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]

"Yes, it's. Very sad," Tony agreed, because when you laid it all out, god, his life sounded depressing and pathetic.

"I don't need a cat, Pete. Or a fish. There are fish in the bird exhibit if I want to see fish."

With a sigh, Tony settled back onto the couch and quickly dragged a slice of pizza onto his plate.

"I'm not cut out for it. I'm fine with robots. Arthur doesn't get sad if you forget to feed him."

[close_to_the_ground]

"I mean, you're gonna have a teenager probably so it's pretty funny you don't think you can handle a fish," Peter points out, jumping over the back of the couch and plopping down with his plate piled high with pizza slices.

"But yeah, feeding me is gonna be way harder than feeding a cat. Poor May. After the Spider thing our food bill got kind of crazy. Sometimes I'd just have to pretend not to be hungry because she was getting weirded out by how much I ate."

[ahollowman]

"I can handle a fish. I don't want to handle a fish. In either permutation of that phrase, actually. It's called semantics."

Tony stared at the pile on Peter's plate with mild anxiety. Whatever the kid needed, that was fine, but just thinking about eating that much cheese in one sitting was going to give Tony a stomach cramp.

"And it's very difficult to weird me out. You're safe there."

[close_to_the_ground]

"Cool, cool so I'll just start handing you things left and right to prove that," Peter laughs, shoving half a piece into his mouth, pulling his legs up just in case any drops.

He just can't imagine this white couch is gonna last long, no matter how hard he tries.

"Hey, you know someone asked me the other day how long I'd known yo so I was explaining but you know, I actually met you when I was a kid? At that Stark expo that went to shit?"

[ahollowman]

"OK. Don't? If you spazz me out I'm going to be very resentful."

He eyed Peter very seriously for all of a few seconds before he mentioned the Expo. Why would anyone mention the Expo to Tony, ever again. Or maybe it was just Pepper that had ground it in for over a year afterward. He leaned his head back on the sofa and groaned.

"I can't believe you were at Stark Expo on the night Hammer cocked everything up. Christ, you could have died."

[close_to_the_ground]

"Oh, apparently I totally almost did die," Peter mumbles around a mouthful of crust as he remembers last second to wipe his greasy fingers on his pile of napkins and not like, his pants.

"Got separated from Ben when everything went crazy and one of those robot guys flew up and you or one of your suits showed up and blew the guy to hell. I was a dumb little shit and thought my Iron Man costume was real. But man, I talked about it non stop for a week at school and none of the kids believed me at all."

[ahollowman]

Tony remembered that, only vaguely, which did sting a little. For him, that day was a revelation and an embarrassment, too much good and too much bad and too many insurance copayments. There hadn't been any lives lost that he'd been made aware of, but that was only by chance. So many other disasters had ended more poorly.

Well, chance and Pepper. She always did handle it.

"The kids at school were snotty little brats. Is that why you put the pajamas on? Decided that was the thing to do?"

[close_to_the_ground]

"Oh yeah, that really made the kids think I was cool," he snorts, already mostly through his pile of slices and thinking about going over for more.

"Teenagers are super impressed by secret identities you can't tell anyone about. Then you get to be a scrawny nerd but also a scrawny nerd who quit all his extracurriculars for no good reason. But hey, it's kinda cool you saved me when I was little, yeah? Ben and May were so mad but I just thought Iron Man was like, was just it. I was so star struck."

[ahollowman]

"Do you even taste your food?" Tony wondered, going slightly cross-eyed as Peter entered his fourth slice while he was still working on a first.

"Sorry I can't ... remember much of that. I was having a bad six months." Even out of a bad ten years. You had to pick me as a life goal, too? Sorry for your luck."

Tony gave a snort, chewing on his food, half-watching the television. He usually only half-watched, it was hard to fully engage when his mind wouldn't still.

[close_to_the_ground]

"Don't be sorry, I didn't think you'd remember," Peter says with a wave of a pizza slice.

"I just thought it was cool. And hey, you're a big reason I wanted to start learning to build things. And I've got no game and no swagger so the bad bits weren't even a possibility. And I look stupid in sunglasses and don't have any facial hair so the building things was really all I could do."

[ahollowman]

For whatever reason, all of that put together made Tony laugh until his eyes watered a little. He wiped at his face and wheezed.

"You're right. You don't have an ounce of swagger. You're too like Bruce. Shrinking yourself when you should be strutting. Like you're waiting for the bully's fist to fall still, even when you're the bad-assest guy in the room. But you don't need sunglasses and a beard. You've got your own thing. And you're living it."

[close_to_the_ground]

Peter rolls his eyes but can't help but laugh a little, even if he's pretty sure Mr. Stark is laughing at his expense.

"I don't think I know how to strut even if I wanted to," he agrees, setting his plate down on the coffee table and sprawling back onto the couch. Despite it's size he's managed to get up in Tony's space and knocks his shoulder as he settles.

"Man, I wish I could have met Dr. Banner. That guy was so cool. So smart. It's a toss up between Chem and Engineering for me but that really sweet spot is what you both did. All the crossover with Bio and Chem and Physics and Engineering you guys have in your head between you? Holy shit."