “Back atcha,” Tony says, because really? Really? Who's driving who into an early grave here?
“Keep your eyes open,” he adds as he drops back into the fray. Peter groans and follows and Tony’s pretty sure he’ll hear about that after the fight.
That’s okay. They can watch each other’s backs. They can trust each other to watch their backs.
This isn’t something he thought he’d ever get to have. Or something that he should be allowed to have, because Peter is good and optimistic and so young, and those were all excellent reasons for Tony to stay far, far away.
He hadn’t counted on how fucking stubborn Peter could be. How sneaky he could be. How incredibly well Peter could wiggle his way in and refuse to give up, until giving in didn’t feel like so much of a choice as an inevitable outcome.
It was. It was always a choice, and maybe not the right one, but… sometimes it feels like it is.
Peter’s curled loosely on his side, facing Tony, one leg hooked over Tony’s and his arm heavy at Tony’s waist. He does tend to cling, and Tony never shakes him off. He’s asleep; Tony should be too, but he can’t seem to drift off.
He can’t stand the thought of getting up and leaving Peter all alone in his bed, though.
He’s slow, careful, as he lifts his hand from Peter’s back, brushes his fingers through Peter’s hair. Just as delicate when he touches Peter’s cheek, the corner of his jaw, the dip of his upper lip. He doesn’t want to wake him.
“What would I do without you?” he whispers, barely a sound at all. It’s not something he wants to even contemplate. Can even imagine, with how Peter’s burrowed into every aspect of his life.
“Good thing you’ll never have to find out,” Peter whispers back and Tony starts. Peter opens his eyes, slowly; they’re incredibly dark, the weight of his gaze almost physical.
“No?”
“No,” Peter says, and then— and then there’s just nothing more to say, really. Nothing words can capture, at least.