Chapter Text
Fury would be willing to bet his kidney that Stark programmed his AI to have her operate the elevator extra slowly whenever he is in it. Only one out of the one million reasons why Fury loves to make life miserable for the man.
The doors finally slide open into the spacious living area of the tower. There are three teenagers gathered around the kitchen table. Peter. The Keener boy. And one unknown factor who looks innocent enough. There are books cluttering the table, but they seem to be there as an afterthought. The boys are mainly focused on the stash of candy on top.
“Hey!” Peter says.
“Hi, squirt.”
“Do you want some coffee?”
“I need Stark.”
“He’s napping,” Keener says, and points. “In our pillow fort.”
Fury turns. At the far end of the living area, by the couch, stands a wonky structure. The pillow fort is enormous. Blankets, pillows, entire king size mattresses are piled together. He makes his way over, while the three boys behind him chat on as if all this is just a regular occurrence. He grunts as he lowers himself to hands and knees, and squirms his way inside through a narrow entrance.
This is what his career has come to.
Inside, he is met with the sight of Tony Stark sprawled out on his back, among the pillows. Fury sits back on his haunches. Tony lifts his head with visible effort.
“Hey,” Tony Stark says. “It’s Jo.”
His head flops back down.
This Jo-thing is becoming detrimental to his reputation. “Fury. It’s Fury to everyone, Stark. I call myself Fury when I talk to the mirror.”
“You’re one of those people who goes through life on a single name, right? Like Beyoncé or Zendaya.”
“I do hope to be this generation’s Beyoncé,” Fury drawls.
“I think Beyoncé is this generation’s Beyoncé.”
“What are you doing in here?”
“Hiding from Huey, Dewey and Louie out there. Who tricked me into believing they needed to be at the tower together all day, because they were going to spend it preparing their science project.” There is glitter in his hair, Fury notices. As if Tony has spent the morning hosting a birthday party for five-year-olds.
“Needless to say, I’ve been double-crossed,” Tony says.
Fury plants his hands down on his knees and leans forward a bit. “We’re still working on getting all chitauri weaponry off the street. We estimate four or five street gangs are now using these weapons. I need someone to work through all the data we have on them, find patterns and model a few predictions of their future behavior.”
“Don’t threaten me with a good time.”
“One of these gangs has been giving Spider-Man trouble too. He finally webbed them all up last week, did he tell you that?”
“He didn’t.”
“I assumed that might persuade you into doing something about it. Given how pathetically eager you are to get in his good graces.”
“You realize he can hear us, right?” Tony says conversationally.
The sound of something dropping to the floor in the kitchen. Tony smirks. “Super-hearing.”
“Just to be clear, I’m only asking for technical back up,” Fury continues. “I don’t want you in the field, flying in because you feel the need to butt in. We have covert missions going, and you might blow them.”
“I have no desire to fly after a few petty thieves, thank you.”
“I don’t know. Seems just like you. Doing something unauthorized and immature in an attempt to prove yourself to your son.”
“I’m not immature, how dare you,” Tony says, good-naturedly. “Get out of my pillow fort.”
Fury rarely laughs; it’s beneath him. So he just arches an eyebrow.
“Your mistake,” Tony says, “is that you think I’m too unsound to know how to be a good father.”
Fury’s gaze drifts up to the glitter in Tony’s hair. A man of sound mind? No, certainly not. A good father?
Perhaps.
-
“You were just talking loud. I wasn’t eavesdropping,” Peter says, as soon as the elevator doors slid shut behind Fury.
Tony smiles and squeezes his shoulder. “No. That’s more Harley’s thing.”
“Were you eavesdropping?” Harley immediately asks, eager. “What did you hear?”
“Not telling you.”
Harley sticks his tongue out at him, then turns to Tony. “Peter made you something today.”
Peter kicks him under the table.
“Ouch! Peter kicked me!” Harley points dramatically. “J’accuse!”
“Narc,” Peter says.
Tony shakes some glitter out of his hair. “Harley, stop winding your brother up. It’s almost two o’clock. We’ve had four hours of screwing around. You need to get started on that science project, now.”
Peter whispers something that Tony doesn’t catch, but that causes Harley and Ned to collapse into giggles.
“Boys,” he says sternly. “Science project. Now.” He knows, realistically, he has to put his foot down at this point. But honestly, the mess they made in the past few hours is just as important as any school deadline. Peter had arrived at the tower with his arms full of laptop and books, geared up to get to work. Harley had taken one look at the frown on Peter’s face and then, with Ned as his accomplice, had roped him into building a pillow fort within ten minutes, laughing, goofing around.
Both his sons have a thing or two to learn from each other, and it’s perfection.
“What’s the topic?” he asks.
“It’s about the Phoenix universe theory, with the black holes,” Harley says. “And why it’s bullshit.”
“Wow,” Tony says. “You’ve turned a school project into a personal attack against me. I have nothing left to teach you.”
“I think it was actually Peter who taught me this particular approach,” Harley says with a smirk that he definitely learned from Peter.
“I plead the fifth,” Peter says. He swipes some candy wrappers out of this way and places his laptop on the table. “How about I start the writing while you two do the reading?”
“I’ll draw the pictures,” Harley says. “It’s probably better if I draw the pictures.”
“Because that’s a priority?” Ned says.
“Pictures are important!”
Peter glances up at Tony, then away.
“Harley, quit piggybacking,” Tony says.
“I’m not… I don’t mean to… But Peter is like a genius compared to me and I don’t want to be the reason why we get a lower grade, because then you’ll both be pissed off at me!”
“Dude, Peter is like a genius compared to me, too,” Ned says. “But I still get good grades. If only people like Peter could get good grades, the whole school would be screwed.”
Peter is still typing, with a carefully blank expression. One that Tony knows means he is unhappy about something.
One problem at a time. He pulls out a chair and sits. “Harls. You got into Midtown Tech on your own merit. You deserve your place there. The only one here doubting that, is you.”
“Okay. Okay,” Harley murmurs. “So it’s bad to avoid the work, because then I’ll never prove it to myself.”
Well, shit. Therapy is really paying off.
“Deep,” Ned confirms.
“Gimme the book,” Harley says. “I’ll do the bit about Hubble’s law, okay?”
“Okay,” Peter says.
“Are you mad at me?”
“Not mad.”
“You don’t look happy, either.”
“It’s about something else.”
“What?”
“I can’t say it now, it will sound stupid.”
“Okay,” Harley says. “You should talk to Tony about it, later. He’s good at that stuff.”
Tony tugs at a strand of Harley’s hair. “Thanks for the endorsement, kid.”
-
The boys work, finally, they do some actual freaking work. All Tony has to do is keep the coffee and cherry coke coming. Until it’s almost dinnertime and FRIDAY reports that Ned’s grandmother is here to pick him up.
“Okay,” Peter says, and starts to reach for the used glasses, starts to stand up from his chair---
Harley flings his arms forward and clamps them around Peter’s torso, pushing him back down in his chair and wailing a dramatic. “Nooo!”
Ned looks baffled. “What’s happening?”
“He’s not allowed to clean,” Harley exclaims. “Ned, help me hold him down, he has superstrength!”
Peter isn’t even attempting to push Harley off. He just gives Tony a beseeching look. “Tony!”
“Do not let him go, Harley,” Tony says, as he rushes to collect the glasses.
-
Peter is staying for dinner. And for the first time, Peter is staying the night.
“It was his idea,” May had told Tony over the phone. “And I believe in you, Tony. But I need to have said this. If you ever do hurt him, I’ll rip all your organs out through your ass in alphabetical order.” But then she chuckled, and Tony had laughed.
He knows how to do this. He’s just happy to get a chance to prove it.
“I can’t believe Tony Stark cooks,” Peter says when Tony sets the steaming plate of roasted vegetables salad in front of them.
“It’s almost like I’m just a normal human being,” Tony mocks.
“Five fridges. Five.”
Harley laughs.
“I got a guest room picked out for you,” Tony says. “Right next to Harley. And I want it to be your room.”
“My room.”
“It just means, you can leave stuff there, no one else is coming in. Yours.”
“Is it… a normal room?”
Tony arches an eyebrow. “It’s got five wardrobes, if that’s what you’re asking.”
Peter smiles, but says: “seriously, though.”
“It’s similar to my room,” Harley says. “Don’t worry. I mean, it’s still low-key fancy, but it’s an acceptable level of fancy. And once you hang up some posters and throw some dirty clothes on the floor, it just looks normal.”
“We’ll go have a look, later,” Tony says. “If there’s anything you don’t like, we can change it, all right? And just because you have a room here now, doesn’t mean I have expectations. It just means you can come by whenever you want. And if that’s never, or only when you have important projects to finish, that’s perfectly fine, too.”
“Okay,” Peter says. “And how about… And after you move?”
“Oh shit, I didn’t tell you yet.”
Peter looks wary. “What?”
“We’re not moving. I mean, everything Avengers related is still moving to the compound upstate. But Stark Industries is staying in the tower, and so are we.”
Harley’s head bobs up and down.
“Oh,” Peter says. “Why?”
“It would be too far away from you, kiddo.”
“Yeah,” Harley says, grinning. “You’re his emotional support superhero. He gets nervous when you’re too far apart.”
“Stop freaking him out, Harley.”
But Peter smiles.
-
Tony is up at something past five, because he dreamt about a robot helmet that brushes you teeth for you, and then woke up and wanted to build it.
He is halfway through his second prototype when FRIDAY alerts him that Peter has woken up. Tony leaves the prototypes on the table and takes the stairs towards the living area.
Peter is standing in the kitchen, looking a little lost. He seems relieved to see Tony, which is— Yeah, that’s a very good feeling.
“Hey kiddo. Early riser?”
“Eight o’clock is early?”
That pretty much answers Tony’s question. “Come down to the workshop. You can have breakfast there, I got plenty of fruit and snacks. Harley won’t be up until ten or eleven.”
Peter looks hesitant. “Are you sure we shouldn’t wake him? Let him join?”
“Very sure,” Tony says calmly, and leaves it at that.
Peter follows him to the floor below. “What were you building?” he asks, staring at the contraption on the table.
“Uh,” Tony says. It would probably take far too long to explain.
“A toothbrushing robot?” Peter asks.
“How did you…?”
“It’s my inherent sense of keen observation,” Peter says.
“Huh.”
“Also, it’s written here,” Peter says, tapping his finger against the various sketches titled ‘denture avenger’ and ‘ivory refinery’.
Tony chuckles. “Got me there. How did you sleep?”
“Oh, swell,” Peter says.
“That bad, huh?”
“No,” Peter says. “It wasn’t... Look, about yesterday. What Fury said. I didn’t tell you about those weapons because they were not that big a deal. Like, maybe one step up from friendly neighborhood Spider-Man but still several steps down from being dunked in a lake by a man in a vulture-costume.”
“It’s fine, Pumpkin. You don’t have to account to me for everything you do, I trust your judgement.”
“And I did make you something,” Peter says. “But it’s not really… It’s more an inside joke. It’s not anything big.”
“And then Harley ruined the moment? That’s his expertise.”
“No,” Peter says, and smiles. “I think he was trying to encourage me. Because I kept chickening out.”
“That’s his expertise, too.” Sounds like maybe it’s something big after all.
Peter digs into his pocket and takes out a smooth, large pebble. Written on it are the words ‘Tony rocks’.
“Oh god,” Tony says and takes it. He suddenly has no idea why he scoffed at Harley’s idea of picture frames with dried pasta. This is without a shred of doubt the best present he has ever received. Hell, the kid even put a sealant overtop the writing so it wouldn’t fade.
“Okay, don’t start crying,” Peter says, a blend of concern and amusement in his expression.
“Don’t tell me what to do. That’s Fury’s job.”
Peter smirks.
“Can I give you a hug?”
Peter steps a little closer in response and Tony wraps his arms around him, making the hug as gentle as he can. “Thank you, Pete” he murmurs.
“For?”
“Just. Being a way better person than I ever was. For giving me a shot when you didn’t owe me one.”
Peter isn’t leaning away yet, his forehead bumps against Tony’s shoulder and one hand lifts, lightly gripping the back of Tony’s shirt. “You’re not entirely intolerable, honestly,” he says.
“That’s sweet, write that on a stone for me too, would you?”
Peter chuckles.
“While we’re here, being sappy. Anything you want to bring up about the science project? Dr. Keener referred you to me. Was it the piggybacking? I know it isn’t really your thing to speak up when something bothers you.”
“It really wasn’t that. Just…” Peter lets out a breath. “Sometimes I hate always being the smart one,” he murmurs. “I just hate it. And I can’t ever talk about it to anyone, because it would sound like I’m just bragging. Or complaining about the biggest champagne problem ever.”
“A little alienating, right?” Tony says.
Peter drops his hand away and leans back, glancing up at Tony and then away. “I guess.”
Tony squeezes his shoulder. “Every character trait is a double-edged sword. But that’s what helps me. Knowing that the things I dislike about myself, and the things I like about myself, are two sides of the same coin. You can’t be one without the other.”
Peter nods. “Like for example, you’re sort of weird, but that also means nothing ever weirds you out.”
“Oh yeah,” Tony says. “Genius and insanity make a very good combo. Highly recommend it.”
“I can tell,” Peter says, with a pointed glance at the toothbrush-robot.
“So maybe it helps you, too,” Tony says. “Knowing that this brain of yours might set you apart from others in a way that’s a little isolating at times. But it’s the same brain that builds amazing drones and researches astrophysics. And then the pros outweigh the cons, right?”
“Yeah.” Peter says. “Thanks.” His expression is difficult to read as he looks up at Tony, but it makes Tony feel warm inside, so it has to be good, mostly good. “I’m glad I told you,” Peter says. “Not just this, I mean. Everything. It’s just about… May said it’s just about having one more person in my life I can count on.”
“You can,” Tony says. “Though I suppose I need some sort of world ending calamity to really prove it.”
“No,” Peter says. “The opposite. You’re Iron Man. I never doubted that you’d come flying in if the nukes were brought out. I doubted that you’d… I don’t know. Listen to me when I complain about homework problems.”
“Still doubting it?”
“Not as much anymore. I mean. Seeing as how you started bawling over something as simple as a rock…”
“I wasn’t bawling.”
“You’re a softie,” Peter says. “A sarcastic marshmallow. And you’re pretty good at all this, actually.”
“Jesus, kid, I will start bawling soon, have mercy.”
“All right, Mrs. Doubtfire,” Peter says.
“All right, Itsy Bitsy.”
“Are we going to build that toothbrush robot or what?”
-
They are interrupted, eventually, by FRIDAY. “Miss Parker has arrived in the parking garage,” she reports.
Peter glances at the clock. It’s almost half past ten and he finds himself, unexpectedly, disappointed about having to leave already. “I don’t want to go without saying goodbye to Harley.”
Tony glances down at his watch. “FRIDAY, isn’t he up yet?”
“Harley is currently preparing breakfast in the kitchen.”
“Ah. Go talk to him, kiddo. I’ll go down to find your aunt.”
Peter arrives in the living area to find the kitchen overtaken by baking ingredients. Frying pans, syrup, Nutella, peanut butter, flour, eggs, milk, and Harley sliding a cube of butter into the pan where it sizzles and crackles.
“Hey,” Peter says. “We didn’t know you were up.”
Harley shrugs “I figured you might be busy.”
“I don’t want you to feel like you can’t come down to the workshop when we’re---"
“No, man,” Harley says. “I already got a lot of time with him. It’s your turn.”
“It’s not about taking turns.”
“Have you had breakfast? I’m making pancakes with instant coffee mixed in. It’s my secret ingredient.”
“You good at making pancakes?”
“Yeah. My mom liked them, so I’ve made them a lot. She liked hers with celery, because she was always a tiny bit insane. Even before.” He smiles fondly.
“It’s not about taking turns, though,” Peter repeats.
“I know,” Harley murmurs. “I mean. I guess. I’m just trying. I’m not saying that I’ll never get grumpy about stuff. Especially in the morning, fair warning. But I just know Tony is never going to ditch me. I know that. You might not be there yet, but you’ll know it too. And if I get moody, I don’t want you to go out of your way to humor me. That’ll just make me feel like an asshole, okay? Promise me.”
“I’m not very good at, uh, not humoring people.”
“Oh yeah, that’s true,” Harley says, and grins. “We’re a terrible combo. Poor Tony. Can’t wait to see how he’ll deal.”
Peter laughs.
“Imagine we’d get into a fight at school,” Harley says, “and you punched me. And May is at work. Mr. Morita would have to call Tony twice to come in.”
“Why would I punch you?” Peter asks.
“I don’t know. Because I stole your calculator or something.”
“How dare you.”
Harley grins.
Peter reaches around him and starts putting the unused frying pans back in the cupboard, screwing lids back on jars.
“Stop that,” Harley says.
“Make me,” Peter says, smug. There is no vacuum cleaner to unplug. No dish brush to snatch out of his hands.
Harley takes his spatula out of the batter and flicks it, sending spatters all over the pristine countertop and the tiles against the back wall.
“Hey! Stop it!”
“You stop it!”
“I hope you realize you’re just giving me more to clean.”
Harley’s smirk turns more menacing. “We’ll see.” He grabs a bag of the counter and flicks it in Peter’s direction, sending a huge puff of flour into the air.
Peter coughs through it, wipes it out of his eyes. “You shithead!”
“Sorry,” Harley says unapologetically, and then uses the spatula to catapult the next blob of pancake batter straight at him. It hits him square on the chest.
Absolute silence for two seconds.
And then Peter lunges for the ingredients scattered around the kitchen counter. Harley squeals and dashes away. The bag of flour topples over and bursts open against the floor.
Peter chooses his weapons wisely and starts pelting Harley with eggs, chasing him around the kitchen island while the other boy attempts to hide behind it. When Harley slips on a mixture of raw egg and flour, Peter dives on top of him and pins him down.
“Unfair!” Harley protests, kicking his legs. “Superstrength!”
Peter just scoops some flour up from the floor and starts rubbing it all over Harley’s hair.
And then a voice speaks up. “Boys, what on earth?”
They look up. May is standing half-way between the elevator and the kitchen island, flabbergasted. Tony is next to her, looking curious but in a far more unconcerned way.
“I’m teaching Peter to make a mess!” Harley chirps.
“Ah,” May says. “In that case…”
“As you were,” Tony says.