Chapter Text
Peter was sitting in his last class of the day and sighed. It was physics, which he tried to find interesting, but Ms. Warren was currently giving another example of something he’d already grasped two weeks ago, and he couldn’t be bothered to listen anymore. One glance at the clock in the back of the classroom revealed that he’d have to sit through another twenty minutes of this. He sighed again.
“Mr. Parker!”, Ms. Warren suddenly said in a disapproving tone, which made him flinch slightly. He quickly sat up straight in his seat and tried to look less like he had been sleeping with his eyes open. “I’m sure you can give me the answer to the question after everything I’ve explained in the last few minutes.” He heard a few students snickering around the room, Flash being the loudest. Peter blushed. Normally Ms. Warren didn’t call him out like that, but she must have been having a bad day.
Peter looked at the board for the first time since Ms. Warren stepped into the room earlier and located the question she’d written down there. They were currently learning about kinematics and the formula he was supposed to know – or not know, the way his teacher was looking at him triumphantly – was no exception.
“If the car is breaking with an acceleration of minus five meters per second squared, it will travel 62.5 meters until standstill”, he answered obediently. He didn’t really have to think about it. These were things he considered almost every time he went out as Spider-Man. Especially shooting his webs and swinging between skyscrapers on a regular basis made sure he knew all about velocity, acceleration and trajectories.
Ms. Warren squinted at him, a bit dismayed, but nodded. “Very good, Mr. Parker. That is correct.” Flash scoffed and sneered at him, but Peter simply ignored him, slumping back in his seat. Another look at the clock showed him that a whole two minutes had gone by. He barely contained his urge to smash his head into the table in frustration.
“Hey, dude, you okay?”, Ned whispered from beside him.
“Yeah”, Peter mumbled back, not wanting to talk about it in class. Especially not on a day when Ms. Warren was watching him. She’d already warned him about the need for another talk with Aunt May if his attendances and homework didn’t improve. He thought it was ridiculous, but he really didn’t want to give Aunt May a reason to limit his patrols or time at Stark Tower.
The thought of Stark Tower had him bouncing his leg. Today was Friday and Aunt May had agreed to let him stay the whole weekend. Tony had been gone on a long business trip to England for three weeks. Three weeks in which Peter had not seen him and only sporadically got messages from him, as apparently ‘Pep will really kill me if I do not pay attention to these idiots’. Safe to say Peter was anxious to see his father figure again. Not that he would ever tell Tony that he had become a father figure to Peter nor how Peter had seemingly grown attached to and slightly codependent on the man. The last thing he wanted to do was freak out Tony Stark with sentimental stuff and get thrown out of his house for good.
Still, he would be able to see Tony the whole weekend and maybe get the occasional hug as well. He really couldn’t wait. His phone vibrated in his pocket, and he couldn’t suppress a smile. If he guessed correctly, it was Happy telling him that he was waiting for him down the street.
Finally, after what felt like a damned eternity, the school bell rang. With one big motion, he swiped his stuff off the table and into his backpack, quickly standing up. “Remember to do the exercises on page forty-three, students! I’ll see you next week”, Ms. Warren shouted over the bell, but chaos had already broken out.
Ned was slower than him at packing up his things and Peter shuffled impatiently on the spot. When Ned stood up as well, he threw him a confused side-eye. “What’s going on, dude? You look like you’re about to tail a villain into his lair. Wait, oh my god, are you? Who is it? Do they have alien tech? Do you need your guy in the-“
“Shut up, Ned! You’re too loud!”, Peter said, trying desperately to shush him. “And no, I’m not tailing a villain. I’m going to visit Mr. Stark over the whole weekend. I haven’t seen him in a while, so, I don’t know, I guess I’m just feeling a bit nervous.”
They made it to their lockers between hordes of other students and Peter almost snapped at a girl who shoved him a bit too hard out of the way. Ned seemed to notice and shot him another endlessly confused look. “Okaaaaay, but that doesn't explain why you’re so on edge, bro! Isn’t that a good thing? Spending time with your dad, who you missed?”
Peter’s head whipped around. “Ned, what the hell?”, he said in an octave he hadn’t known he could reach. “He’s not my dad, stop saying that.” He slammed his locker shut pointedly. Ned, to his credit, only rolled his eyes at Peter’s antics.
“You mean the man who makes you pancakes in the mornings and asks you if you did all your homework before watching Star Wars with you?”
“He only does that because I’m his intern and, you know, Spider-Man”, Peter hissed. “He doesn’t care about me like that.”
Ned didn’t look convinced. “If you say so. Have a nice weekend anyway, okay?”
Peter sighed, already feeling guilty about snapping at his best friend. “Yeah, you too. Love you, bro.”
Ned beamed at him and they did their special handshake. “Love you too, bro. See you!”
Peter watched him walk away for a second before spotting MJ in the distance and nodding to her in farewell. She waved back and that let a little smile grow on his face. Feeling a bit better, he made his way to the black Audi he knew was parked at the street corner.
“Hi, Happy”, he greeted Happy as he slid into the car.
“Hey, kid”, Happy grunted back and immediately merged into traffic to make the way back to Stark Tower. “How was school?”
“Hm, yeah, it was good, I guess”, Peter answered and stared out of the window. Even Happy’s unexpectedly enthusiastic greeting wasn’t making him feel any less nervous today. No matter how hard he tried to ignore his thoughts, they were too persistent.
He was worried that Tony had forgotten him in these three weeks. What if he had realized how annoying Peter was to have around now that he’d had a three-week long break from him? What if he dreaded coming back home knowing that Peter was intruding on it for days at a time? What if he was going to tell him that he didn’t want to see him any longer?
Peter wasn’t sure he’d be able to live without his dad anymore.
“Are you sure you’re alright?”, Happy said, interrupting his train of thought. Peter blinked, a bit disoriented after he’d already allowed himself to wallow in self-pity.
“Yeah, of course. Why do you ask?”
“You just seem a bit quiet today. Normally you’d be talking my ear off by now, especially after I haven’t seen you in a few weeks.”
Peter cringed. He did tend to ramble, he knew. It wasn’t often that he stopped to think about how annoying that was for others, though.
“Sorry. I’ll try not to do that anymore”, he mumbled. It would be best not to annoy Happy, one of Tony’s closest friends. If Happy stopped telling Tony how annoying Peter was, then maybe Tony could have more patience with him.
Happy frowned and looked at him through the rearview mirror; but didn’t say anything else. That gave Peter a nice chance of thinking up all the worst-case scenarios he could possibly imagine until they reached the tower and Happy parked the car. As always, he accompanied him to the private elevator for the residents of the tower.
Normally; Happy would just grunt at him and walk away, but today he awkwardly laid a hand on Peter’s shoulder. “Well”, Happy said and stared at him. Peter stared back, confused. They stared at each other for a second longer. “You know”, Happy finally explained and patted his shoulder once. Peter nodded, even though he did not know. Happy nodded back, seemingly satisfied with that.
The elevator doors closed and before Peter could puzzle over what had just happened, a bodyless voice toned through the enclosed space. “Welcome back, Peter. Boss is currently in his private lab on floor ninety-two. Do you want me to take you to him?”, FRIDAY said. Peter nervously smiled up at the security camera in the corner of the elevator and nodded. “Yes, please, FRI.”
When he finally stepped into Tony’s private lab, said man was bent over a drone that was currently half open, wires sticking out of it. Peter stopped for a second, just watching him mutter to himself and tucking at a wire frustratedly.
Even though he’d been nervous the whole day, suddenly, he felt peaceful. Just knowing that Tony was back home in one piece, healthy, and completely himself was good enough for now.
“Hi, Mr. Stark! What’re you doing?”, Peter greeted loudly and bounced up to one of his favorite people in the world who he had decidedly not missed like hell. Tony flinched, bumping hard against the working table and a screwdriver rolled off and onto the floor with a loud clang. Peter grinned.
“Fucking hell, kid, don’t surprise me like that! You know I have a heart condition.”
“Language, Mr. Stark.” Peter grinned playfully and finally stepped around a chair to stand directly before his mentor.
“Little shit. I’m away for three weeks and this is how my favorite intern greets me?”, Tony said before reaching out and tucking Peter in for a side hug. Peter couldn’t help the way he melted into Tony’s side.
“I’m your only intern”, he murmured into Tony’s shoulder, heartbeat settling and tension leaving his body as he smelled Tony’s cologne.
Tony hummed, a hand ruffling through Peter’s curls. “Well, my point still stands.” They stayed like that for a moment before Tony stepped back from the hug and guided Peter to the drone with a hand on his shoulder.
“So, how was school?”
“It was boring”, Peter immediately complained. “Ms. Warren – she’s my physics teacher, I don’t know if you remember her – is currently teaching us kinematics and she’s been explaining the basics for like two weeks already and you’d think by now even toddlers would understand what’s going on and even so, I’ve known about everything for ages because of Spider-Man, because could you imagine if I didn’t, and I was swinging around and just stopped thinking about it and crashed into a building, I mean not like that hasn’t happened before but you get what I mean, so I’ve been maybe zoning out a bit, like one does if one is bored, and now she threatened to talk to Aunt May because of it and that’s just so not fair, and I’m-“
“Woah, buddy, don’t forget to breathe, please”, Tony interrupted him with a chuckle. Peter snapped his mouth shut and tried not to let his disappointment with himself show on his face. He’d promised himself he’d stop being annoying and the literal first thing he did when he saw Tony again after an agonizing three weeks was just that – being annoying. He just felt so safe with Tony that he’d slipped back into his usual self without hesitation.
He would really have to change that. Soon. Before it might be too late.
“If you’re too bored in class, maybe I could get a professor from MIT to send you some coursework from their college curriculum, hm? You could do these in class instead and your teacher would be none the wiser”, Tony suggested, smiling at him.
Peter beamed at him. “You could do that? That’d be awesome!”
Tony waved a dismissing hand at him. “Of course I can do that, I’m Tony Stark. FRIDAY, be a dear and put that on my to-do list, would you?”
“Boss, you do not have a to-do list”, FRIDAY answered him. If Peter didn’t know any better, he’d say she sounded deadpan.
“Well then, start one.” Tony rolled his eyes at Peter, exasperated. Peter giggled. He’d missed this. “Anyway, I thought you could help me with a little project today. I’ve been making a new model of drones. They’re supposed to connect with an AI that is then able to control them remotely. But for some reason, they all steer into each other. I’ve already looked at the coding of the AI and it’s spotless, so there must be a mechanical problem somewhere, I just haven’t been able to find it yet.”
And with that, they both leaned over the drone together and started to work on it. They bounced ideas off each other and Peter lived for the way Tony’s eyes sparkled whenever he figured out a particularly complex problem that Tony threw at him to solve. It was always so easy with him. Tony explained all the new basics to Peter and then encouraged him to figure out the rest himself, helping him when he got stuck. And always praising him when he got it right.
Peter didn’t even realize how much time had gone by until Pepper Potts herself stuck her head through the door. “Hey boys, I already ordered dinner. Don’t be too long or I’ll have to eat it all by myself.” She walked through the lab towards them, a stack of papers in her hands. Peter smiled at her, happy to see her too.
“Hello, Ms. Pepper. It’s nice to see you again! I hope you’re well?”
She smiled back, endeared. “It’s good to see you too, Peter. I’ve been well, thank you for asking.”
“Stop distracting my intern, Ms. Potts”, Tony piped up, tone petulantly. His teasing smile belied his sharp words. Pepper rolled her eyes at him good-naturedly. Then she shook the papers in her hands at his face. “Here. These are the new business deals you still need to sign. I’ve already sorted through them, so you don’t have to do that anymore. Just give these back to me on Monday. Signed. Not empty like last time, Tony, I mean it.”
“Yes, yes, I got it. Just lay them down there. You know I don’t like being handed this stuff”, Tony said and nodded towards the other end of the long table that wasn’t clustered in tools. In the same breath he stretched his hand out towards Peter and said: “Give me that blue wire cutter, Roo.” Peter scrambled for the cutter immediately and did not catch the incredulous way Pepper shook her head. “Blatant favoritism. In my own house”, she mumbled under her breath and dropped the stack of papers where Tony had indicated.
When she reached the door again to exit the lab, she turned around one last time. “Don’t forget dinner! FRIDAY, please remind them when dinner arrives. I know they’ve already forgotten again.” Her exasperation at being ignored turned into soft fondness at the way Tony booped Peter’s nose with the back of a screwdriver, Peter’s nose crinkling promptly. She smiled. It had been hard on Tony to be away from Peter for so long. She was glad that they got to spend time together again. With that thought, she left them to their work, knowing she’d see them again in only a few minutes.
“Okay, Pete, I think we got it. What do you say we try a little test run, huh?”, Tony said eventually, sitting back and wiping a bead of sweat off his forehead. Peter nodded excitedly.
“How do we do that? Do we have to activate it with the AI you mentioned earlier?”
“You got it, squirt. The coding for it is open on the screen behind you. You wanna take a look at it?”
Tony trailed after Peter who rushed to the monitor. Smiling, Tony watched the kid for a moment, content to just let him nerd out. Peter’s happiness and enthusiasm was always infectious, and he’d missed it terribly while he was away in England. He was glad to be back home. Peter turned around to him with his big brown eyes and Tony followed him, starting to explain the thought process he’d had while coming up with the coding. Peter nodded along, brows creasing in thought.
“Mr. Stark, what about the line you included here? If you break down the function and add a parenthesis, you could compose it with the next function. You know, like currying it?”
Tony stared at the code for a moment longer and then down at Peter, who had started to fidget at his mentor’s silence. “I mean, I don’t know, maybe that’s stupid, just don’t listen to me Mr.-“
“No, kid, you’re absolutely right. I don’t know how I didn’t see it. Glad to have a little genius like you looking over my work. If we do that, then the code’s not only more efficient, but it would be less likely that-“
“- the program gets stuck and one of the drones flies out of place-“
“- and crashes into the others!”
Peter and Tony grin at each other, elated, when FRIDAY speaks up: “Boss, Mini-Boss, Ms. Potts has asked me to remind you that dinner has arrived. Please make your way upstairs before she, and I quote, ‘shuts the lab down for the rest of the weekend, for goodness’ sake’.” The last few words were a direct recording of Pepper’s voice. As if in answer, Peter’s stomach grumbled and he blushed. Tony frowned instead. “You were hungry? You know you’re supposed to tell me when you get this hungry, Mister. It’s important for you to eat enough with your metabolism. I really need to start stocking some snacks in here for you.”
“Sorry, Mr. Stark, I didn’t even realize I was hungry. Guess I was too distracted.”
“Then it’s a good thing we have Pepper. Remember kid, Pepper is-“
“- always right, Mr. Stark. I know”, Peter finished and nodded his head in grave understanding. Tony’s lips quirked up into a smile and he ruffled Peter’s hair. He should probably worry about how he could find a whole ass teenager this adorable.
When the elevator opened up to the penthouse and a delicious smell greeted them. Peter rushed into the kitchen with sparkling eyes. “Ohmigod, Ms. Pepper, did you order Thai?”
Pepper, who had been setting down food containers onto the table, turned around and opened her arms invitingly. Immediately, Peter skidded across the kitchen floor in his socks and hugged her. “Of course, Pete. I know it’s your favorite. And how I know Tony, you two haven’t eaten since you vanished down there hours ago.”
Tony had the decency to look sheepish as he sat down at the table. Pepper gently pushed Peter in the seat next to him and then sat down opposite them. Digging into his food, Peter listened to Tony and Pepper’s banter. He could see how much they loved each other in the way they talked and looked at each other, and it always made him feel warm inside. It reminded him of how dinners were when Uncle Ben was still alive.
Of course, he still loved having dinner with Aunt May, but there was just something special about being with Tony and Pepper.
After dinner, Tony told him to go to his room to change into his pajamas so they could all watch a movie together. Even though it was far from the first time that Peter slept at the tower, he was still astonished that he had somewhat of his own room. It was perfect, walls painted blue with superhero posters and pictures of his friends hung up at every surface. Recently, Tony had changed his bed sheets to Iron Man themed ones to tease him. Peter had made a show of groaning in annoyance and embarrassment, but he secretly loved it. Lightning fast, he changed into his pajamas and made his way back into the living room.
Pepper and Tony were already sitting cuddled together on the couch and talking with each other, smiling. Normally, Peter would go up to them and pout until they made space between them for him. He didn’t know how that started. Probably as a joke to annoy them, as most of these things had started, he thought. But today, he felt like such an idiot for ever doing something like that.
If he had a partner, he wouldn’t want a random kid to slide between them. Not even a kid, a teenager.
So Peter swallowed down whatever emotion tried to push to the surface and sat down beside Tony with a little gap, not wanting to appear too clingy. Tony and Pepper stopped talking at once and both turned to him with furrowed eyebrows.
“What?”, Peter asked into the sudden silence.
“Come on, kiddo, in the middle you go. What, are you trying to muddle up our sacred seating order?” Without waiting for an answer, Tony yanked at his arm, resulting in Peter sprawling over his lap with an indignant squawk. Pepper tried to hide her laughter behind her hand, but her shaking shoulders gave her away.
“Okay, okay, Mr. Stark, let me go”, Peter whined and tried to get up again while Tony teasingly pulled at the material of his shirt.
“We thought about watching Avatar, what do you say?”, Pepper asked him while Peter sat back onto the couch, now in between her and Tony.
Peter hummed in agreement. “Yeah, sounds good to me.”
“We can watch Star Wars again tomorrow, nerd”, Tony said while FRIDAY put on the movie.
Fully knowing that Tony was just trying to provoke him, he turned his head to him and stuck out his tongue. Tony gasped exaggeratedly and put his hand on his chest.
“Betrayed by my own kid!”
A wave of warmth washed through Peter. It felt suspiciously like love, and he bit his lip to eliminate the feeling. It wasn’t the first time Tony had said something like that, but he still knew not to interpret too much into it. It had always been said as a joke or with a teasing tone and Peter knew how to read a room.
All three of them settled down, Pepper throwing a light blanket over their legs and Tony putting a bag of chips into Peter’s hand.
They made it so easy to pretend they were something like his parents.
It didn’t take long for Peter’s eyelids to grow heavy. Being on edge the whole day, and then working in the lab with Tony for hours on end, had taken its toll on him. He tried to fight the fuzziness in his head but gave up soon enough.
Tony jumped slightly as Peter’s head suddenly plopped onto his shoulder. He looked down to see the kid’s eyes closed and his chest rising and falling in a slow, steady rhythm. Without thinking much about it, he raised his other arm to card his hand through Peter’s hair affectionately.
Pepper looked at him over Peter’s form and smiled knowingly. Tony raised an eyebrow at her, mouthing a “what?”, trying not to wake the sleeping teen. Pepper shook her head, but whispered: “You two look cute.”
Tony didn’t really know what to make of that, so he turned back to the TV to watch the rest of the movie, moving as little as possible. If Peter was this tired, he deserved as much sleep as possible. When the credits started rolling a while later, Tony stood up and gently shook Peter awake.
“Hey kiddo, you think you can get to your room on your own?”
As answer, Peter grumbled back at him unintelligible.
“Guess that’s a no”, Tony said quietly and squatted down, taking Peter into his arms. He grunted as he stood up again, his knees popping. “I’m too old for this”, he complained.
Pepper chuckled and stood up as well, brushing a few curls out of Peter’s face. Then she kissed Tony quickly. “I’ll clean up here and you bring the kid into bed.”
Tony smiled at her. “What would I do without you?”
Instead of answering, Pepper kissed him again and shooed him away. Tony walked to Peter’s room, opening the door with his elbow and carefully putting him onto his bed. Then he started tucking the blanket over him, making sure that he was warm and toasty for the night. When he was done, he hesitated. He knew he should leave now and let the kid sleep, but…
Trying not to think about it too much, he leaned down and kissed Peter’s brow.
“Love you, Dad”, his kid mumbled.
Tony immediately teared up. “Yeah, love you too, bambino. Sleep well.”
Peter was already asleep again, though, and Tony was certain he wouldn’t be able to remember this conversation in the morning. He sure as hell would, however.
He couldn’t wait to spend another day at home with his family.