For Mr. Stark - Construction

[close_to_the_ground]

"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."

Comments

[ahollowman]

"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."

[close_to_the_ground]

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?"

[ahollowman]

"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."

[close_to_the_ground]

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.

[ahollowman]

"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."

[close_to_the_ground]

"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?"

[ahollowman]

"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."

[close_to_the_ground]

"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?"

[ahollowman]

"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.

[close_to_the_ground]

"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.

[ahollowman]

"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."

[close_to_the_ground]

"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?"

[ahollowman]

"Oh, believe me, that magic existed at home. It was just hiding in an old brownstone in ... Greenwich Village."

Tony snorted and began rolling up the dropcloth, starting at the doorway and working toward the window after slipping off his shoes and socks.

"I know it's possible, because I already did it. At home. It's just expense I'm worried about. I had ... a lot more resources then. It could take a while. But then we'll have it, here, when the big one comes."

[close_to_the_ground]

"Back home what were you making with it? Was it a new suit prototype? God, how would that even work with the mechanics involved and hey, wait wait," he huffs, kicking off his own shoes and taking off the hat to try and muss his sweaty, mop of hair.

"What big one? Like, the Chitauri? Is that supposed to happen again? But you closed the portal. Do you know something?"

[ahollowman]

Tony packed the rolled up drop cloth into a spare bag he'd brought with him and picked it and the paint can up to move them to a broken down cardboard box he had sitting in the foyer by the elevator and incinerator chute.

He let Peter's questions wash over him with the unusual patience he stored just for him, only answering when he was done.

"First if all, don't ... don't say Chitauri, it really makes me freak out. Seriously."

He warned again, with a slightly too-intense look over his shoulder. He'd been better about it for a time, but that was before he'd been forced to watch every fucking nightmare he had come true.

"And I know a lot of things. I even know a lot of things you don't know. And guess what? Don't feel that compelled to share them. Sorry for your luck today."

All that for a drop of blood.

[close_to_the_ground]

Peter nods, equally serious, as he stores that away. No chitauri. Got it.

"Hey, hey but if there is a big bad coming, I need to know, right? Does Dr. Strange know? Can he tell me? If I know then maybe I can help you get ready. I can help you with the nanofactory and whatever you want to build with it."

[ahollowman]

"If there is an immediate Big Bad with an actual name, maybe. Maybe you should know. But this is Darrow and we have no way of knowing what's coming next, except that something is, eventually, going to come."

Tony dropped off the paint cans on their designated area and regretted for only a minute doing the remodel himself. God, he loved making a mess, but he hated cleaning up.

He gave Peter's shoulder a grip.

"But when you need to know, you'll know. And don't bother the Doc, okay? He's got his work cut out for him, he thinks if he just throws enough shit at the wall, eventually something's going to be able to get us back home. And he's a wizard, so who am I to argue?"

Tony reconsidered. Who was he to argue? Fucking Tony Stark. Except he would lose, so: "On second thought, bother him to your heart's content. He called me a mean name."

[close_to_the_ground]

Peter rolls his eyes but he doesn't argue but he doesn't promise anything, either. It's not a lie if he doesn't promise anything. Maybe.

"Do you think if we did go back home, that you would go to the future since you remembered stuff and I'd go back to that crashing plane? That'd suck. I mean, the Tony back home wouldn't be you, you know? You'd be in the future, doing future stuff with a different me."

[ahollowman]

"Do you really want me to answer that?"

He looked at Peter with a regretful expression. Tony had no optimistic answer here. Steve might have, but Tony's cynicism was too much a part of him. Steve also didn't have four doctorates or an understanding of theoretical physics.

And Tony had promised Peter, no dying and no lying. He wasn't about to break it now, because if you couldn't keep to a promise to a kid, what could you keep?

"But yeah, it would suck. It would blow. And various other thinly veiled sex metaphors."

He moved toward the master bathroom to wash off his arms. And face. Possibly also one of his ankles. Red was more his color than blue.

[close_to_the_ground]

Peter hesitates, hovering outside the bathroom door before taking a step inside.

Whatever it is, it seems bad or at least Tony doesn't want to talk about it.

"If you don't want to tell me or lime, don't want me to know, then I shouldn't, right?" he asks, half to himself. This is one of their problems. It's frustrating to just believe Tony knows best, just because.

"So, okay. I'm, I mean don't. I trust you. Just, if it's something bad and I can help prevent it, maybe then."

[ahollowman]

"It's not that simple," Tony said, repeating again almost to himself more than Peter. "It's not that simple."

"Just because I ... just because I don't think you should know something, that doesn't mean you should or shouldn't. Because in the long run, that's not for me to determine. And that's where I screw up, Peter. You wanna know why Wanda gets mad at me and the Avengers went circling down the drain, that's the answer right there. People deciding what other people deserve to know."

Tony shut his eyes and tilted his head to the side. He felt drained and exhausted.

"I'm just a guy, Peter. I'm human, I make mistakes. Even when I'm your parent. Even when I'm Iron Man."

Tony looked down at his hands and frowned. He'd scrubbed at the paint so hard with the lava soap bar, he'd made his skin bright red.

"Come on and get cleaned up," he murmured.

[close_to_the_ground]

But that's the thing, Peter doesnt know. He doesn't know if he should know. He really, really just wants Tony to be the bad guy or the good guy and decide but maybe that's not fair.

"Sometimes I would think about whether I'd have wanted to know of Uncle Ben was gonna die, even if I couldn't stop it," he says, scrubbing his hands in the sink and running a wet hands through sweaty curls. "Like, maybe I'd have appreciated the time with him, more or something. But I think it would have just made me sad and anxious. So, so okay. I don't want to know. Not right now, anyway. But I'm sorry you have to know, if it's bad."

[ahollowman]

Tony sat down heavily on the wooden toilet seat cover, listening to Peter's answer. It was the easiest for now. They could go over everything, eventually. Once Tony had a chance to really understand it himself.

But God, he was still trying to understand what happened in Sokovia. When would he ever digest any of it all?

"Come here," he said, and pulled Peter close enough to tug him into a hug, nevermind that they were covered in paint. He gave him a squeeze, a pat on the back. He was warm and alive and solid, didn't melt away at his touch, and he smelled like paint fumes and not the ozone strangeness of an alien atmosphere and blood.

"You know what. No matter what happens, even when I'm so angry at you I can barely see straight, this is how I feel about you."

And he'd waited just too damn long to say so once before, and he'd lost his chance.

[close_to_the_ground]

Peter clings back, like always, but maybe a little more desperately this time because something has gone wrong back home and Tony doesn't want to tell him. So it's the worst kind of bad.

And Peter cannot lose another parent.

"Me, too, Mr. Stark. I wouldn't want anyone but you to take care of me, you know that, right? This isn't like, just because I need someone. I want to be here."

[ahollowman]

"You don't have to tell me that," Tony said as he pulled away again, with odd reluctance, mixed with aching relief. He was still there, hale and whole and not floating away, like in his nightmares.

He patted Peter on the chest, where his spider emblem usually sat.

"I know."

Tony stood with a sigh and moved toward the bathroom door. He leaned a shoulder on it.

"Now get washed up, Jesus. Before you get blue paint on my floor. I'm going to go sort the trash and take care of the mess, and then we should think about what you're going to do to fill your new found free time."