Work Text:
“Peter, kid,” Tony couldn’t help but gape as he stared at his ceiling, where the long strands of webbing were coming from. They stopped about ten centimetres above his head and formed a hammock, and in that hammock, sat the one and only Peter Parker. “What is this?”
“Don’t be mad, Mr Stark,” Peter’s voice was quickly followed by the sight of his head popping up from inside the hammock. “I saw a rat and sort of freaked out? I dunno, it came right at me, and all I could think of was getting off the floor. And then once I was off the floor, I had to stay up here, y’know? So I made this. It’s pretty neat, don’t you think?”
“You live in New York,” Tony deadpanned, arms crossed as he stared at Peter, who flushed pink and nodded slowly. “You take the subway multiple times a week, even though I tell you not to; Happy will drive you. You’ve been in the sewage system here. You walk the streets, and you're still freaked out over a rat? Don’t you see them every five minutes out there?”
“Uhm, yes and yes?”
It came out sounding more like a question, and Tony couldn’t help but laugh. The kid really was something else. When he’d first had Peter come over to the lab, he wasn’t entirely sold on him. Sure, Peter’s a good kid, Tony’s always known that, but that was just it—he’s a kid, and Tony Stark has never been good with children.
At least, he wasn’t until Peter came into his life. Because Peter made everything easy, he made taking care of him come naturally to Tony, and somewhere along the line, the older man had grown to see him as more than just a kid; Peter was his kid, in every sense of the word. There was a time when Tony wouldn’t have even spared the kid a second glance; now, Pepper likes to tell him he would get in a mood if he didn’t see Peter at least three times a week.
“Alright,” Tony huffed, shaking his head in disbelief. “Here’s what we’re going to do: DUM-E’s going to catch the little bastard for us, and then we’ll chuck it out the window.”
“What?” Peter shrieked, sitting up abruptly, which turned out to be a mistake because the hammock started twisting, as hammocks do. Unfortunately for Peter, since he’d made it out of his webbing, it was sticking to itself and essentially wrapping him up in a cocoon. “No, Mr Stark, it’ll die,” his muffled voice cried out from the tangle of webs.
“It’s a rat, kiddo,” Tony responded, wandering to the back of the lab to look for Peter’s web dissolver. The web fluid misbehaving was a common enough occurrence that they made sure to stay stocked up on the good stuff. “Low terminal velocity.”
“Yeah, but it’s a fat rat, so it can still sustain injuries from the fall,” Peter called out, his voice carrying across the lab. Tony grinned to himself. He wasn’t actually planning on throwing the rat out the window; he just liked teasing Peter occasionally. “Plus, this is New York! It’ll land on concrete, and then it’ll definitely die. You can’t kill it, Mr Stark! It has a little family.”
Of course, Peter would think of a rat and whatever possible family it might have; it was just so in the kid’s nature. Sometimes, Tony wondered what he could have possibly done to be lucky enough to hang out with the kid and mentor him. Nothing, probably, but he would still take the gift the universe gave him.
“Relax, buddy, I was just messing with you,” Tony grinned, even though Peter couldn’t see him. He turned around with the web dissolving fluid and- Okay, scratch that, Peter had managed to make a hole in the cocoon to stick his head out of, but only his head. “We’ll box it up and have Happy take it down. I’ll make sure he releases it back into a manhole.”
“Okay, great, I like that, even though I don’t want any rats near me,” Peter agreed readily, staring at Tony with those puppy eyes of his. “Could you help me? Please? My arm is falling asleep.”
“Alright, brace for impact.”
Once Peter was out of the cocoon, they realised very quickly that Tony had forgotten to do Peter’s laundry. Usually, they had spare clothes for both of them in the lab, things happened—explosions, oil spills, a run-in with a table saw that Tony doesn’t like to talk about because it’ll just give him another heart attack—but this time, they were fresh out of Peter’s clothes.
“Alright, Roo,” Tony grumbled, yanking out a t-shirt, his MIT hoodie, and an old pair of jeans that he’d accidentally shrunk in the wash and had been meaning to throw out. He was glad he hadn’t, though, because they looked like they would fit Peter perfectly. “Put these on so you don’t have to run upstairs to your room to change. I’ll have FRIDAY remind me to wash your lab clothes.”
“Thanks, Mr Stark,” Peter hummed, shuffling off to the bathroom to change.
While he was in there, Tony called Happy up and then watched DUM-E catch the rat, holding out a large shoebox to plop it into. He scrutinised it for a moment before closing the lid, deciding he too would have been freaked out if the rat had come running to him. He couldn’t blame Peter; the thing was damn near the size of a cat. Tony didn’t think he’d ever seen a rat that big in his entire life, and he certainly hoped he wouldn’t again as he closed the lid.
“What’s up, Boss?” Happy’s voice snapped him out of his thoughts, the man walking up to him and standing beside him. “What’s the emergency?”
“This,” Tony smirked, passing the shoebox over to Happy, grinning even wider when the bathroom door clicked open, and Peter came out to stand next to him. “Make sure you take care of that.”
“What’s in it?” Happy asked warily, squinting suspiciously at the two of them.
Tony nudged Peter, wiggling his eyebrows at the kid, who giggled quietly before he cleared his throat and looked Happy dead in the eyes.
“A rat,” Peter replied, and Tony couldn’t help the small puff of laughter that escaped his lips when Happy’s eyes tripled in size.
“You’re joking,” the older man grumbled, holding the box out at arm's length. “Please tell me you’re joking. And please don’t tell me you want to keep a rat as a pet if you’re not joking. “
“No, Hap, it really is a rat,” Tony hummed, tossing his arm around Peter’s shoulders. “But, no, we aren’t keeping it. Pete hasn’t even sold me on a cat yet; we’re not making the leap to a pet rat. Take it downstairs and put it back down a manhole.”
“Seriously?” Happy grunted, looking displeased as his eyes flitted between the two figures standing in front of him. “You called me here to dispose of a rat? Why couldn’t you just chuck it out the window?”
“‘Cause that’d kill it, Happy,” Peter whined, looking at Tony to back him up, and of course, he couldn’t resist his kid.
“Kid’s right, Hogan,” Tony shrugged, raising a challenging brow when Happy tried to complain. “We don’t want a rat pancake in the street. Plus, the thing has probably got a family that Pete’s very concerned about, so just take it downstairs, open a manhole cover and shake it out.”
“Unbelievable, the two of you,” Happy grumbled, turning to leave, but not before stopping to look at them again. “You sure he’s not yours, Tony? Because you sure as hell are the same person, look like it too.”
𓍼
“Who the hell are you?”
Peter startled from his perch on the stool, nearly toppling over, but he managed to grab the top of the shelf and hold on just in time. In retrospect, heading into one of the R&D labs to get some ethyl acetate without warning wasn’t the best idea, but he was desperate. Tony was in a board meeting, and they had absolutely none left upstairs.
That was when he remembered that he technically had access to the entire building; he could go wherever he liked, because his card gave him access. Okay, well, really it was Tony who told Happy to make sure his access was unrestricted, but po-ta-toh po-tah-to. What difference did it make? He still got full access clearance from the big boss at the end of the day.
“Uh, Peter,” he mumbled, carefully letting go of the shelf and landing nimbly on his feet. He made sure to straighten out his shirt before he turned around to face whoever it was who had walked in.
“Alright, kid,” the man—Peter recognised him as Dr Aubrey, one of the lab directors—grunted, arms crossed. “How the hell did you get in here? Did you break into a secure facility to steal?”
“What?” Peter huffed, shaking his head vehemently, reaching into his back pocket to pull out his access card, holding it out and watching as it dangled on the black lanyard that had the name ‘STARK’ printed boldly across it. “No, I didn’t break in. I’ve got free access to anything, literally anything—just ask Mr Stark.”
Dr Aubrey blinked at the gold access card, his eyebrows pinching together in an expression Peter couldn’t read. Disbelief, maybe? Paired with something like confusion and betrayal. Why there was betrayal on his face, Peter didn’t know. He couldn’t be bothered to find out either, really. He just wanted his ethyl acetate and to get back up to the lab.
“So…” He hummed tentatively, shoving his card back into his pocket. “Can I leave with this now, or are you going to call Happy?”
“I’m going to call Mr Hogan,” Dr Aubrey grunted, staring him down with a stern glare.
Yeah, okay, Peter should have expected that. He thought maybe he could have been a little nicer about the whole thing; then again, Dr Aubrey nearly made him spill a skin irritant in his eyes, which Peter did not take too kindly. He grumbled about the stupidity of it all to himself as he found a chair to plop down on. Maybe he should start visiting the R&D labs more often, just so that people would start recognising him; that way, they would let him get away with grabbing what he needed.
“You’re wasting your time, you know,” he called out, swivelling around in the chair. “And mine, and Happy’s—he’s not gonna be too happy about that.”
He couldn’t help the little laugh that escaped him. Happy didn’t like it when he made those kinds of puns, but that’s what made it all the more fun. Besides, Tony joined in on the teasing, too, and that made it a million times better.
He wasn’t entirely sure how much time had passed; he just knew that he’d spun around in the chair enough times that it made Dr Aubrey a little green just from watching him. Served him right—it wasn’t like Peter hated the guy, but he really did not need to go to the medbay thanks to being startled. Plus, he wasn’t so sure his eyeballs would have survived the man’s questioning. He had no idea if Dr Aubrey would have let him wash his eyes out if he needed to. He hoped that he would have.
“What the hell is going on in here?” Happy’s voice filled the room, and Peter could almost say he’d never been happier to see the security guard. Almost.
“Oh, you know, just the usual situation, Happy,” Peter grinned, waving the bottle of acetate in front of him. “Theft accusations, lying accusations, hostage situation. What’s new? Am I free to go? Because I’ve got a project to get back to and about eight sandwiches to eat before Fri pulls Mr Stark out of his meeting. Protocol and all that.”
“Geez, Peter,” Happy grunted, walking over to him and helping him up, giving him a nudge towards the door. “Get out of here, go eat. Don’t let me catch you skipping meals again. You know I’m responsible for you while Boss is in meetings.”
“I can take care of myself, Happy,” Peter grumbled, squinting at the older man as he began walking down the hall.
“Yeah, I’ve heard that one before, and not from you,” Happy called after him before Peter’s superhearing caught onto his next sentence. Judging by his tone, he was talking to Dr Aubrey. “What do you think you’re doing? If Mr Stark catches you holding his kid hostage again, then that’s your job on the line there.”
Peter grimaced. That was probably a bit too far, honestly. He just hoped to walk into the R&D labs unbothered, really. Maybe he could talk Mr Stark into giving him a formal introduction; that way, nobody would question his presence again. He could totally become the local cryptid—slinking in and out of rooms, hiding in the shadows; that would be really fun.
He thought about telling Tony what had happened in the R&D lab, but he got so wrapped up in his new web fluid formula that it just slipped his mind.
Tony, in fact, hadn’t been informed by anyone, not even Happy. Which is why he was so surprised when he walked into one of the R&D labs the next day, only to find Dr Aubrey practically grovelling at his feet. Apparently, none of the other lab techs or interns knew what was happening either, because they all looked equally confused.
“Alright, what did you do?” Tony huffed, expecting the man to apologise for causing an explosion or a security breach. “Whatever it is, I’m sure we can fix it.”
“Please, don’t fire me, Dr Stark,” Dr Aubrey cried, hands clasped together and eyes wide. Tony just stared at him, alarmed. The R&D labs were for, well, research; it wouldn’t be the first time something blew up, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last. Nothing that happened in R&D would have warranted a reaction like this. “I’m really, really sorry. I didn’t know that was your son coming into the lab for materials. I thought he broke in! He had a gold access card, and all I could think was that maybe he stole it, and that he was stealing things from the lab, too. I swear, Dr Stark, if I knew he was your son, I wouldn’t have called Mr Hogan.”
“My son?” Tony stared at the man, wondering what he was babbling on about. Then a picture of Peter’s sheepish grin when he asked him where he got the acetate from flashed across his mind. “Oh, Peter.”
“Yes, Peter, Dr Stark,” Dr Aubrey nodded. “I promise, I wouldn’t have held him hostage if I had known.”
“Held him hostage?”
“Well,” Dr Aubrey paused, rubbing the back of his neck. “Not really. I mean, I did make him stay in the same room with me until Mr Hogan came upstairs and shooed him away. But he told Mr Hogan that it was a hostage situation!”
Tony snorted, shoving his hands in his pockets as he did so. That sounded just like something he would say. Apparently, Peter was picking up on some of his sass. He liked it; there was an odd sense of pride that came with it.
“That sounds like something he would say, yes,” he settled on saying, trying to sound as reassuring as possible. “Don’t worry, nobody’s getting fired. Peter’s just a little dramatic, if anything. If he were really upset about it, he would have told me. I haven’t heard anything from him, so it was all just a little misunderstanding.”
“Thank you, Dr Stark,” Dr Aubrey sighed, relief flashing on his face. The colour returned to his cheeks, too.
“But just so you know,” Tony added as he turned to leave, addressing everyone in the room now. “I find my kid being questioned by any one of you again, I will be calling a mandatory employee briefing on who Peter is and his unlimited access to the tower, understood?”
“Yes, sir,” a chorus of voices called back out to him, and he nodded, satisfied.
“You know, Dr Stark,” Dr Aubrey called out, Tony stopping to turn and look at him. “Your son really is just like you; his mother’s side didn’t even try.”
𓍼
Pepper wasn’t sure when she started referring to Peter and Tony as ‘her boys’, but that’s what they were. They were her boys. Two peas in a pod, she thought that Peter was the best thing that had ever happened to Tony, even better than her; she wasn’t afraid to admit it. He was so good for Tony.
So yes, they were her boys. They had been since Tony called Peter his kid for the first time, and she loved them both dearly.
But just because she loved them did not mean that they could get away with ignoring her. She had called both Tony and Peter five times each, but they’d ignored her calls. So she’d asked FRIDAY to alert them that she was looking for them, and to ask them to come upstairs. FRIDAY just told her that it wasn’t possible at that moment.
Not possible, her ass.
Tony had probably programmed FRIDAY not to push any messages through while he was in the lab, except for emergencies. If she had to go down there and collect them herself, then so be it—she would do exactly that.
She didn’t know what she was expecting when she arrived at the lab, but seeing Peter in a Spider-Man suit that eerily resembled the Iron Man suit was definitely not what she was expecting. Tony was sitting on the couch, tablet in hand and brow furrowed with concentration as he watched Peter try to navigate the new suit.
“Okay, Roo,” her fiancé called out, typing something into the tablet. “Give the thrusters a try. Remember, gently, I don’t need you punching a hole through our ceiling.”
“Aw, but Mr Stark,” Peter’s voice filled the room. Tony probably had FRIDAY connect him to the speakers so that the boy wouldn’t have to yell. “That would be so cool. Plus, you’ve done it before, why can’t I?”
Tony scoffed, and Pepper couldn’t help the small smile that tugged at her lips. Like father, like son. She found it incredibly endearing how much Peter wanted to be like Tony; so much so that he didn’t even realise how much he already was like the older man.
She, on the other hand, noticed. She always noticed. There was a telepathic understanding between Tony and Peter, almost as if they could anticipate each other's wants. She remembered coming down to the lab once, when the two were working on DUM-E, and she was just captivated by the way they moved so fluidly together; Peter effortlessly handing Tony the tools he needed without her fiancé having to ask, while Tony walked him through DUM-E’s circuitry.
Despite his complaints, Peter very carefully tested out the thrusters, hovering around the launchpad he was standing on. He was surprisingly adept at it, so much so that Pepper was pretty sure that Tony had let him take a ride or two in one of the Iron Man suits. It wouldn’t be a shock if he had.
“That’s only been in emergencies, bambino,” Tony huffed, shaking his head slightly.
That was new. Pepper had never heard that nickname before, but it seemed that Tony was always coming up with new ones for Peter. This one sounded Italian; she made a mental note to ask him about it later.
“You keep telling yourself that,” Peter’s laughter filled the room, and Pepper wasn’t sure her heart could take it anymore; she was positive it was going to explode.
“You keep yapping like that, and I’ll take the suit away,” Tony threatened, though there was a wide smile on his face. Pepper grinned, too, moving to sit down next to him. Her fiancé looked up when the couch dipped, and a flicker of surprise crossed his face. “Oh, is it dinner time already?”
“I’ve been trying to reach you, boys, for the past twenty minutes,” Pepper hummed, glancing at Tony’s tablet. There were just a bunch of numbers and graphs on it, nothing she understood. Obviously, they were important, though, since Tony kept his eyes trained on the fluctuating graphics.
“What? Aww, man,” Peter whined, shutting the thrusters off and landing gracefully back on the launchpad. “Do we really have to, Miss Pepper? We were having so much fun!”
“Yes, Peter, you really have to,” Pepper reminded him gently. If it weren’t for her, she was pretty sure her boys would be living off of canned soup and DUM-E’s smoothies during the day, neither of which was good for them. “Tell you what, sweetheart. You can test one more thing before I’m shooing you two upstairs.”
Tony sent her an appreciative smile, and she was pretty sure that if she could see Peter, he would have been beaming at her. She’d grown used to multiple iterations of the Spider-Man suit. She was pretty sure there were at least thirty different suit models that Tony had made for Peter.
“Cool!” Peter cheered, a metallic noise filling the room, four spider legs sprouting from his back. “Check out my waldoes, Miss Pepper!”
“His what?” Pepper questioned, watching as Peter scaled a wall and lowered himself down on a web.
“Waldoes,” Tony supplied, standing up and walking over to Peter, rapping on the outside of the suit. “Remote-controlled devices that are used for handling things. In this case, extra limbs for the Spiderling. Now, out, Roo, before Pepper has our heads.”
Pepper watched as the mask retracted back into the suit, revealing Peter’s grinning face. She was right about that. Peter was absolutely overjoyed to get to test one last feature of the suit before she ushered her family upstairs for dinner. What she hadn’t expected was to be taken back to her earliest days of working with Tony when she looked at Peter. He was missing the beard, and his hair was wavier than Tony’s had been at the time—he was certainly younger, too—but completely identical to him.
“Pep?” Tony called out, still helping Peter put the new suit away. “You okay?”
“Yeah, Tony, I’m okay,” she responded softly, watching the two of them carefully. “Just thinking about how much Peter reminds me of you.”
𓍼
May wasn’t sure what to expect when Pepper had invited her over to have dinner with the Starks—and Peter, of course, but she supposed he counted as a Stark now. She couldn’t believe that Peter wasn’t just having weekly family-style dinners with the Starks, but that he had his own room in their penthouse; that he would spend three weekends a month there.
She was glad that there were people who looked after Peter. She always felt guilty about leaving him home alone when she had long hospital shifts, but then Tony came into their lives, and suddenly there were three more people who loved Peter and cared for him. The fact that they were some of the most high-profile people in the world made it even harder to believe.
The lift stopped at the top floor, and she looked at Happy, unsure if she should get off. The man nodded at her, and she took his word for it, stepping into a large open-plan hallway. From where she was standing, she could see into the living room, kitchen and dining room. Pepper must have heard her arrive, because she rounded the kitchen island and headed straight towards her.
“Hi, May,” she smiled at her, leaning forward to give her a hug and place a kiss on her cheek. “Welcome, I hope you like spaghetti alle vongole. Peter asked for it, and Tony can’t say no to him when it comes to things like these.”
May’s smile grew at that. Peter deserved the world; it was nice to hear that Tony was spoiling him when she couldn’t.
“Spaghetti alle vongole sounds perfect, don’t worry,” she reassured Pepper, taking her shoes off and placing them on the rack, sighing when she noticed a pair of Peter’s sneakers that had been messily kicked off and left in the hall. “Oh, so he does that here, too, then?” She questioned, picking the shoes up and placing them neatly next to hers.
“Oh, the shoes?” Pepper laughed, leading her through the living room and to the kitchen. “Yeah, all the time. Tony loves it. The first time Peter did that, he wouldn’t stop talking about it to me.”
“Sorry, did you say he loves it?” May couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “It drives me insane. Sometimes, I come home, and the first thing that happens is I trip over his shoes.”
Pepper grinned, nodding along to her words.
“Oh, trust me, I know,” she murmured, the smile on her face wide. “But when Peter first started coming up here, he was so polite about everything. Tucking his shoes away in the corner, shoving his backpack there, too. Tony loves that he chucks his shoes off and throws his backpack on the nearest surface because it means Peter feels at home here.”
Huh. May had never thought about it that way. She supposed that, since she had raised Peter, leaving his things around for her to trip over had become mundane and, at some points, irritating. Warmth bloomed in her chest at the thought of Tony appreciating even the most aggravating of Peter’s habits; the man really did love her nephew.
“Dinner’s almost ready,” Pepper hummed, passing her a stack of plates and cutlery. “Could you help me set the table? I’ll have FRIDAY tell Happy to grab Tony and Peter from the lab. If I don’t send someone there to get them, physically, they’ll just ignore FRIDAY and keep working until they pass out.”
“FRIDAY?” She wondered out loud, setting out the plates and cutlery.
“The tower AI,” Pepper clarified for her. “Fri, say hi to May.”
“Hello, May,” a woman’s Irish lilt filled the room from over the speakers, startling her. “Catalogued nicknames include ‘Aunt May’ and ‘Aunt Hottie’. Do you have a preference for what I should call you?”
“Uhm, ‘May’ is just fine, thank you,” she responded, turning to Pepper, looking alarmed. “Aunt Hottie?”
“Tony,” was all Pepper said back, chuckling.
“Right, of course,” May couldn’t help but smile a little herself. Even if the nickname itself was a little absurd, it was nice to know that she also got a Tony Stark Special nickname.
She looked up at the sound of the lift doors opening and watched as Happy stepped out, the security guard shooting her a look that could only be read as frustration. Her brows furrowed in confusion, but any questions she had were answered when Peter and Tony came into view, the latter picking bits of Spider-Man webs out of her nephew’s hair.
“Honestly, Mr Stark, I swear, I don’t know what happened,” Peter whined, a small frown set on his face as Tony continued to create a ball of webs in his hand.
“Keep telling yourself that, Roo,” Tony grumbled, plucking the last bit of web out of Peter’s hair and chucking it into the trash at the door. “Go change.”
“M’kay,” Peter hummed, turning to practically run to his room.
“Do not just throw those clothes on the floor!” Tony called after him. “Put them straight in the wash, kiddo.”
“I hear you!” Peter’s voice carried back before his door clicked shut.
Tony sighed and turned to May with a look of disdain on his face. She couldn’t help but stare, noticing how strikingly similar he and Peter looked. In fact, Peter made the exact same expression Tony did whenever he disliked something.
“He’s not putting those in the wash,” Tony huffed, moving to give her a small hug. “Those are definitely going to end up on his floor. I’ll remind him later.”
“He’s a teenage boy, Tony,” May grinned, sitting down next to Happy, who had already found a spot at the table. “He’s going to leave his clothes all over his room.”
“Believe me, I know,” Tony murmured, sitting down at the head of the table.
Pepper quickly joined them, too, placing the pot of spaghetti on the mat in the middle of the table. Happy was the first to grab a serving for her, then himself. May was surprised to see Pepper leave a seat between herself and Tony. Clearly, she was saving it for Peter. It was all so unbelievable to May: the messy shoes, the personalised bedroom, the scolding from Tony and a designated spot for Peter at the table. They’d spent so long fending for themselves, it was hard to wrap her head around the fact that they had a family again.
Speaking of her nephew, the sound of his footsteps thumped down the hall before he was visibly skidding around the corner in a pair of socks.
“Hey, May,” Peter hummed as he sat down next to Pepper, not even double-checking the plate Tony handed him. “How was work?”
“Oh, it was great, sweetheart,” she smiled back, watching as Tony passed a plate to Pepper before serving himself. “The usual, nothing special. What did you two do today?”
“Mr Stark is helping me build my own gaming PC,” Peter replied, reaching into the middle of the table to grab a slice of lemon at the exact same moment his mentor did.
May did a double-take as she watched the two of them squeeze their lemons in synchrony, their hands fisting in the exact same way, and the tips of their tongues sticking out from between their lips as they did so. She couldn’t decide if she was looking at an older Peter or a younger Tony. Pepper noticed her staring and nodded subtly, as if to say that the two of them did that often.
“That sounds great, honey,” May settled on saying, because her brain was still trying to catch up with her mouth. “Are you going to keep it here when you’re done?”
“Yeah, it’ll be in my room,” Peter nodded enthusiastically, the dining room light casting a shadow across his face, ageing him for a millisecond. Just like Tony, she thought.
“Huh,” she mused softly, the corner of her lips quirking up. “Tony, are you sure you’re not secretly Peter’s father? He looks just like you.”
𓍼
“Stop fiddling with that, bambino,” Tony chided, grabbing Peter’s hand and moving it away from his tie. The poor boy looked like he was ready to rip off the suit that Tony had stuck him in at any moment.
“But, Mr Stark,” Peter whined, dragging out the ‘R’. “This whole get-up is uncomfortable. I don’t know how you do it. How do you dress like this all the time?”
Tony laughed, shaking his head and throwing an arm around Peter’s shoulder. He remembered the first few times he had to wear a proper suit, and he remembered hating it. Eventually, he grew used to it; he hoped Peter would, too. He knew the kid enjoyed going to these conferences with him. The one they were going to tonight was on forensic anthropology—Stark Industries had just released a mass spectrometer that many institutions would use.
“You get used to it, bud,” he settled on saying, throwing an arm around Peter and pulling him into a side hug. He was glad that he got to share these moments with the kid; Peter always had this unquenchable thirst for knowledge that was hard to find. It was something Tony had at Peter’s age, and he knew that Peter really appreciated being brought along to these conferences “You gotta get used to it, because you’re going to be coming to lots of these things with me.”
“Really?” Peter perked up, his eyes sparkling with excitement. “You really mean that, Mr Stark?”
“Yeah, bud,” Tony murmured, squeezing Peter a bit tighter. “I do.”
Peter, to his credit, fit into the conference as if he’d always belonged there, despite his discomfort. He talked to anthropologists and tech representatives alike, while Tony watched him with an unwavering look of pride on his face. His kid had come a long way since he’d first met him; there was a time when he could barely get three words out on stage unless it was for an AcaDec competition.
Now, Peter was happily chatting up one of the presenters at the conference.
“Your son looks just like you, Stark.”
Tony startled, turning to look at who spoke to him, a smile quirking at the edge of his lips when he realised it was his old professor from his one stint in forensic anthropology while in university. He’d had a great time in that course, but he liked having his hands on technology, not picking apart cultures. Machines he could do easily, people? Not so much.
“Dr Julian,” Tony replied, reaching out to shake her hand. “I appreciate the compliment, but he’s not my son. Not biologically, at least. Every other way? Every way that counts? Absolutely.”
“Touching, Stark,” Dr Julian smiled, looking between him and Peter. “Though you might want to double-check that first statement.”
“Huh?” Tony mumbled dumbly. There were very few people who managed to make him feel stupid; Dr Julian was one. As he said, he enjoyed forensics, but his heart wasn’t in it. He didn’t put much work into his classes, just enough to get through the semester. Despite his keen eye when it came to technology, bone markers were an ancient language to him.
“There are markers,” she supplied helpfully. “Facial ones—the shape of his nose, his eyes, his jawline—are identical to yours. Skeletal ones are harder to spot since, well, he’s not currently a skeleton. Flesh is not my area of expertise.”
Tony laughed at that. A lot of people found Dr Julian awkward; he came to realise that she had a certain sense of humour.
“Yes, I do prefer him with his flesh,” he replied, watching as Peter looked dumbfounded when one of the anthropologists signed a book for him. “You know, alive and well.”
“Naturally,” she laughed as well. “But from what I can see, despite his clothing, I can spot that his skeletal structure and height suggest that you are his father. I don’t just say these things, Stark.”
“I know, Dr Julian,” he murmured, mulling over her words as he stared at Peter.
Sure, he’d had plenty of people tell him how much Peter looked like him—Pepper, Happy, and May loved to tease them about it—and while he certainly wished he was the kid’s dad, he hadn’t taken any of what they’d said seriously. Not until now, not until Dr Julian was laying out the science for him.
“I strongly believe that child is yours,” Dr Julian hummed, patting him softly on the shoulder. “While I don’t have any hard evidence, the circumstantial evidence suggests that you should at least perform a DNA test.”
“I think I will,” Tony agreed quietly. For the first time ever, he looked at Peter properly, and all he could see was a better, smarter and more responsible version of his fifteen-year-old self. He’d spent so long denying it, even when the likely answer was right in front of him all along. “I know you don’t jump to conclusions.”
“I do not,” Dr Julian reiterated firmly, her voice unwavering. “He really does look just like you.”
𓍼
“Hey, Mr Stark,” Peter chirped as he walked into the lab. It was Friday, and normally they would be having a movie night, but Tony had specifically asked Peter to meet him in the lab. “What’s all this?”
Peter was clearly referring to the cheek swabs sitting on Tony’s desk. After the conference on Wednesday, Tony had taken it upon himself to order what he needed to perform the test. He would have called Peter over yesterday to talk about it, but he didn’t want to send the samples to a lab, so he spent all of Thursday programming FRIDAY to analyse the samples and confirm, or deny, a match.
“There’s something we have to talk about, Pete,” Tony coaxed gently, pushing Peter’s stool closer to him with his foot. He watched as the boy cautiously took a seat, setting his backpack on the floor beside him.
“Am I in trouble, Mr Stark?” Peter whispered, his eyes wide. “Because I swear, I didn’t do anything. I haven’t even caused an explosion in the chem lab in forever!”
“I know, buddy,” Tony chuckled, reaching out to card a hand through Peter’s hair, hoping it would calm him. “You’re not in trouble. But too many people have said that we must be related. I wouldn’t care about you any less if we weren’t—I love you, bambino—but this has been nagging me since my old professor told me that you have skeletal markers that would lead to the conclusion that you’re my son.”
“So, this is, like, just for peace of mind?” Peter hummed, already picking up a swab. “I love you, too, Mr Stark.”
“Yeah, it’s just for peace of mind, kid,” he reassured, picking up a swab himself. “And since you’re my kid either way, you’ve gotta quit it with the whole ‘Mr Stark’ thing.”
“‘Kay, Dad,” Peter mumbled while he swabbed his cheek, grimacing at the string of saliva that followed the swab when he took it out of his mouth. “That’s gross.”
“Again, New Yorker, and you think some spit is gross? Sewage and general New York muck doesn’t bother you, but your own spit does?” Tony chuckled, placing his sample into its designated tube. “I was hoping for ‘Tony’, but I like ‘Dad’ much better.”
“I do, too,” Peter agreed, sticking his tongue out at Tony before a worried look flashed across his face. “Wait, does this mean that some random lab is going to have my DNA?”
“God, no, kiddo,” Tony replied, already inputting the samples somewhere where FRIDAY could read them. “I would never. No, I spent the better part of yesterday programming Fri so I could do this. She should have the results ready in half an hour. In the meantime, do you want to continue building that PC of yours?”
They got to work on the PC immediately. It was nearly done, and Tony just wanted to make sure that anything he made for Peter would be top-of-the-line, including Peter's gaming PC. Tony was going to make sure that whatever games Peter ran, the PC would never lag or crash. Plus, Peter loved building things with Tony, so that was always a bonus. He loved spending time with his kid, and he was glad that Peter seemed to like it just as much.
They’d gotten so immersed in their work, in fact, that they hadn’t heard FRIDAY the first time she said the results were ready. Or the second. Or the third.
Finally, after her fourth alert, Peter looked up.
“Looks like the results are ready, Dad,” he whispered, and Tony could read the nervousness written on his face.
He felt the same way. He meant what he said about not caring any less about Peter if the test denied that they were related, but he would be lying if he said he didn’t hope that they were. It was a strange feeling, suddenly wanting to be a father so badly after being against having children for so long. He had been so afraid of being Howard that he didn’t see that he was the exact opposite of his own father. He’d take things from his own childhood and flipped them, so that he could be better—for Peter.
“Yeah, okay,” Tony hummed back, pulling up the results on the Stark pad, his heart pounding as he read them.
“Well?” Peter pressed, wringing his hands together.
“You’re my kid,” he murmured, voice breaking as he set down the Stark pad, pulling Peter into a desperate hug. “You’re actually my kid. My blood. That I didn’t know about. God, how did I not know about you?”
“I’m actually yours?” Peter’s voice muffled in his shoulder. “I can’t believe that neither of us ever knew. I’m actually Tony Stark’s son. Wait, does that make me a Stark? That’s so cool! Do I have to change my whole name? Can’t we just make ‘Parker’ a second middle name? You know, Peter Benjamin Parker Stark. I mean, Parker is already a name in itself.”
“Whoa, slow down there, Roo,” Tony chuckled, pulling away and ruffling Peter’s hair before hugging him again just to kiss the top of his head.
“Sorry,” Peter mumbled sheepishly. “Just excited about this whole thing.”
“I know, me, too,” Tony grinned, squeezing Peter just a bit tighter. “But I think Parker would make a fine middle name.”
Maybe he should listen to other people more often, he considered. After all, it only took about twenty different people insisting that Peter must be his for him to believe it. And, in the end, they had been right. He was so happy they were right.