Chapter Text
“May just called,” Happy says. “She’s… quite angry.”
“Oh,” Tony says stupidly. He has climbed out of bed and pulled aside the curtain. It’s drizzling rain. Sharp sunlight peeks past purple clouds. He traces a raindrop with his finger as it slides down the window. He blinks, drawing in a slow breath.
“Apparently she caught Peter walking around his bedroom in the suit. Can you talk to her?”
“I… Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Definitely.”
“Tony, are you okay?”
“Yeah,” he says, sniffling, wiping his cheeks. “Yeah. Uhuh. Are you okay?”
“What the hell, Tony?”
Tony lifts his shirt to wipe his nose. “Hogan, honestly, where are your manners?”
“I’m coming over to check on you.”
“…Thanks.”
-
All right. Now that his actions have consequences again… what all did he do yesterday?
God. Thank Christ the kid had the good sense to say ‘no’ to becoming an Avenger.
He stands on the balcony under the overhang as the rain patters down gently, and calls May Parker.
“How dare you,” she rants as soon as she comes to the phone. “How dare you!” And she launches into a tirade, barely pausing enough for Tony to get a few apologies in. A tirade that includes listing all the prisons she thinks Tony should serve in, and all the worst qualities in the dictionary that somehow all fit him.
“I’m sorry.”
“You’re not. I don’t believe that for a moment. This means nothing to you. If Peter got hurt, it would just be collateral damage to you.”
“It wouldn’t.” Tony leans back against the door, the metal knob digging into his spine. “If Peter got hurt I’d go to fucking pieces over it, May. I just don’t know what the right way is, because if I protect him, that makes me responsible, but if I take that protection away he’s still going to go out there and just, just get himself hurt. If you can stop him, that wouldn’t even be such a—a bad thing, maybe. But I don’t know if you can.”
“I’m not going to stop him,” she says, sounding exhausted. “There’s no point. And I’m proud of him. I just want to be in the loop when it comes to my own damn family.”
“In the loop. Yeah. I’m sorry.”
“How am I supposed to know what the right thing is? I want to tell you to stay the hell away from him, but if that leaves my boy without back-up…”
“I want to do it together.” He pushes himself off the wall and starts walking around the balcony in a slow, meandering circle.
She sounds skeptical. “Why now? That didn’t occur to you until yesterday? Just because I found you out…”
“Yesterday is a while ago.”
She huffs. “You’re a piece of shit, Stark.”
“I know. I can be better.”
It’s quiet for a moment.
“You sound sincere,” she says, “but that’s the thing about you, Tony Stark. I’ve seen your press conferences. You can be perfectly charming when you want to be. To further your own agenda.”
“I’m not doing this for me. There’s nothing in it for me. Expect, perhaps, a bit more positive energy in my life.”
“Why do it, then?”
“Well. Your kid taught me superheroes are supposed to be kind.”
She is quiet again.
Tony wraps his arm around the pillar on the balcony corner and looks out across the jagged landscape of rooftops, rain blowing into his face. “Hey. Can I ask you about something else?”
“Absolutely not,” she snaps. But after a beat, begrudgingly: “Well, yes, I suppose.”
“Do you know if Peter is getting bullied at school? Some kid named Flash?”
She blows out a breath. “I’ve heard the name and had my concerns. But Peter is very… He tends to keep things from me if he thinks they’ll upset me.” Her voice turns wry. “Which is why I count on the adults involved to keep me abreast.”
Tony tries not to wince.
“I’ve talked to teachers a few times, but they say the same thing. That they notice tension but don’t see any outright bullying happening. Did he say something to you?”
“He let something slip, he probably doesn’t even remember.”
“Could you ask him for me sometime? Maybe he’ll talk to you more than me.”
Tony holds his breath.
“Hello?” she says.
“Oh—Yeah. Yes. I mean, sure.” Okay. She’s letting him talk to Peter. He isn’t going to ask are you sure. “I could pick him up from school?”
“We talked pretty much all night,” she says. “It was… rough. I gave him the day off school. He’s napping.”
“Can I drop by, later?”
“You’re pushing your luck.”
“That’s my expertise.”
He hears her teeth click together. “I’ll be there the whole time,” she warns.
“I’ll bring dinner.”
-
“FRIDAY. Remind me what day it is?”
“Tuesday, boss.”
What a lovely sound. Tuuuuesday. “Did I have anything scheduled anywhere this week?”
“All clear, boss.”
The leftovers of last night’s chili are in the fridge. There are wine glasses and empty beer bottles in the sink, half-empty bags of peanuts and chips left rolled shut. Right, that’s right. When you make a mess in the evening, you have to clean it up in the morning. That’s the normal way of life.
It takes a while to empty the dishwasher; it’s been so long since Tony did anything productive in this kitchen that he doesn’t remember where the bowls with the blue dots came from, or the measuring cup, or the— something metal with two handles and little holes that he doesn’t know the name of.
Happy walks in when he is standing next to an open drawer with a hand full of clean cutlery.
“Hi,” Tony says.
Happy crosses the room, walks right up to him, until he’s standing very close. He frowns as he scrutinizes Tony’s face. “Are you all right?”
“You know. I’ve been dying to know. What’s your blood type?”
“Tony.”
He looks down puts the forks with the forks and the spoons with the spoons. “Pepper kissed me.” Embarrassingly, he can feel his neck heat up.
Happy exhales in a way that almost sounds like a laugh. “Yes. I was there.”
It’s Tuesday, and Pepper kissed him yesterday, which means something today. “I can be a good boyfriend,” Tony says. “Don’t know if she’ll believe it.”
“It’s more important that you believe it.”
“Maybe.” He holds up the something metal with two handles and little holes that he doesn’t know the name of. “What’s that?”
“Garlic press. Did you talk about it? You and Pepper?”
“A little. I suggested we should sleep on it, that she might feel different—tomorrow. Which is today.” He chucks the garlic press next to the wine opener and closes the drawer.
“So you’ll talk more today,” Happy concludes, quite decisively. “Shall I drive you to the tower, later?”
He wants to hug Happy, but he doesn’t think it will go over well.
-
Tony talked to a woman once who had served eight years in prison. She said the first thing she did when she got out was buy bubblegum; she’d missed the flavor so much. Tony has been stuck, but he hasn’t particularly missed out on anything. He is not sure how to celebrate.
He sits on the balcony again, leaning against the railing and overlooking the city. It’s still raining, not much more than a drizzle, but it doesn’t take long for his shirt to get soaked through. Watching the rain is like watching fireworks when he was a little kid. That sense of wonder. “I’m okay,” he says when Rhodey opens the door with an inquiring expression. Tony wipes the droplets off his chin. “Just I wanted to feel the rain. I think I missed it.”
“I suppose Brazil is toasty, this time of year,” Rhodey agrees.
“Hm-hmm.”
Rhodey hobbles forward and sits. He wraps his hands around his knee to lift his right leg and stretches it out on one of the lower slats in the balcony guardrail. He breathes out, tracing his fingers along the edge of the metal brace. Rain patters against his shoe. “I don’t feel anything in that leg anyways,” Rhodey says when he catches Tony frowning at it.
“Doesn’t mean this is according to doctor’s orders, is it?”
“I forgot you were such a doctor-abiding citizen.”
“Hey. Have you been dating anyone, lately? Online or otherwise?”
Rhodey rears back a little, blinks at Tony, then frowns. “Have you been stalking me?”
Tony tucks his face against his arm to hide his smile. Rhodey’s frown deepens, but into one of those fake-angry glowers that really means he is just amused. He evades the question, though. “So, no Spider-Man, huh?”
“Not on our team,” Tony says. “I don’t know. I think we have to wait for him to invite us to his team. He’s the future.”
“Did you see the footage of the Coney Island plane crash?”
Tony lifts his head off his arms, gives a questioning glance.
“There’s some going around on news platforms. You can see what went down.”
Tony already heard what went down, twenty times at least. But Peter does seem like the type of kid who would downplay the gravity of a situation, both because he doesn’t want others to worry and because he genuinely doesn’t seem to think almost dying is a very big deal.
I think he kinda liked me, despite almost killing me, you know.
The footage unnerves him. Rhodey replays it about seven times. Hearing Peter talk about it, so blithely and brightly, does not compare to actually seeing it all go down in a flaming pit of hell. He turns away from Rhodey’s phone, tucks his face against his arm again. “Looks like I’m now officially mentoring a little kid who would probably walk straight into a burning building if he thought it would make someone’s day better.”
“He just needs a little encouragement.”
“Not sure if encouragement is the right word. He needs someone who will keep him just on the right side of sensible, and somehow I’m going to be that person. It’s Tuesday, and the universe is still a dumbass.”
Rhodey gives him the stupidest corniest look ever. “This is going to be so good for you.”
-
He’ll be dropping by the tower to talk to Pepper soon. And the Parkers are expecting him around dinnertime. He’s hopeful, nervous, dreading it, excited.
“Tea?” Wanda asks, drifting around him in the kitchen.
“No amount of tea is going to mentally prepare me for the rest of today.”
“Something stronger then.” She moves away but returns soon with a small paper bag that she had apparently hidden somewhere in Tony’s kitchen. “Sjokjajca,” she says, and tilts the bag to let a few round, marble-sized chocolates roll into Tony’s hand. They are soft, fudge-y; you can pinch them flat between your fingers. Tony leans back against the fridge and pops one in his mouth. The flavor is very strong, almost makes him sneeze. Maybe it’s a bubblegum-adjacent sort of experience. Wanda watches him. “Good?”
“It’s a cacao assault on the senses. I might be offended, haven’t decided yet.”
“I’m afraid they contain a quick-working magical poison to which only I have the antidote,” she says, very evenly. And then she sniggers. “That was a joke.” And pops one into her own mouth.
“You are a little scary, you know.” He rolls the rest of the chocolates around in his hand a bit before tossing them all into his mouth. He wipes his hands together and looks at her. “What kind of stuff can you do, anyways, what gobbledygook do you specialize in? Are magic potions an actual thing?”
“I wonder,” she says.
“Do you have a user manual, something?”
“It’s work in progress.”
“Is a bunny from a top hat within the realm of possibilities?” Peter had liked that, at the planetarium.
“I cannot create life.”
“I suppose that would be a lot,” Tony agrees.
“I can make something disappear. I can make people remember things they did not witness. I could make something disappear from reality and make everyone forget it was ever there.”
“Okay,” Tony says. “Don’t ever do that.”
“I’m quite good at card tricks.”
“I might allow that.”
She neatly folds over her packet of Sjokjajca. “I don’t think Tony Stark likes things that have a user manual.”
“Tony Stark prefers a challenge,” he agrees.
“Good,” she says brightly. “I thought you would.”
-
“Hello? I’m looking for a therapist who specializes in particularly lost cases?”
“Oh,” Grace says, sounding flustered. “Is this a crisis situation? Are you having thoughts about self-harm?”
“Christ, no. No. Everything’s fine, Grace. God.”
“Who is this?”
“Tony Stark. Can you pencil me in for 3 AM tomorrow? That was also a joke. Unless 3 AM works for you, in which case it also works for me.” Lordy. This is now going to forever be her first impression of him.
“I can do 3 AM,” she says. “Or two fifteen in the afternoon.”
“At your office?”
“When the client is famous, I exclusively do home visits,” she says, and then clarifies, “that was a joke.”
Tony laughs.
-
He brings Pepper the finest grapes he can find on a Tuesday afternoon. Organic, hand-picked, in a little wicker basket.
The door to her office is open. She is in an online meeting, headphones on, but she waves him in. He takes the swivel chair, holding the basket of grapes in his lap. The stacks of files on her desk are gone. He sits and listens to her side of the conversation, something about … a new damage control policy … preservation of Chitauri technology. And he thanks his lucky starts that it is not up to him—that it was never up to him to decide who she falls in love with.
Tuesday. Tuuuuuesday.
He smiles down at his knees. He might be losing his mind all over again. It’s good, though. Nothing wrong with losing your mind now and then, separating yourself from all rational thought, jumping into that chasm and then slowly reeling yourself back in.
“Are you all right?”
He looks up. Pepper has taken off her headphones and laid them to one side. She is watching him.
“I just really love Tuesdays.” He sets the basket on her desk and slides it closer to her. “Go out to dinner with me, Ms. Potts,” he says. “We’ll put the reservations on your last name.”
She says yes.
-
He considered going past the shoe store to buy a pair of light-up shoes; he knows exactly which ones Peter liked the most. But it might come across as an attempt to buy their goodwill so he sets the idea aside for a later date.
A later date.
He’ll have time to buy shoes for Peter, and Peter will get to wear them. They’ll pinch a little at first, but they’ll stretch with wear, the way shoes are supposed to.
So in the end, he simply turns up at May Parker’s apartment with a white paper bag full of take-away sushi. She opens the door until it bounces against the door chain. Her gaze is surprisingly neutral. It has been almost twenty-four hours since she found out. She may have moved past the kick-you-out-of-my-car stage. Tony has never gotten this far before.
He takes off his sunglasses. “How is Peter?”
“Catching up on his schoolwork. And currently eavesdropping, most likely.”
“I’m sorry,” he says again, for good measure.
She sighs, her hand twisting around the doorknob. “Ms. Potts called me this morning. We talked for a while.”
“Oh. She didn’t say.”
“And Mr. Hogan called me this afternoon. We talked for a while, too.”
“And they painted me in a flattering light, did they?”
“I wouldn’t say that,” she starts, but then doesn’t continue, the words just hang in the air for a bit.
“Do you like avocados?” Tony asks.
“Hang on.” The door shuts. The chain rattles. The door opens wider. Tony steps inside and follows her down a narrow hallway into the living room.
Peter sits at the table, assignments scattered around him. He warily looks up at his aunt, leg bouncing up and down under the tale. He’s wearing the Hello Kitty pajamas. That wasn’t exactly Tony’s finest mentoring moment. It’s strange that the kid would even want to hold on to those.
“I didn’t eavesdrop,” Peter says, focusing his attention back on the compass in his hands. He hasn’t made eye contact with Tony yet. He has clearly had one hell of a day.
May huffs.
She caught Peter walking around his bedroom in the suit. That means the kid tried it on; that he was happy to have it. Tony approaches the table and sets the paper bag down, watches the kid sit there with his shoulders hiked up to his ears and attempt to draw a perfect circle. He isn’t sure how to reassure Peter in a way that won’t ruffle May’s feathers so he stands there, vacillating, and Peter speaks up first, in a low voice, miserably: “I’m so sorry about this, Mr. Stark.”
May huffs, louder, and turns away.
“Yes, your aunt berated me rather mercilessly,” Tony agrees. He dares to pull out a chair and sit. May is opening and shutting kitchen cupboards with quite a lot of force.
“I wasn’t careful enough,” Peter says, still low.
“That just shows that you’re only sorry you got caught,” May says from the kitchen, loudly, in a tone of voice like this isn’t her first time today saying it.
“Well I am,” Peter says, flicking the compass away, folding his arms on top of the table and burying his face in them. “I am sorry I got caught, the suit was awesome, and now everything is going to get messed up.”
“It’s not messed up, kid,” Tony says. “We just all have to get on the same page. And your aunt is responsible for you, so she has to be calling the shots, but I can work with whatever.”
May returns to the table with plates. “Move your stuff, Peter,” she says, not unkindly. “Let’s eat.”
Peter swipes everything together and dumps it under his chair, his face still tight. Tony tears the paper bag open and pulls the trays of sushi out. The tension is still palpable as they distribute the food around, start tucking in.
“All right,” May says, spearing some pickled radishes on her chopstick, and she starts on her list of demands and stipulations about check-ins, curfews, and safety measures. Peter slouches lower and lower in his seat as she speaks.
“Can we get on the same page about all that?” May asks, looking at him across the table. Her voice is even, she is calm, watchful.
Peter picks individual rice grains out of his sushi, scowling so heavily that his face looks ready to cave in. He has no reason to assume that Tony would be in any way willing to comply, to play things by May’s book. He’s probably expecting to be dropped like a hot potato. If it were last Sunday, Tony would have. He would have laughed in May’s face, slid on his sunglasses and waltzed out.
“I’d need to take the suit back with me,” he says, “to make few more adjustments, get everything set up the way you want it to be.”
“Yes…?”
“I can color inside the lines.”
May gives him a long, searching look. “Can you?”
“Not always. But for Peter, yes.”
Peter goes bright red, from his neck to the roots of his hair.
“What do you think, Pete?” Tony asks him. “Can you work with everything we’ve discussed so far?”
Peter nods jerkily, his head going in a sort of swaying, circular motion. He still doesn’t look at anyone. He pokes a hole in a piece of avocado with his chopstick. When Tony looks back at May, she is almost smiling. “One last thing,” she says.
“Uh-huh?”
“Your employee, Mr. Hogan, pulled my kid out of school yesterday before his classes had ended, for no apparent reason. Don’t ever let me hear about you pulling something like that again.”
“Yes ma’am.”
“He was hiding in the bathrooms,” Peter says. He’s still looking down at his sushi, but he’s smiling.
“Huh. I mean. I told him to, but...”
“Mr. Stark. A grown-ass man hiding in the bathrooms of a high school,” (“language!” May chides) “that’s like, how people get arrested.”
“It was semi-metaphorical, didn’t think he’d actually do it.”
Peter finally looks up at him. It’s a bit of a scrutinizing look and Tony feels the strange need to hold himself perfectly still, as if he has come across a wild deer in the forest that might run at the slightest movement, as if he needs to project not a threat not a threat not a threat with every fiber of his being.
Peter rolls his chopstick between his fingers as he observes Tony. “Do you want to play Octodad on my PS4?” he asks.
That question startles a laugh out of Tony.
“Na-ah. You two are doing the dishes,” May says, throwing her napkin down on her plate. “Because you’re both in the doghouse.”
So Tony and Peter do the dishes while May stretches out on the couch, feet up on the arm rest, and plays Octodad. Peter has to explain to Tony how to do it, glassware first, let the cutlery soak, it’s been a while. Peter washes and Tony dries. When they finish up, they join May on the couch. Tony is terrible at the game — Honestly doesn’t understand how people do this to relax.
“You play like Peter,” May says.
“How’s that?”
“As if any of it actually matters.”
“Excuse me,” Peter says, slamming the buttons. “But I’m trying to avoid getting cooked up by chef Fujimoto. This is life or death, May.”
They pause the game so May can grab the trail mix, and Tony uses that moment of reprieve from the insanity to reflect on the fact that he is actually here, playing video games in this apartment, and that May Parker’s capacity for forgiveness is a little bit intimidating.
Tuuuuesday.
“Hey,” he says softly. Peter tilts his head a little to indicate he is listening, his cheek pressed against the back of the couch. “I finally saw the footage of Coney Island. What were you thinking?”
“I was thinking we probably wouldn’t crash. Actually I wasn’t, uh… you know how you sometimes just operate on that part of your brain that was, like, originally reserved for hunting woolly mammoths?”
“That’s an exceedingly verbose way to say ‘I was a fucking dumbass’.”
Peter laughs. He rolls his head to the side to smile at Tony. “You know, Mr. Stark. I thought you were gonna be way more upset about all this.”
“It’s been a long day,” Tony says.