The World I Knew [Discontinued]

The Adoption Process

"Pete."

"Hey, Pete, wake up."

"C'mon, sleepy-head, I need to talk to you."

"Can it wait?" Peter groaned, flipping onto his other side, away from the voice that called him from sleep. "Five more minutes."

"Kid, I already gave you five minutes. I've given you five hours."

Peter pried his eyes open, only to see darkness and a blurred face hovering over his own that he soon recognized as Tony. "Okay, I--" he reached up and lazily patted Tony's shoulder, "--want you to go get two hours of sleep, before you wake me up at three in the morning."

Tony frowned defensively, "Hey! It's, like, way past three in the morning. It's five-thirty!"

He rubbed his eyes. "Dad, no one your age says 'like' like that. What could possibly be so important that you need to wake me up at five-thirty? The Thor thing was just about my limit."

"Just--c'mon. We'll go get some breakfast, or something. Please?"

Since when did Tony Stark say 'please'?

The notes of anxiety laced through Tony's voice made Peter groan again, then stretch and sit up. "I'd better not be fighting someone again," he grumbled as he stood up, following Tony out of his room to the kitchen.

"You won't be," Tony promised, "I just need to talk to you about something really important."

"'Changing the world' important?"

"More like changing your world, important?"

Peter snorted. "What are you, an alien?"

The joke seemed to ease Tony's nerves, but amp them up at the same time. "No, I'm not."

"Wait." Peter stopped, a sudden thought striking him. "Is this about the adoption thing?"

Tony hesitated. "Uh... somewhat?"

Peter could almost hear his heartbeat picking up, and he forced himself to calm down. "Okay, uh... food first, talk after."

His dad blew out a stressed breath. "Yeah. Sounds good."

Once in the kitchen, Tony started to make waffles, an almost awkward silence falling over them as Peter rested his head on the table to give his mind some time to come fully online.

When the waffles were done, Tony put the plate down before Peter, and took the seat beside the teen. Peter looked at the plate, then at Tony, then narrowed his eyes and looked back down at the plate before decidedly getting up and getting another plate. He came back, and scooped half of the waffles onto the second plate, and put it in front of Tony, who looked at him, confused.

"Kid--"

Peter was already lathering the waffles with butter, giving him a hard look. "Don't. Even. Heaven knows how long it's been since you've had a decent meal, not just coffee."

"That's actually not true," Tony pointed out, giving in nonetheless. "Ever since you came along with that whole 'I want to be like you' attitude and those lost puppy eyes, I figured that if you were being serious, I'd need to take care of myself so you didn't assume my self-destructive habits."

The younger paused to look at his dad, then tilted his head. "I feel like I should be telling you that you don't have self-destructive habits, but..." he gestured to Tony's rumpled clothes and the dark bags under his eyes, "I'd be lying."

Tony's laugh was dry. "Gee, thanks."

"No problem," Peter said, smiling cheekily as he poured syrup on his waffles, before digging in while Tony did the same.