st_arkintern | (no subject)

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"Are you really unhappy here?"

Peter's question cut through the relative silence of the woods, which he and Tony were surveying together. If Liz hadn't brought it up to him, he probably wouldn't have noticed, but now, it felt like he was looking for it in every one of Tony's words and in every one of Tony's movements.

It felt like something he should have noticed first, but the two of them hadn't spent much time together ever since he and Alec were fighting in the bar. He wondered if he had made Tony mad, but that wasn't a conversation for now.

Maybe later, but not now. Peter was ready to cut through one issue at a time.

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"Ummm."

Peter's um lasts a few seconds longer than it possibly should. He takes a breath, and then:

"He figured out who I was," he says. "On the way to Homecoming."

Tony's expression was partially obscured behind his glasses, save for the muscles of his lips setting in a frozen, harsh line. He looked back forward at nothing in particular, exhaling a thick, heavy haze.

"I didn't mean for him to," Peter says quickly, because Tony's saying nothing and he looks mad (is he mad?). "I knew it was him the second he opened the door, and then I -- I was just so nervous, I didn't know what to do. And on the car ride there, he just -- he figured it out. My voice, me not being at the decathlon..."

He's sputtering all over himself. He knows he is, because it's what he does when he's nervous. He either says nothing at all, or blurts everything out at once in one long, rambling line.

"I'm sorry."

'Why didn't you tell me sooner...!?' Tony whipped his head back in Peter's direction, eyes wide with blazing apprehension. 'Do you really expect him to just sit on it, especially now that he's sitting pretty in prison with men on the outside!?'

Tony's jaw was tight with every castigation that was knocking behind his teeth. He yanked his leg back, stamping it into the mud.

Peter's heart is racing now. He knows Tony's mad. That look basically said it.

"You said you wouldn't get upset," he says, even though he knows Tony has plenty of reasons to be upset.

"Do you really want me to repeat my amendment?" Tony closed in on Peter, and none too slowly. "Or do we need a lesson in how supervillainy works."

Peter takes a step back as Tony closes in, and then another.

"Nothing's happened to me," he argues. "You were from December, right? I was fine then. And Mr. Star-Lord -- I wouldn't have been able to go into space if something happened to me."

He definitely shouldn't have said anything to Tony.

"Why didn't you tell me sooner?" Tony cut in, entirely uninterested in arguing the point with the boy. He knew Peter knew better.

"What were you afraid of, exactly--that I'd get angry? Let me tell you what you should be afraid of, Peter. A man who stole alien technology to hijack a plane full of power sources that'd put nuclear energy to shame. A man that proved he would murder a ferry full of innocent people if it got him ahead."

He paused for only a moment to let that sink in.

"And if I don't know? I can't help you. I can't do everything in my power to make sure you and May don't suffer in the fallout."

Peter doesn't want to have another fight, and yet here he is, on the verge of having yet another fight.

Probably not on the verge. They are having another fight.

"This is why I can't tell you anything," Peter argues, casting an arm out.

Tony drew back, giving them both some room. They needed it. Beyond the dizzying heights of frustration that Peter summarily ignoring every point he made brought him to, there was an intense worry churning in his gut and his chest. His glasses receded into the nanoparticles that composed them to rub and cure his eyes of a sickly burning.

"There's this--this young man I met." His voice was tight but soft. He dropped his hand. "Lives in Queens with his aunt. Protects people just because it's the right thing to do. He's good. He's so good he doesn't know how good he is. And I worry. I worry because I know I need to let him make mistakes but I pray to God he never makes mine."

For a second, Peter stands in stunned silence, not quite processing what Tony said to him. It's a lot to take in.

Peter takes a breath and for a second, he's on the verge of saying something, but then he thinks better of it. He presses his lips together and thinks.

"I know," he says, finally. "I know and that's why I don't tell people things, like me not telling May about me being Spider-Man or -- you know." Peter dampens his lips. "Everything else," he finishes hoarsely.

"Here's the thing, Peter." Tony lowered his hood, the chilly mists clearing somewhat. "Adults? We're gonna worry anyway. We'll worry over everything. We'll worry over nothing. We're idiots like that. And when my kid's out there fighting men who can split passenger ferries in half by sneezing, I want to hear the facts from him and not my newsfeed."

"Your kid?" Peter echoes.

He should say something -- promise that he'll be more honest or forthcoming, but those are the only words he can manage to push forward right now.

"Yes." Tony repeated, a moment of confusion passing at Peter's own before it hit.

"Yes--my--you know. You're a kid, you're my protege, hence..." He gestured as he spoke and gestured harder when there were gaps to fill.

"It's okay if you feel that way," Peter blurts out.

Only once he's said it does he feel his face flush with embarrassment. He'd admitted to Quill back on Father's Day that he considered Tony to basically be the closest thing to a father he had.

And though he can't quite bring himself to admit that to Tony's face, he can at least let him know that it's okay.

But when there's no immediate response, Peter immediately scrambles for cover:

"... if you want to," he finishes.

Tony gestured a few more times, uselessly. His hand smacked his synthetic pants when he gave up the effort.

"...Anyone would be proud to call you theirs, kid." Tony's lips worked on the next part for a few seconds before his voice caught up. "Myself included."

Peter smiles, tight-lipped and embarrassed, but really, genuinely happy. There's a part of him that's wondered what has changed since the time that Peter resurfaced here and the time Tony came from. Had he and Tony bonded even more in that space of time?

He and Tony still argued, just like they did back home. But Tony was talking more than he used to, and whenever Tony said stuff like this, well...

Peter just lost any resolve to stand his ground. He felt like Tony was really listening. And that was the crux of their issues when he was back home. He had moments where he felt like another person on a long list of responsibilities. It started to get better after he defeated the Vulture, but not much time had passed between then and when he found himself spirited away to the Madonna Inn.

"Thank you," he says, finally. He looks down at his shoes, not sure if he can manage eye contact with Tony. "I don't mean to make you worry. You or May. And -- if something like that happens again..." Peter takes a breath. "...I promise I'll tell you."

"You're not gonna be a kid forever." Tony rubbed his mouth, not intending to dwell on their little moment for long. What was meant to be said was said.

"Or even much longer...there's not much in the way of distractions, you know? No avenging to be done, no neighborhood patrol. Just us, the hotel, and whatever we find in the fishbowl along the way." He sort of smiled, renewed with a sense of clarity. "If you can tolerate the, uh, paternal instincts playing out however they will..."

"No, I mean --" Peter's not sure what he means. "-- I haven't had a father since I was little and Ben, Ben's gone too, so..."

Peter takes a breath.

"I'm okay with that."

"I'll try not to disappoint you." A cheeky response, but sincere at its core. "You can, well, call me whatever you want. I won't get embarrassed."

It was the dad's job to do the embarrassing, right?

"Yeah," Peter says, embarrassed. "Okay."

As much as Tony's become a father figure to him, he's not sure he'd ever be able to get to the point where he could call him Dad. It was embarrassing for him, and even though Tony said it'd be okay, wouldn't it be embarrassing for him, too?

Peter's sure Tony would get just as ribbed for it as he would. Probably more.

"I'll try not to disappoint you, either."

A solid "probably not" on the Dad thing. A flicker of disappointment ran through him, but Tony grinned anyway.

"Well. Son. Peter. Pete. Pete? Pete." Tony went through his mental list aloud.

"Pete," Peter says, nodding. "Mr. Star-Lord calls me Pete. I like it."

"Too much, too fast?" Tony read Peter like a book, moving right along with their path. "Don't worry about it. It'll come as it comes."

"No," Peter insists. "I really do like it. If you want to call me Pete, call me Pete."

He does like it. After Quill started calling him Pete, he somehow felt more secure in their friendship, like they had achieved some level of camaraderie where nicknames (was this a nickname? Peter wasn't sure) were not only appropriate, but also standard.