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Rhodey hadn’t seen his best friend in five months.
It had been a long five months. The military kept jerking him around, sending him all over the place. It felt like he hadn’t had a moment to breathe in those five months, so he was relieved to finally have secured himself some much needed R&R.
Really, he was about ready to retire, if he was being honest. But he knew after two weeks of leave, he’d start to miss it.
That’s how it always went.
Probably because Tony would drive him up the wall, most likely. That was their usual pattern.
Rhodey didn’t warn Tony he got the leave this time. He’d contacted FRIDAY to ask if Tony was in the city, and received back an affirmative that Tony was in the penthouse. It took a few more back and forths with the AI to convince her not to warn Tony he was coming.
So Rhodey found himself flying to Stark Tower and landing on the deck outside Tony’s penthouse that sunny Tuesday afternoon. It was right at 5 o’clock, so he expected Tony to still be in the lab, and Pepper to probably be down in her office, working.
Hopefully FRIDAY would keep her side of the bargain and not warn anyone he was there. One thing that would make Rhodey’s day was scaring the crap out of Tony once he finally came upstairs.
But all hopes of that went right out the window when Rhodey stepped inside the penthouse and found a teenager looking up at him, eyes wide, with a starstruck little ‘oh’ expression on his face.
Rhodey paused just inside the doorway and blinked at the random kid lying on the floor of Tony Stark’s living room. There was a textbook laid open on the ground in front of him and a handful of worksheets and handwritten notes scattered around. He had a pencil in hand, halfway through scratching out an equation in his notebook.
There was a teenager doing homework on the floor of Tony Stark’s apartment.
“Whoa,” the kid said, as a small grin slowly took over his face. The face that looked remarkably like Tony’s did… all those years ago, when Rhodey met him at MIT.
“Hey,” Rhodey said, as he stepped further inside and let the glass door shut behind him. He pointed at the kid and asked, “Who are you?”
“Wow,” the kid said as he dropped his pencil and shifted to a sitting position. “I’m Peter, hi. You’re War Machine, that’s so cool.”
Rhodey smiled. “Iron Patriot, actually,” he said. “Where’s, uh…” Rhodey looked around the empty penthouse.
If this kid, who looked like Tony, was alone in Tony’s penthouse, then there was really only one explanation here…
“My dad?” Peter said, tilting his head.
And, yep. Had Rhodey not already thought that, he would have choked on his own spit.
The mere idea Tony Stark was a dad was something else.
Mind-blowing.
How long had Tony known about this? And why hadn’t he told Rhodey??
“Tony?” Peter said after a beat, frowning slightly.
Rhodey shook his head and refocused on the kid in front of him. “Yeah, Tony. I was hoping to jump scare him. He didn’t know I was coming by.”
Peter grinned. “You could totally still do that. He ran downstairs to sign a paper for Miss Pepper.” Peter gestured for the couch behind him. “Lie on the couch where he can’t see you from the elevator, and I’ll pretend you aren’t here.”
“Diabolical,” Rhodey said. He crossed the room, careful to walk around Peter’s scattered homework, and collapsed down onto the couch. He crossed his arms and watched as Peter retook his position lying on the ground in front of his homework.
“Iron Patriot is a dumb name, by the way,” Peter said, his feet kicking in the air as he started scribbling in his notebook again.
Rhodey rolled his eyes. “The military thinks calling it War Machine is bad optics.”
“The military is bad optics in general,” Peter said chipperly. “You should quit and just be an Avenger.”
Rhodey snorted. “You’re Tony’s son, all right.”
Peter looked over and shot Rhodey and look he’d seen on Tony’s face a million times. It was half amused, half exasperated. Before Rhodey could even process that, Peter perked up and announced, “He’s coming,” before burying his face back into his notebook.
Rhodey sank down into the couch and tried to make himself as quiet as possible, as he just watched the kid focus on his physics. The work was a little advanced, compared to what Rhodey would expect a high schooler to be working on.
Though he didn’t actually know how old Peter was.
The elevator dinged open a moment later. “How’s that homework coming, kid?” Tony called out as he walked into the room. Rhodey could hear him move over toward the kitchen, still out of Rhodey’s sight.
“Fine,” Peter said. “I’ve just got a few more questions to do.”
“Uh huh,” Tony said in an unamused tone. “And then the calculus.”
“Ugh, Dad,” Peter complained, dropping his head down into his notebook. “I can do the calculus during lunch tomorrow. It’s my last period.”
“Nope, you can do it now,” Tony said with a laugh. Rhodey heard a can crack open and hiss, and before Rhodey could wonder what on earth he was drinking in front of his kid, Tony asked, “Want a Sprite?”
“Dr. Pepper,” Peter said, lifting his head up to keep working on his homework.
“Of course, your majesty,” Tony said. The fridge door opened again, and another can clinked onto the marble counter. “Pepper has some business thing tonight, so it’ll just be us for dinner.”
Peter’s eyes flitted to Rhodey as he smirked. “I doubt that,” he muttered, looking back down at his homework.
Rhodey smiled.
“What?” Tony asked. “What does that mean? What?”
“Nothing,” Peter said in a sing-song voice.
“No, no, tell me what that means,” Tony exclaimed. “What do you doubt? Pepper’s story?”
“Probably the being alone thing,” Rhodey said as he sat up.
Tony jumped sky high and dropped his can of Sprite right onto the counter in a loud clatter. “Holy f—” he started, only to snap his mouth shut, eyes darting to Peter. He scrambled to right his can of soda, then scowled over at Rhodey. “Rhodes, what the heck was that? What are you doing here?”
“I have a better question,” Rhodey said, pushing himself to his feet. “Why the heck haven’t I been introduced to my nephew yet?”
“You’ve been deployed,” Tony exclaimed. “I was going to tell you as soon as you were stateside.”
“I still get emails while in theater,” Rhodey shot back, as he crossed the room.
“This wasn’t an email type of update,” Tony snapped, but he opened his arms easily and gave Rhodey a hug when he approached. “Screw you for spilling my Sprite.”
Rhodey clapped Tony on the back and stepped back. “Oh boo-hoo, I’m sure you’ve got a dozen more in the fridge.”
“That’s beside the point,” Tony huffed. “You know how much these things cost now? It’s insane. Might as well be buying liquid gold.”
“Sprite costs nowhere near what gold costs,” Peter scoffed as he jumped to his feet.
“He’s a billionaire,” Rhodey said to Peter. “He probably thinks bananas cost ten dollars, too.”
“Harr harr, we watched that stupid show together, asshole,” Tony said. “I’m just saying a dozen of these things cost eleven bucks now.”
Peter grabbed the can of Dr. Pepper off the counter and cracked it open as he said, “And gold costs like $4,500 an ounce so….”
“Why do you know that?” Tony demanded.
“I watch YouTube,” Peter exclaimed.
Tony shot Peter an exasperated look before he turned back to Rhodey and said, “Anyway. Peter, this is my best friend James Rhodes. Rhodey, this is Peter. There, introduced.”
“It’s nice to officially meet you,” Rhodey said, extending a hand out. Peter took it eagerly and shook firmly. “Nice grip, kid. You can call me Rhodey.”
“It’s nice to meet you, too,” Peter said enthusiastically. “I was serious. You should change your name back to War Machine.”
Tony snorted and quickly covered it up by rubbing his hand across his mouth.
“He’s a carbon copy of you, it’s insane,” Rhodey said. “Where’d you find him?”
“In Queens somewhere,” Tony replied. “Why don’t we go down to the lab so I can check on your leg braces while Peter here finishes his homework.”
“Aw, come on,” Peter complained. “I can do my homework later.”
“No, you can do it right now,” Tony said firmly, pointing his finger at the kid. “May has literally two rules for you while you’re here: you’re inside by 9:30, and your homework gets done before anything else. So do your homework.”
“Can I bring it with me to the lab?” Peter asked. He looked up at Tony with the biggest puppy dog eyes Rhodey had ever seen.
Tony immediately held a hand in front of Peter’s face, as if blocking his view of Peter’s eyes. “Don’t point those things at me. I know a trap when I see it. Go do your homework in the living room, I bet it’ll take you half an hour at most, then the three of us can go out for dinner.”
“No fair,” Peter grumbled, but he moved back over to the living room and collapsed back down on the ground, setting his Dr. Pepper on the ground next to him.
“Kids,” Tony huffed, though Rhodey could hear the underlying affection in his tone.
Who was this man, and what had he done with the Tony Stark Rhodey knew?
“Come on, Platypus, let’s check those braces out,” Tony said after a moment, grabbing onto Rhodey’s arm and dragging him toward the elevator.
Rhodey laughed. “They’re fine. The left one squeaks a little, but they’re working great.”
“Hmmmmm,” Tony hummed as he pulled Rhodey onto the elevator. “I’ll be the judge of that.”
Once the elevator doors shut, Rhodey turned to Tony and asked, “Seriously, Tony, where did this kid come from?”
Tony held up a single finger, telling Rhodey to wait. So Rhodey just sighed and waited for the elevator to go down ten floors to where Tony’s workshop was, then followed him through the locked doors.
“FRI, turn on the no eavesdropping spider protocol,” Tony said as he sat down in one of his rolling stools and slid across to a table. He pat on the table and said, “Up, up, let me see.”
“Eavesdropping spider?” Rhodey asked as he picked a comfortable-looking desk chair to sit in. He was not sitting up on the table for Tony to look at his braces while they were on.
“Pete has remarkable hearing,” Tony explained. “I set FRIDAY up to cancel out all sound in here so he can’t hear from outside the room when I need privacy from him.”
“Okay,” Rhodey said slowly. He focused on unclasping the braces and pulling them off his legs before he finally asked, “But, why spider?”
Tony clapped his hands together. “Okay, we gotta back up then. Where did I find him? Remember how I went to recruit Spider-Man?”
“Yeah, and he turned you down.”
“Yep, he sure did, because apparently I’m a deadbeat dad,” Tony said. His tone made it sound like he was completely aloof, unconcerned about the entire thing. But Rhodey could tell from just the slight pinch of his eyes that this was something that bothered him greatly.
Tony Stark was great at seeming unbothered, when really he was dying inside.
Rhodey furrowed his brow. “So… are you saying you’re Spider-Man’s dad? Peter is Spider-Man?”
“Yep. Sure am, sure is,” Tony said, still in the same faux unbothered tone. “One of my flings got pregnant and didn’t have my number, so she emailed me, but that was when Stane was managing my emails.”
“Oh shit,” Rhodey said. “And he wanted your damn company…”
So, it would follow he’d just decide to not let Tony know about a potential heir…
“Yeah,” Tony said. His face turned outright sour as he grumbled, “Missed out on fifteen years because of that asshole.”
Tony averted his gaze, so Rhodey took a minute to get the braces the rest of the way off. He pushed his rolling chair closer to Tony, and set the braces up on the table in front of him.
When Tony looked back at him, there was a haunted expression on his face.
“But he’s here now,” Rhodey said softly, setting a hand on Tony’s shoulder. He squeezed, then let go and sat back. “You two seem to get along well.”
“Yeah.” Tony smiled slightly. “I basically begged his aunt to give me a chance, but she said it was up to him.” He paused, the smile slipping off his face. “I don’t know why he gave me a shot. I messed up our first meeting pretty spectacularly.”
“Couldn’t have been that bad,” Rhodey said reassuringly. “He seems pretty happy now.”
Tony nodded. “I didn’t know he was my kid when I first met him, right? So I might have implied that I only cared now because he had powers.”
Oh shit, Rhodey thought.
He sat back in his seat and just stared at Tony for a solid few seconds.
“I know, I know,” Tony said quickly. He took a deep breath, then whispered, “That was probably the worst thing I’ve ever said in my life.”
Rhodey grimaced. For Tony to say something like that…
“But he seems to have forgiven you,” Rhodey tried. The kid he’d met upstairs seemed to adore Tony.
Tony shrugged. “I don’t know, actually. We don’t talk about Spider-Man or powers.”
“You don’t?” Rhodey said, blinking.
That seemed like a pretty big elephant to be ignoring.
“Not yet,” Tony said with another shrug. “I mean, he is Spider-Man, and I made him a suit with safety features and everything. I’ve even repaired the suit once already, but, uh, we just simply don’t talk about it. Peter made it pretty clear he didn’t want this to be about Spider-Man, so… it’s not.”
Rhodey just watched as Tony sat up and finally pulled the braces closer to himself so he could plug a USB cord into them.
“So…” Rhodey said slowly, as Tony hunched over his display and started sifting through code. “That comment about being inside by 9:30, is that a Spider-Man thing?” Because that was quite a strange way to say curfew.
“Yeah, his aunt’s rules. She doesn’t want him out as Spider-Man much past dark in general, but if he’s running past 9:30 he has to call either her or me and explain why.”
“His aunt?” Rhodey asked.
Did he want to know?
“His guardian,” Tony said with another shrug, this one a little more stilted than the last. “His mother and stepfather died when he was five.”
Rhodey took a deep breath.
Had Tony known about Peter, and been involved… that meant he would have had full custody. Since Peter was five.
This child would have grown up with Tony.
He couldn’t help but wonder… would that have been a good thing? Would it have changed Tony? Would he have matured sooner?
Or… would he have been a negative influence on the kid…
“She’s pretty great,” Tony said, smiling softly. “Really loves him.”
“I’m glad,” Rhodey said. Had Tony known, Peter likely wouldn’t have had that sort of relationship with this woman. May, he was pretty sure Tony had called her.
So perhaps it wasn’t worth speculating over. It was good Peter had more people.
“Tonight is his fifth time spending the night,” Tony said. “He hasn’t gone out as Spider-Man yet while staying the night. He goes out after school on days he doesn’t come here, and during the day on the weekends.”
“But you don’t talk about it,” Rhodey said with a huff.
It so figured Tony would be keeping track of all that, anyway.
“No. His suit sends me a report on his activity.” Tony squinted at the code on his screen. “Are these stable enough while running?”
Rhodey laughed. “Yeah, they’re fine, Tones. I have no complaints other than the squeaking.”
Tony rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah, that’s just grease. This here says there’s a bit of a delay in adjusting when you pivot at high speeds, and the joints have buckled a few times as a result.”
“I don’t run often outside the suit,” Rhodey said with a shrug. “It doesn’t really matter. And it just feels like a knee giving out for a second. I haven’t fallen.”
“Sure, fine, but when you do run, your knee shouldn’t be giving out,” Tony scoffed, as he started tapping at his keyboard.
“I’m not playing tennis,” Rhodey said. “I rarely pivot quickly while running.”
“A second ago you said you don’t run,” Tony shot back. “You go to war, Rhodes, your equipment should be in tip-top shape.”
Tony and Rhodey both startled when someone knocked at the workshop door. They both turned and looked over to see Peter standing there, scowling at Tony through the glass.
“FRI, open the door,” Tony said. The door clicked open, and before Peter stepped inside, Tony said, “There is no way you’re done.”
“The eavesdropping spider protocol,” Peter exclaimed as he stomped into the room. “What is that?”
“Well, considering you heard what it’s called, it was warranted,” Tony said dryly. “Homework?”
Peter scrunched his nose up at Tony, then slapped a folder down in front of him. “Homework is done. Even calculus.”
Tony picked the folder up and flipped through it. “You didn’t even show your work.”
“I didn’t have to,” Peter said haughtily. “Read the instructions on the worksheet.”
“That makes no sense, kid,” Tony scoffed. But he read the instructions, as a look of pure outrage took over. “What kind of class is this? How does your teacher know you didn’t just use AI to answer these if you don’t show your work?”
“You’re just mad I interrupted your gossip session,” Peter said, crossing his arms.
Tony rolled his eyes as he passed the folder back to Peter. “No one was gossiping.”
“Your dad was just telling me about how much he likes you,” Rhodey said.
“He’s not an idiot,” Tony said dryly.
“Oh, so you’re saying you told him you don’t like me?” Peter said, but Rhodey could see the mischievous little smile he was shooting Tony.
This kid was a little shit, just like his dad had been back in the day.
Tony spluttered, but when he looked up and saw Peter’s face, he scowled. “Oh, I see how it is. I’m emailing your teacher about how stupid that homework assignment was.”
“No, Dad, don’t,” Peter complained, shoulders slumping. “Calculus is so boring. I know how to do derivatives. I don’t need another worksheet to prove it.”
“Worksheets are just busy work, anyway,” Rhodey offered.
Peter perked up. “Yeah! A total waste of time.”
“Uh huh. Practicing is a waste of time, sure,” Tony said absently, already losing himself in the coding again.
Peter seemed to notice, because he leaned over Tony’s shoulder and started looking at it, himself. “Are you trying to make the transition from one side to the other at high speeds smoother?”
Tony nodded. “Got any ideas?”
“Maybe have the two hydraulic joints operate a few milliseconds apart from each other?” Peter said.
Rhodey watched Peter point at the screen, Tony lean closer, and the two of them immediately disappear into a conversation about hydraulics.
All he could do was sit there and just watch them. Watch the way Peter’s brow pinched in concentration, a perfect mirror of Tony’s expression. Peter was leaning over Tony’s shoulder, his arm actually resting on Tony, as he watched Tony write lines of code.
And Tony was just sitting there, tapping away at his keyboard, completely relaxed. Like he didn’t even notice how much Peter was leaning against him.
They stayed like that for a good ten minutes, bouncing ideas back and forth, as they tweaked and tweaked until Tony was satisfied.
“One of the joints needs grease,” Tony said as he started installing the new code onto the brace hardware. “Go grab a T4 and the PTFE.”
“On it,” Peter said, as he jumped across the room and opened a couple of drawers. He bounced back to Tony’s side and held both items out to him.
Tony took both of them without so much as a flinch.
Because, apparently, Peter was one of the people who could hand Tony stuff, now.
It had taken years for Rhodey to become someone Tony trusted that inherently.
But in a few short months, this kid had wormed his way into this place by Tony’s side. Rhodey could see it.
He didn’t know if Tony would have been good for Peter for the first fifteen years of his life, but Rhodey did know that Peter was clearly good for Tony now.
And based on the pure, unfiltered happiness shining on Peter’s face every time Tony offered the kid praise for his work… Rhodey would hazard Tony was good for him, now, too.
This was not what Rhodey was expecting to find upon visiting New York for his R&R.
He might just have to extend his vacation, if only to see more of this side of Tony…