close_to_the_ground | For Mr. Stark

For Mr. Stark - Construction

"Hey Mr. Stark!" Peter calls as he bounds into the apartment. It's construction day and painting day. Or something. Whatever, Peter's in clothes he doesn't mind ruining (that is all of his clothes, honestly) and a pair of sneakers and comes bearing chocolate croissants freshly baked by Greta. He knows Mr. Stark will bitch about the carbs but Peter knows he'll like them. Tony works way too hard not to let himself have something good. Besides, Peter more than owes him. He's responsible for Tony having to ruin a two million dollar suit, having to have his Porsche's interior redone, having to replace all his bedding again and not to mention how much all that medical equipment has to cost.

Anyway, Peter also realizes that with all the drama about The Gardener, Peter's not sure if Tony is taking care of his own health things. Once he'd felt like himself again, Peter couldn't shake that worry. He's not like Peter, he's not just gonna bounce back. Tony doesn't have a Tony to take care of him. He's just got Peter.

"I brought you some food."

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"That's okay," he says with a small shrug. "I mean, I don't want you to be unhappy but screwed up doesn't freak me out. I've had my dad die twice, my mom once and now I lost my other mom. And now I'm a mutant spider person on top of that."

He picks the brush back up and finishes a stripe on the bottom before he stands, kicking his shoes off so he doesnt get the ceiling dirty when he jumps.

"I think you're great."

"I know you think I'm great. That's what terrifies me," Tony admitted, but he put down the roller for a second to look up at Peter on the ceiling. Like Jessica, he always seemed at home up there. In a way that made Tony feel graceless even on the ground.

He leaned his chin on the roller handle.

"I think you're amazing, you know. That thing you do that makes you, you. That's spectacular. You're not a mutant spider person. You've got that ability for a reason."

Though saying so felt a little like a betrayal to Wanda, and Tony felt a little sick about it. But their relationship was a different one. Tony hadn't felt any fear about Bruce, didn't feel creeped out by Peter. But Wanda had gotten into his head.

Peter grins as he crawls to the nearest corner and points at Tony with his free hand.

"See? Crushing it. You're good at this. You're good at being a dad. Man, Mr. Stark, where I grew up? Like, so many kids didn't even have dads and the ones that were around were assholes. I could hear them four floors down yelling at their kids, saying all kinds of stuff. Beating the crap out of 'em. You need to be nicer to yourself."

Tony dropped his eyes, and went back to work. He knew he needed to be better at accepting a compliment, he'd used to never have a problem. But that felt like a once upon a time. Once upon a time, before Ultron.

His dad had been one of those dads. Always shouting, telling Tony what a disappointment he was when he payed any attention to his son at all. He'd never touched Tony, but he'd never needed to. He'd gotten his point across.

"I don't know that I would be if the situation was a little different, but please keep stroking my ego. And make sure you move in circles when you do the ceiling to avoid streaks."

"Won't it just make streaky circles?" Peter wonders, trying a circle and then frowning because that sure as hell doesn't look right.

He flips back down to the ground to reload his brush.

"So, do you have any idea on when we'll know if they're gonna let you have me? It'd be pretty shitty if you did all this and then you're stuck with an empty room and no office."

It's kind of all Peter can think about when he's not worrying about Tony's health, Beverly and patrol. He just wishes he knew, either way.

"It's fine. Trust me. It's what the website said to do, so we're doing it. And if you end up with circle streaks on your ceiling I hereby declare it not my problem, so."

Tony shrugged in exactly the most enraging way he knew.

"Doing all this, it looks good on my not-really-a-resume. Doing it by hand looks even better. It shows them I'm seriously committed and willing to put time aside for you. Which is something I needed to prove, of course, because I'm Tony Stark. Which seems unfair because when you have your own kid they just sort of let you keep it but whatever."

And wasn't that the real kick in the nuts.

"They said they have to make a decision by August 8th." He sighed and stared at the one white wall left.

"I want you to know I want this. I wasn't ready before. I wasn't ready after the ferry. But I'm ready now, I want this."

"Yeah, yeah I want this, too," Peter breathes, fiddling with his brush as he takes that in. He kind of hates how much he needs that reassurance but maybe it's an orphan thing. Maybe Mr. Stark gets that.

"I know I'm not supposed to care about that kind of thing, being a teenager. I know it's weird. But maybe those kids who don't care have parents. It's a really bad feeling to think no one wants you. Or like the ones that do keep leaving. Good thing we've got each other."

"Oh my god. Good thing we've got each other? That's -- you're making me regret it. You're making me regret it, Parker."

Tony gave a melodramatic eyeroll before putting roller to wall again, pressing the paint into the wall to grab that delicious even coverage. Painting, as it turned out, was a productive hobby, and something he didn't hate doing.

"Ugh, I'm gonna puke. Anyway, you've got people. Make sure they know you care. There's Jess and Bev right? Don't mess it up with them. Don't leave them for dead in Siberia or something."

Peter rolls his eyes and flicks paint at Tony's arm, jumping and sticking back to the ceiling.

"I take it back. All of it. You're the worst. And just so you know, I'm taking Beverly on a picnic tomorrow. Gonna make sandwiches or something and show her some stuff, now that she knows about the Spider thing," he mutters, making circles as instructed.

"You should have friends over too, you know. We could have a barbecue or something and invite your people. Like Karen and Wanda and Gwen and whoever."

"A picnic, really? What is this, date number three? Third date, third base."

Tony allowed himself an indulgent giggle, because there was absolutely no way Peter had gotten anywhere near that far yet except with himself in the privacy of his bedroom.

"Barbecue, yeah, that's, I don't know. I don't remember Whatever, though. Which one was she? She cute?"

Tony sobered up.

"Wanda and I. Maybe not right now. We need some time to cool down."

Peter glares as effectively as he can while upside down, ignoring that because Tony is very aware that Peter is still trotting to first

"I met Karen at Pride. She was nice, said she knew you. And wait, why can't we have Wanda over? I just saw her the other week and she was nice to me. Why are you fighting? Is it the floating prison thing?"

"Karen is very nice," Tony agreed, because that was an evident and easy truth.

The rest was far more difficult.

"No. Actually. We were fighting about you. Sort of. Really about other things, but you were the current excuse, I think."

Tony breathed in very slowly, let it out as a sigh.

"Listen, Pete. We need to talk about the Avengers."

"Me?" Peter wonders, dropping back down to the floor because this sounds bad.

"Shit, is she mad at me? She said, she said we were cool or is it because I'm moving in? Why would she care either way and, and I'm not even an Avenger. Is it because I was on your side in Germany?"

Oh crap, Peter thought they were cool. Wanda and Tony have both been here for a long time so Peter must have done something to make it bad, again.

"Hey. Hey. This isn't your fault." Tony wrapped his hands around Peter's shoulders. God, how were they going to clean all this paint? "It's not even about you."

"I had my reasons for signing the Accords. And I don't ... regret signing them. But I was wrong, a kind of wrong I can only see in hindsight."

Ross was a manipulative douchebag. They should have argued for a third option. They still had leverage then, they still had just enough leverage.

"But when I told you about Cap, when I said he was wrong, and he thought he was right, and that made him dangerous? That was true too. Both things can be true. But Pete, I did some things that week I'm not proud of. I hurt Wanda in a lot of ways, and seeing me, trying to be legally responsible for you, that drags up at least forty percent of those hurts for her."

Peter frowns, but most of this isn't new to him. He's thought about the Accords since then, thought about what Wanda told him when he got to Darrow.

"So she's still mad at you, I guess I get that but why would she care about you taking care of me? Like, she wanted you to be her, her...dad person?" he asks. "Or because she ended up in prison? Do you think you should have let her run away?"

"She wanted me to stop acting like I was. Like I knew what was best for her. And then I confined her to the compound without telling her. And told Vision to be on guard."

Tony let go and moved to grab an angular brush again for the details, now that he was done with the broad strokes of the roller.

"I don't think I should have let her go. That's ... hypocritical of me. But she wasn't even legally on US soil. Because we brought her here, but that hardly seemed to matter at the time. I just didn't want her to get hurt. I never want anyone at all to get hurt. But it wasn't my job to protect her."

You can't tell the difference between protecting the world and destroying it.

It hurt more now. Her words hurt more after what he'd seen.

"She doesn't want to see me hurt you."

Peter shoots a hand out, hand wrapping loosely around Tony's wrist.

"This situation is really different, Mr. Stark. She's wrong about you and me. I want you to be that person. I still need that. Maybe you messed up with her but you're not gonna mess up with me because we're looking out for each other," he insists, letting go.

"It's not all on just you. I'm almost sixteen, I can tie my own shoes. Once we get swimming down you're pratically done," he says with a huff of laughter.

"It is. It is ... really different."

Different than what Tony had been heading into. Different than where Tony had finally been. A place where he learned how wrong he'd been about so many things, and how right he'd been about the most important one.

He left the high tops and bottoms of the wall to Peter's much bendier knees and pressed paint into the corners with the hand brush. He could grab whatever needed touching up with a tiny brush tomorrow.

"She just thinks you should know. I'm just a person. A very, very handsome and well-dressed person, but a person. She wants me to be honest with you. That I make huge mistakes. And I do. Yelling at you, about the ferry. Taking the suit from you, it might have been a mistake. Anyway, point is, I probably don't need an excuse to piss anyone off just now. Ought to keep my head down."

He pressed his lips together.

"So if you take a break, if that's what you want. Maybe I should take a break, too."

"Yeah, well, the ferry is a pretty good example that I make mistakes, too," Peter points out as he gets back onto the ceiling.

"One time, Aunt May forgot to pick me up from school. I was like eight. So I tried to take the train home by myself and ended up in Jersey. So, I'm pretty sure all parents screw up. But maybe, maybe we take a break just until the court decides? Just so they can't pin anything on you. I mean, unless something big comes up?"

"That sounds ... very wise, Mr. Parker. It's a deal."

And it meant Tony might be able to steal more time with him. Every moment suddenly felt like something he didn't deserve with a person that half of his heart still didn't know what to do with the absence of. It was almost worse. Than if he'd have seen Peter go in some other way. But he'd just melted away, like some sick joke, becsuse Tony had failed him.

"There's some new stuff I'm thinking of trying out, anyway. Got a lot of tinkering to be doing. Had an idea for ... something interesting."

"Is it giving me and Verity free range over the 3D printer so I can make Tiny Stark a bunch of tiny friends?" he asks, finishing the last, top corner and dropping his legs down to hang from one hand.

"It's not like, vaccinations, is it?"

"No. It is ... not that." Tony gave Peter an eyeball, because seriously?

"It is way, way smaller. And way, way cooler. You ever heard of a nanofactory?"

Finished with his job, Tony tossed the brush in a five gallon bucket with the roller head in some paint thinner. He still ought to do more, but it could wait until he was clean.

"Yeah, yeah of course," Peter breathes, dropping down and dropping his brush a little more carefully on top of a paint can.

"Oh man, do you have one? Can you make stuff with it? Isn't that tech part of how Vision was made? Oh shit, you're not gonna do that again, are you?"

Like, Peter wants to be supportive, but making new people in the basement sounds like a bad idea.

"No? God, no, I am never doing that again."

Tony turned a little pale and let out a loud breath. He was never, ever doing that again. If he never saw another Infinity Stone in his life he would be happy. So of course, Strange had the Time Stone with him.

"And yeah, a little bit. Cho's tech had the makings of one, but it wasn't quite there. More like the 3D printer, but for things the size of large molecules. And Vision couldn't have been made without Vibranium as a part of the alloy."

Tony scratched his chin and looked at Peter with a tilted head.

"I think I can go smaller. I mean, I know I can go smaller, but I might be able to do it here. A nanofactory housing molecular assemblers. Something precise enough to reach an atomic scale. Maybe."

"Holy shit," Peter squeaks, bouncing on his toes like what the hell are they still doing up here painting?

"God, Mr. Stark, you really think you do it in a place as limited as this? I mean, kind of limited, I guess? There's magic here that didn't exist back home, different types but this is pure science. Can I watch you work? What are you thinking? The suit? Is that insane? Is that even possible?"

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