st_arkintern | (no subject)

(no subject)

"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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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.

Tony shrugged. "You have to graduate from "kid" eventually."

'Mr. Stark might be forever, though.'

"I still don't think I'm a kid," Peter says, somewhat indignantly. "I'm sixteen now. Sixteen is not a kid."

"You're right." Tony agreed, wonder of wonders.

Peter's head spins so he can look at Tony and verify with his eyes that he heard correctly.

"What?"

"You're not a boy, not yet a man. Like the Britney Spears song, right?" Tony snapped his fingers. "Graduation day! You've evolved into a young man. Or a young buck, because we're woodsy right now."

Peter blinks up at Tony, brows furrowed. He really has no idea what Tony's talking about.

"Who's Britney Spears?"

"Oh Good Lord." Tony made a pained, groaning noise. Wasn't Peter Parker a pop culture savvy kid, or did that only extend to specific decades? "Never you mind, young buck."

Peter's not entirely sure how he feels about the nickname young buck, but it's better than kid, and the familiarity --

Well, the familiarity was nice. Like Quill calling him Pete.

"Does anyone ever give you nicknames?" he asks.

Tony cleared his throat, giving a little hop over a fallen log.

"The Starkster. Robot Wunderkid. The Da Vinci of Our Time--ridiculous, by the way, I don't paint." He counted off on his fingers. "Merchant of Death. My personal favorite is Metal Man for, uh, reasons."

Peter jumps on top the log and stands on top of it as Tony trails off with a short list of nicknames.

"Reasons? What kind of reasons?"

"It's pretty simple, right? Not too fancy. To the point." A warmth rose in Tony's chest as he spoke, smiling into the mists. "What can I say? A good friend gave it to me. Granted, he was pissed at the time, but it just made it cute. Until he started beating the shit out of me."

What kind of good friend beats the shit out of someone?

Peter's eyes are still narrowed on the back of Tony's head as he hops down from the log and follows after him.

"What happened?"

Tony spun around, lifting his arms theatrically. "What, Pete? You never heard the one about how the God of Thunder met your old Iron Man?"

Peter blinks.

"Wait, what? N-no, no, I didn't --"

Peter stops, swallows, and attempts to start over.

"Why were you even fighting one another?"

"His brother was trying to attack New York with a cube, we took him into custody, Point Break wanted to handle things internally. We disagreed." 'God, he was pissy back then. Is it bad I miss it?'

"He's here. You never ask him yourself?"

Peter remembers the attack on New York. He and May had evacuated even though they were in Queens, a fair distance away from Manhattan. It was still close enough to be dangerous.

Peter shoots a look at Tony that was not very much unlike the look he gave Ned when he was grilling him about his various abilities as Spider-Man.

"No, no -- he's like, the second-coolest Avenger. I had a Thor poster in my bedroom in sixth grade."